Just some quick thoughts on the recently released SL 3.0 update. First, it went smoothly and seems to be running well. I’ve waited for this update before formally reviewing the SL and just glancing over the improvements, it seems that any issues I have had with the OS have been resolved. The biggest of which was the shutter speed limitations on manual lenses.
I shoot the Leica SL not just with the 24-90mm zoom, but with M glass. The limitations on shutter speed meant that I had to throttle down the ISO and in some cases use a ND filter to shoot with a fast aperture in bright light. One of the wonderful things about the SL is it’s extremely fast electronic shutter. That combined with the ISO speed of 50 means you should’ve been able to shoot very fast lenses like the 50/f1.4, 35/f1.4 or even the 50/f.95 in bright midday light wide open. However the SL limited your shutter speed with manual lens, making this feet impossible. Thankfully these shutter limits on manual limits are gone!
Other things I’ve noticed are: The manual focus seems a little tighter, more precise. Files really do seem to be writing to the card faster, especially in continuous shooting modes. (Leica says this update increases write speed up to 35%).
Seems like the AF tracking is a little better as well. When tracking the kitten outdoors she charged up towards me and the focus was maintained better than I remembered it being before. This would be very useful for wildlife or sports work.
These are all listed out as improvements in the Leica firmware info PDF, and as I said it seems like any issues or bugs I’d noticed are now gone. Over all the SL seems to be running smooth and I haven’t noticed any new bugs with the update. They also included the ability to swap out the dial functions front and back, this is a great update and was something I feel was overlooked before.
You can download the PDF with the full info, and the update itself through Leica’s site here. FP
