I’ve now easily passed the 10,000-shot mark with my new Leica SL3. So I’d like to take this opportunity to share my experiences with Leica’s current flagship model. The Leica SL3 now delivers good results with the autofocus even on more complex tasks, but there are also some weaknesses. I’ll discuss both here.
I use the Leica SL3 for sports, events and portraits. For my own enjoyment and for testing purposes, I have also photographed animals – mainly birds. I haven’t yet had a major flash job, so I can’t comment on the effects of the new, slightly extended flash sync speed of 1/200s. Just this much: the hot shoe seems to be very sensitive to slight vibrations and stops working relatively quickly.
Transparency
I bought the camera myself, so what I’ve written here is based entirely on my own experience. The only ‘perks’ I’ve received as a long-standing customer of Meister Camera is the privilege of being the first person to purchase a Leica SL3 in Hamburg. I’m very grateful for that.
Clarity
These days, digital cameras cover an enormous range. I’m not a professional camera reviewer; I’m simply sharing my experiences of using the Leica SL3 here. If my sample photos don’t appeal to you, you probably won’t be interested in my review either. That’s perfectly fine.
tl;dr
The Leica SL3 is an exceptionally good camera that excels in many areas. However, it does have a few technical shortcomings. In my view, Leica has done itself a disservice by launching a camera that isn’t fully mature as its flagship model.
The body
The Leica SL3 is a logical evolution of the Leica SL2. I’ve used the latter intensively for almost four and a half years, so I’m well placed to compare the two cameras. Although the changes to the SL3’s body are minimal and barely noticeable to the naked eye – even when the two cameras are placed side by side – it simply feels even better in my hands. This is mainly due to the slightly larger grip. It gives me the two millimetres that my fingers now extend beyond the body and thus beyond the two buttons between the lens and the grip. For me, this is a welcome change, but people with smaller hands might find it counterproductive.
If you’re interested in this camera – which I assume you are, given that you’re reading this post – then I’d recommend simply picking one up. But be warned: when I first handled the SL2 in 2019, I bought it straight away, even though I hadn’t actually been planning to buy a new camera at the time. Partly because the camera feels so good in your hands, and partly because this camera is simply made for photographers. More on that later…
The weight
The Leica SL3 is now roughly 80 grams lighter – a 10% reduction. At just under eight hundred grams, it’s still not exactly a lightweight. However, it feels fantastic and well-balanced in the hand, especially when fitted with slightly heavier lenses. And Leica has quite a few of those.
There are plenty of other new features, and at first I wasn’t sure whether they were actually improvements. But I must admit that I’ve rarely been won over so quickly. Leica simply has a good team for designing user interfaces that are easy to navigate. For instance, the on/off switch has been transformed into an illuminated multifunction button. Not only does it switch the camera on quickly – and off slightly more slowly – it also alerts you to any warning messages visible in the viewfinder should you happen to look through the EVF while the display is deactivated. In that case, the button lights up red. So simple, so well thought out. It would be ideal, however, if the button lit up blue when a Wi-Fi connection is active. Unlike on the previous model, an active Wi-Fi connection is no longer indicated anywhere – yet it drains the battery in record time.
Features
Leica has pulled off a real coup with the menu. I can now navigate very quickly using a single swipe on the touchscreen, or switch between the different menu pages as before by pressing the menu button. Long-time users like me therefore find the structure undisturbed, while new users can get used to faster navigation straight away. If you shoot using the display, you don’t even need to go into the menu to access common functions; a long press on the relevant icon takes you directly to the corresponding settings page. The eight quick menu shortcuts on the display can now also be configured to your liking. For better readability, the display automatically reorients when you hold the camera upright. This also works in the electronic viewfinder.
The displays
Speaking of the display: it’s now foldable. It can be folded up 90° and down 45°, which makes shooting at ground level much easier. Conveniently, it activates automatically when unfolded. The fold-out mechanism feels impressively sturdy. Unfortunately, the display can’t be rotated for portrait-orientation shooting, which is a minor frustration.
The top display has also been improved. Before I raise the camera to my eye, I can check all the settings on this square panel and start shooting straight away – it even shows an exposure meter. However, the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi status indicators have been removed. That’s not really a problem, at least not for the Bluetooth connection used to transfer GPS data from a smartphone, as it works surprisingly reliably.
Leica seems to have finally got to grips with the connection issues in the Leica Fotos app. The Wi-Fi connection is established reliably, even when the SL3 is in sleep mode. I can adjust exposure settings and trigger the SL3 from several metres away – even through closed doors. That was completely unimaginable with the SL2, which would lose the connection even at a distance of two metres with a direct line of sight. But be warned: Wi-Fi uses up quite a lot of battery power, so switch it off again when you no longer need it.
Problems with the Leica SL3
Before readers start thinking I’m just singing its praises here, let me turn to the dial on the top left of the camera. This is a new feature and, in my view, completely unnecessary. As with the thumb dial or the top-right dial, I can only assign one of four functions to these dials: aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation or ISO. Problem one: if I’ve selected Auto ISO, I can’t use the dial to change the ISO. Perhaps Leica could expand the programming here.
Problem two: I need a second hand to adjust the settings, but I usually have that hand under the lens. It only works comfortably with a fixed-focal-length lens; all other lenses are either too heavy or too awkward to operate manually.
Problem number three, and for me the most serious: both top dials slip too easily in the heat of everyday shooting. They need to click into position more firmly to be genuinely useful. I’ve now assigned the aperture to the left dial, as I adjust it the least often, and when I do, it’s before I raise the camera to my eye. I’ve set the exposure compensation to the top-right dial and the shutter speed to the thumb dial, which I use most frequently.
The controls
The three buttons next to the display have simply been moved to the right-hand side. As I shoot with my left eye, I can use the buttons even when looking through the viewfinder. On the other hand, I can’t use the touchscreen while doing so – otherwise I end up accidentally nudging the focus point with my nose. This is, incidentally, one of the few things I miss from Sony cameras: they cater for left-eyed shooters by disabling the lower half of the touchscreen, which means you can reposition the focus point with your finger even while looking through the viewfinder, without your nose causing havoc.
On the Leica SL3, moving the focus point via the joystick is significantly slower than before. A bug appears to have crept into the current firmware here. What’s more, although I’ve disabled touchscreen control when using the electronic viewfinder, the focus point still jumps to the centre when I accidentally double-tap the screen.
Overall, I get the impression that the SL3’s controls have been brought very much into line with those of its sister model from Panasonic – the L-Mount series also features the same selection dials and the buttons to the right of the display. Presumably, this allows for cost-saving synergies.
Shutter speeds and processing speed
A further bug appears to have crept into the shutter in the current firmware version 1.10. The mechanical shutter supports exposures up to 1/8000s, while the electronic shutter offers 1/16000s in third-stop increments – a step down from the 1/40000s on the SL2. I rarely used that ultra-short exposure time, but in extremely bright conditions it was a genuinely useful feature. As for the suspected bug: in the current SL3, in hybrid mode – which combines the mechanical and electronic shutters – the mechanical shutter is used up to 1/4000s, and the electronic shutter for shorter exposures. The user manual states otherwise; according to it, the mechanical shutter should be used up to 1/8000s in hybrid mode. The longest exposure time is 60 seconds; using Bulb mode, I can expose for up to 30 minutes.
Shutter lag has improved considerably over the SL2. The moment you see something in the viewfinder and press the shutter button, the image is captured in a fraction of a second. That’s genuinely top-notch. I’ll come to one downside of the high-resolution sensor in a moment.
CF Express Type B – but at which speed?
Another new feature is the use of CFexpress Type B cards. This change is entirely understandable, as the data volumes generated by a 60-megapixel sensor would otherwise be simply unmanageable – particularly when filming in 8K. Data transfer to a home computer is also significantly faster. I very much welcome the move to CFexpress. That said, newcomers may be put off by the high cost of the cards.
I haven’t found any information on the Leica website about card compatibility, but I can confirm that my two Lexar cards (128 and 512 GB) work perfectly well, though they need to be reformatted in the camera each time after data has been transferred to the computer. I also haven’t been able to find details on the supported write speeds. My suspicion is that the SL3 doesn’t yet support the new 4.0 standard, as it was only finalised in the second half of 2023. In this context, it’s a real shame that Leica, despite being active on social media, doesn’t answer technical questions.
Overheating?
The camera does get noticeably warm when shooting at 5 frames per second – worth bearing in mind if you’re working in warmer climates. I also get the impression that the camera heats up more quickly than the pre-production model during intensive autofocus operations, though I don’t currently have the right weather conditions to say this with any certainty.
(Edit, 23 April: I’ve just noticed that a message appears on the left-hand side of the viewfinder while data is being written to the card. As a glasses-wearer, my eye is probably too far from the internal display for me to have spotted this before. A small red indicator light comes on while the card is in use. At the bottom right, you can see how many more shots you can take in burst mode before the buffer is full.)
The battery
The batteries are also new, though only in capacity (2200 mAh instead of 1860 mAh). They are compatible with the old batteries, and the new batteries also work in older bodies. Both are very welcome developments, and not something that can be taken for granted these days. However, some SL3 features don’t work with the older, lower-capacity batteries. You won’t find any information about this on the Leica website either. What I’ve found: continuous shooting mode drops to two frames per second, and video restrictions are even more extensive – instead of 4K or 8K, you’re limited to Full HD. The camera will alert you when the older batteries can’t handle a given setting.
Under real-world conditions, the new batteries last for around 500 to 700 shots (260 shots according to the CIPA standard). I used two batteries to photograph a two-day event, covering 3,500 shots and a few video clips, keeping one battery on charge while the other was in the camera. That’s a far cry from other professional cameras, but it’s manageable – as long as there’s a power socket nearby. The SL3 can also be charged via a power bank.
Battery charger
There’s an optional accessory combining a battery with a USB-C port, which will certainly interest studio photographers. And at least you can now shoot in continuous mode at any battery level. Eureka! With the older batteries, the SL2 and SL2-S would display a warning that rapid continuous shooting wasn’t possible once the charge level dropped to around 40%. Which is why I have half a dozen old Leica batteries sitting here – at €150 each.
A battery charger is not included in the package. You’ll therefore need to factor this extra cost into the price of the SL3, which is hardly a bargain to begin with. The “USB-C Power Set” – which includes a charging cradle for two batteries, an extra battery, and the necessary cables – costs €370.
The new autofocus
Let’s move on to the most important and long-awaited new feature of the SL3: the autofocus. It’s worth noting upfront that it has become significantly faster. Even with the slow (but magnificent) SL-Summilux 50, it’s now possible to capture shots of oncoming pedestrians wide open at f/1.4. With faster lenses, such as the legendary APO-Vario-Elmarit 90–280mm, even more is possible. Here is an example using this combination at 4 frames per second in AF Area mode. I deliberately chose this example because the first image is out of focus – that was my mistake.
That was unthinkable with the SL2. If the first shot wasn’t sharp, you had no chance of getting even a single frame in focus across an entire burst. So yes, the autofocus is fast. For football – and presumably other sports too – tracking autofocus would be the most logical choice. However, its success rate also depends on lighting, JPEG settings (more on that later), and frame rate. Even when the tracking focus area has found a clear contrast edge to lock onto, far too many images still come out of focus. That’s why I’ve had the best results so far with AF Area mode – as was the case with the SL2.
Sports photography with the SL3?
When there’s fast-paced action in front of your lens, you quickly realise that 60 megapixels don’t make an action camera. It’s not down to the autofocus, but to the sensor’s slow readout speed. In the blink of an eye, you’ve lost track of what’s happening because the viewfinder takes too long to display an up-to-date image. When shooting in burst mode at four frames per second, it looks like an old silent film: choppy freeze-frames that bear no relation to what’s actually happening in front of the lens. The effect occurs at burst rates of 4 fps and above. Interestingly, it improves slightly when the viewfinder refresh rate is set to 60 fps rather than the full 120 fps.
One new and unwelcome development is that, in continuous autofocus mode, the viewfinder image appears momentarily out of focus while the camera is focusing. It only affects what you see, not the actual exposure – but it’s mildly annoying at first. The camera also seems to struggle when there’s too much going on in the frame. Once you press the shutter button, however, the resulting image is crystal clear – unless, of course, you didn’t focus properly.
Disappointment
It’s disappointing that AF-C mode only tracks focus at up to 5 frames per second – and only at 4 frames per second with full 14-bit colour depth. This is frustrating because, for example, the Nikon Z9 – a year older and around €1,000 cheaper – focuses continuously at up to 9 frames per second. It only has 45 megapixels, and I haven’t found any information on its colour depth, but the autofocus is still significantly superior to the Leica’s, even on the SL3.
That said, it’s of course entirely possible to shoot compelling action photos with the SL3 – it’s just not what the camera was built for, and you’d need to go in with your eyes open.
Animal AF in beta mode
A new feature is the animal autofocus, which – as its mode label suggests – rightly carries the word ‘Beta’. Animals are detected with reasonable reliability and marked with an AF frame, but the head is not always tracked consistently. Even with a stationary animal, not every frame in a burst comes out sharp in this mode. It’s still worth using, however: moving animals or animals behind objects are detected more quickly. Reliability isn’t quite there yet, but Panasonic is releasing an AF 2.0 update for its S5II models at the end of the month, and perhaps Leica will be able to benefit from this, too.
In my experience, the autofocus is still too slow for birds in flight – admittedly one of the more demanding AF tasks there is.
Portrait photography with the Leica SL3
In mid-March, I photographed an event and experimented extensively with different focusing methods. Face detection delivers very good results in some situations. Problems arise when there are several people in the frame: the autofocus tends to jump back and forth between them. Even if you’ve locked onto one person, it often suddenly selects another and refocuses. Because the AF is now so much faster than on the SL2, this behaviour is particularly irritating. I’d like a way to hold a person in focus once locked.
For single portraits, Leica has unfortunately missed the opportunity to correct one of the few poor design decisions of recent years. When the SL2 launched in 2019, Leica attempted face detection. At the time, I had just switched from Sony’s eye-tracking autofocus and was able to make a direct comparison. As it turned out, during portrait sessions with the Leica, I ended up with more usable shots than with the Sony – when judged purely by the criterion of sharp eyes. Unfortunately, marketing logic sometimes runs on different rails, and Leica simply had to have eye-tracking autofocus.
A bad Leica decision
What followed was the worst decision that could possibly have been made. Leica overlaid thick AF tracking frames in the viewfinder – so thick that it was often impossible to see where the person I was photographing was actually looking. I would have hoped that a brand I hold in high regard, precisely because it tailors its menus and functions so well to photographers, would have addressed these dreadfully thick frames. Panasonic’s implementation is, incidentally, the best I’ve encountered here. For that reason, and because I’m curious to see how they address the sensor’s slow readout speed, I’m looking forward to their successor to the S1R.
Filming with the SL3
The SL3 has a dedicated interface for video timecodes, but this camera will never make it onto serious film productions. The sensor readout time is simply too slow – the moment you start filming moving subjects, rolling shutter distortion becomes visible. That said, you can absolutely shoot excellent footage with it. The editor on my first project with the SL3 was very impressed with the quality of the files.
I’m too inexperienced with video to go into any real depth here. The complete separation of settings between photo and video remains excellent – and is now even clearer visually: photo menus are highlighted in red, video settings in yellow. You always know exactly where you are, and you can switch between the two modes with a single click. Very convenient.
Leica Looks and further changes
The Leica Looks are a new feature. Presumably, the marketing team felt the need to counter the hype around Fuji’s film simulations. Unfortunately, I don’t like any of the three released so far. Beyond their negative impact on autofocus performance, there are further inconsistencies in the menu navigation. To understand what I mean, take a look at the AF mode menu.
Does it all sound logical? Just wait until you spot the tick next to the ‘Film Look’ option, even though you’ve selected a ‘Leica Look’. I’ve never come across such a mess from Leica before. I can only hope the next firmware update clears these minor but genuinely annoying bugs.
There is also no way to control a flash system via cable. I know from other Leica users that built-in memory was on their wish list, though I personally find it too fiddly to be of much use. Whether a pixel-shift option will arrive in a future firmware update, I don’t know – it’s not there at the moment. What I consider most important is that Leica communicates openly. Anyone wanting to use their camera professionally is currently left in the dark about urgently needed information.
Enough grumbling – the standout features of the Leica SL3
The camera body was already beyond reproach in the previous models. I’ve rarely used a camera body so intensively and seen so few signs of wear after years of use. That’s Leica for you, and it speaks volumes about a professional tool. In pouring rain, the camera and lenses simply deliver.
The colours and dynamic range on the SL3 are up to Leica’s usual sensational standard. It uses the same sensor as the Leica M11, but it’s been improved yet again. I have no idea how Leica keeps pulling this off. Whether it’s down to the newer Maestro chip, I honestly don’t know.
High ISO
The high-ISO performance is clearly better than on the M11. I can still remember the days when my 12-megapixel Nikon D3 was the undisputed queen of the night. With its 60 megapixels, the Leica SL3 is far superior in this respect. I find that genuinely fascinating – real evidence of what technological progress can achieve.
Image stabilisation has not improved compared to the previous model, but remains at a good standard.
Before I wrap up, here are a few snapshots from an hour in Nice.
My personal verdict on the Leica SL3
The Leica SL3 is a successful update. Portrait, landscape and architectural photographers will have a great time with this camera. Particularly when paired with the outstanding SL lenses, the transition from sharp to blurred is more natural than with almost any other system. At the same time, the micro-contrast brings out wonderful detail.
Sports photographers – or anyone who enjoys fast-paced photography in general – really need to go in with their eyes open.
That said, I thoroughly enjoy using the Leica SL3. The intuitive user interface genuinely appeals to me as a photographer. And the colours, along with the exposure latitude, are features I appreciate every single day.
