Leica SL3 initial review: Digital Photography Review

The Leica SL3 is a 60MP DSLR-shaped mirrorless camera built around Leica’s L-mount. It brings a lot of technology from the Leica M11 models but also features a radically redesigned interface.

Key specifications

• 60MP BSI CMOS sensor
• 5-axis in-body image stabilization rated at 5.0EV
• ISO 50-100,000 (base ISO 100)
• Hybrid phase/contrast-detect autofocus
• Eye/face/body and animal detection AF
• DCI 8K video in H.265, 1080p in ProRes all with no time limits
• 5.76M dot OLED EVF with up to 120fps refresh
• 2.33M dot tilting rear touchscreen
• 4fps 14-bit shooting with AF, 5fps in 12-bit mode, up to 15fps, 12-bit with focus and exposure locked at first frame.

The Leica SL3 is available immediately at a recommended price of $6995. This is a $1000 increase over the price of 2019’s SL2, though inflation means this is lower in real terms.

Index:

What’s new

The Leica SL3 is the fourth in the company’s range of full-frame, L-mount cameras, following 2017’s 24MP SL, the 47MP SL2 from 2019 and the video/stills hybrid SL2-S from 2020. The SL3 adopts a 60MP BSI CMOS sensor, making it both the highest resolution SL camera yet and also the one most likely to play nicely with Leica’s M series rangefinder lenses (BSI sensors are better at receiving light from close-mounted lenses, as their photosensitive region is closer to the surface).

As with the M11 cameras, the SL3 can output Raws or JPEGs in your choice of 60MP, 36MP or 18MP resolution, with the option for different resolutions for each file type.

The available ISO range of the sensor stretches from 50 to 100,000, but the company says the native gain steps of this dual gain sensor are ISOs 100 and 320 (200 and 640 in L-Log, 400 and 1250 in HLG).

The SL3 accepts CFexpress Type B slot in addition to UHS-II SD.

The sensor has on-sensor phase detection elements, allowing depth-aware focusing. This combines with a subject recognition system we suspect stems from the L² technology partnership with Panasonic. It can be set to recognize human bodies, faces and eyes, and will track and focus on the smallest of these that’s available. It also has animal detection including birds.

The camera uses the same “Maestro IV” processors as Leica’s Q3 model, with an 8Gb buffer that’s double the size of that in the SL2. Despite this processing power and buffer the SL3’s continuous shooting rate is very low by modern standards, hitting just 4 frames per second if you want autofocus and the sensor’s full 14-bit readout. This increases to 5fps if you drop to 12-bit mode and then trebles if you don’t need focus or exposure updates between shots. This is especially odd given the camera has enough grunt to deliver 8K video.

8K video

The SL3’s includes a full-sized HDMI port, as well as headphone and mic sockets

The SL3 can capture 8K video (in 1.89:1 or 16:9 aspect ratios) at up to 30p in 10-bit. This uses the H.265 codec and can record 4:2:0 to the CFexpress slot until you run out of card space or battery. It will also output 4K in 10-bit 4:2:2 over the HDMI socket if you shoot Log or HLG, or are recording to a card at the same time. HDMI output is 8-bit 4:2:0 UHD 8K if you’re not in one of these modes and not recording to a card.

The 4K (UHD or DCI) is taken from the 8K capture when shooting at up to 30p. It appears to line-skip to deliver up to 4K/60p from the same region of the sensor.

The camera offers five preset slots in which you can define resolution, frame rate, codec, compression, with the choice of gamma encoding, Log or HLG capture. This lets you jump between pre-defined modes, rather than risking changing one setting and forgetting to change another (or forgetting to change a contingent setting back, when you revert to your main shooting mode).

The SL3 also has the ability to sync timecode over a flash sync socket on the side of the viewfinder hump.

Body and controls

The third command dial on the right of this image sets the SL3 apart from its predecessors

The body of the SL3 looks a lot like the previous SL models but is recognizably a little smaller. And, while the overall appearance is consistent with prior models, there are more changes, the closer you look at the camera.

The biggest change is the addition of a third command dial to the left of the camera’s viewfinder. This allows default behavior that puts the key exposure controls, shutter speed and aperture, on the main two command dials and ISO on the new left-hand dial, giving immediate access to all the fundamental photographic settings.

The other really obvious alteration is that the array of three buttons (Play, Fn, Menu) have been shifted across to the right-hand side of the rear screen, so that a tilting screen design can be implemented without conflict between the screen and the buttons.

The on-off switch on the left of the camera has been replaced by a button that you hold down to wake the camera. This is surrounded by an LED indicator that glows green when the camera is charging, pulses white when the camera is in sleep mode and is constantly illuminated white when the camera is awake.

Despite the articulated screen, the SL3 continues to offer the IP54 water and dust protection rating as its predecessor.

It has a 5.76M dot (1600 x 1200 pixel) viewfinder with 0.76x magnification that can run at up to 120fps and a 2.33M dot (1080 x 720 pixel) rear screen that tilts up or down.

Interface

Where the SL3 stands out is in its user interface (UI). Leica has been working on variations of a touch-led interface all the way back to its first L-mount camera, the Leica T (long enough that the mount was still called the T-mount at that point). The SL3’s UI isn’t quite as radical as its APS-C forebear but it still feels quite innovative compared with most cameras.

The primary means of interacting with the camera is through the three command dials, as you might expect. Their functions can be reconfigured for each of the camera’s exposure modes but with the choice of a second configuration if you’re using adapted M lenses (ie: if you’re using a lens with an aperture ring, you may choose not to assign a dial to aperture value).

The bulk of the camera’s other settings are adjusted through its touch-operated settings menu, with a relatively shallow menu system sitting behind this. Holding your finger on one of the onscreen buttons lets you customize its function (the exposure and ISO settings can’t be repurposed).

Swipe left and the photo settings give way to the video settings and yellow highlighting (reflecting the color scheme of the distance scales on Leica’s Cine lenses).

The settings panel shows either the stills settings or, if you swipe a finger across the screen, the video settings. The settings screen and menus have red indicators when you’re in stills mode and yellow to denote video mode.

The camera’s live view displays can also be customized, with a choice of which settings appear onscreen, and whether the screen is re-arranged for portrait orientation. Up to six banks of presets that include button and screen customization can be named, saved and exported, so that you can quickly set the camera up for your preferred way of working.

The menu includes touch toggles, meaning you don’t need a separate screen for binary choices. On this screen you can limit which options are available when you customize the action of the Fn button, to make operation faster.

The menus themselves include nice touches such as toggle switches for on/off settings, so that you don’t need to go into a deeper level of the menus just to switch settings on and off. You can also slim down the list of which settings are available to be assigned to buttons, to make selection quicker.

On top of this, the camera lets you define up to four presets of capture assistants (grids, levels, highlight warnings, etc). The camera will use whichever of these presets you last used and will retain separate settings for capture and playback.

Battery

The SL3 uses a new, higher power BP-SCL6 battery which now offers 15.8Wh capacity (up from 14.4). The camera is still compatible with the older BP-SCL4 batteries but some video functions are only available with the newer version. The camera is rated at a rather low figure of 320 shots per charge per the CIPA standard. But Leica says that it will deliver 1350 shots per charge if the camera auto power off function is used every 50 shots, rather than the standard’s 10, giving an insight into why the CIPA standard tends to significantly underestimate most people’s real-world usage

A DC-powered dummy battery is available, allowing the camera to be powered using USB-C for extended periods and without tying up the camera’s USB-C socket.

Initial impressions

By Richard Butler

The Leica SL3 is an interesting camera, bringing the sensor and many of the developments of the recent M11 models to the L-mount for the first time. The body is appreciably smaller without sacrificing any of the solidity or consistency of look from the existing cameras.

The size reduction and increased contribution from Leica’s technology tie-up with Panasonic doesn’t mean the SL3 is simply a rebadged DC-S5 II. The three-dial layout makes it distinct both from the Panasonic and the existing SL models, and this felt informative, regarding the camera’s intent.

It’s that focus on the fundamentals, and the back-to-basics rethink that led to it, that leaps out about the SL3. The rest of its specifications aren’t particularly different to most of its peers, but the way it’s operated is.

The SL3’s interface will be unfamiliar to almost everyone at first, in that it doesn’t particularly resemble the behavior of most cameras we’ve encountered. But this is perhaps a good time to remind ourselves that, while the word is often used, almost no aspect of camera operation is literally “intuitive”. You don’t know how to use a different brand’s cameras because it’s innately obvious, you do so because it behaves like something you’ve learned. And our first impressions are that the SL3’s interface, while unfamiliar, is simple, sensibly arranged and should be quick to learn.

Leica says it redesigned every one of the camera’s icons, and even went so far as to adopt a new typeface for its menus, but these are merely the outward signifiers of a fairly ‘ground, up’ approach to rethinking how a camera should work.

We suspect we’ll find a few quirks and oddities, as we get to use it day-in, day-out, but in a landscape of cameras that can often look and feel interchangeable, with only lens choices to distinguish between them, it’s interesting to encounter a camera that tries to do something different. And, in keeping with its maker’s reputation, the SL3 seems to be searching for a way to make a camera that’s focused on photography’s fundamentals.

That said, it’s hard not to notice that the SL3 costs around 80% more than Sony’s excellent a7R V which also features a 60MP, dual conversion gain BSI CMOS sensor. And that’s a significant premium to have to pay for an innovative interface. So the wisdom of choosing the SL3 may come down to your belief in the quality of Leica’s lenses, meaning the decision essentially does come back to lens choice.

Sample gallery

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