This was what I carried in my Lowepro Passport Sling for a week of street- and travel-photography in Seville. Besides my Leica SL2-S and the Vario-Elmarit-SL 1:2.8/24-70 ASPH standard zoom I brought two additional primes: The TTArtisan 50mm .95 M-Mount (with a Novoflex M to L adapter) “Nifty Fifty” and as telephoto lens a vintage (Made in the GDR) Pentacon auto 2.8 / 135mm MC (with Novoflex M42 to L adapter). Add a spare battery, my cleaning kit and a few of my Street Photographer’s Business Cards. To find out which lens never made it onto the camera and why I didn’t carry a backup-body im my Seville camera bag, continue after the jump….
All good comes to an end eventually. The Significant Other and I are sitting at our departure gate at Seville airport for our return flight after a great week in Andalusia. But there is still time to share a few street photographs from last night, taken with the Leica SL2-S and the TTArtisan 50mm .95 prime lens, attached via adapter to the L-Mount Leica SL2-S. Continue after the jump for some impression from a night in Sevilla.…
Finally an image in the familiar 3×2 full frame aspect ratio. The Leica is back. Fixed and cleaned. And I got a free new battery with it (100$ retail value). I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Probably both. Glad to have the camera back. Because the SL2-S can do things for me that my other cameras can’t do. Like shooting with manual M-Mount lenses with a 0.95 aperture. On the other hand I’m still disappointed by their service and handling of the matter, after my brand new Leica failed me 3 days into our Israel trip with a mechanical shutter defect. I picked it up yesterday and took it for a spin around the Old Town, shooting with the beautiful TTArtisan 50mm .95 lens.
Summer in the City. The Significant Other and I spent the last evening of June in style, at the Entla’s beer cellar in neighbouring Erlangen. The site of a major 10 day beer festival each year, it’s actually much nicer visiting “The Mountain”, as it is called by the locals, when it is not packed by thousands of people standing shoulder by shoulder…
Sometimes the worst case happens. You are on vacation, bringing your best gear to capture all the magic of the places you visit. And then disaster strikes. My Leica failed me. My brand new SL2-S decided to stop working while we visited Jesus’ baptism site on the River Jordan this morning. “System Error” was the bright orange message on the display. Switching on and off, removing and re-inserting battery, changing SD cards and lenses. All the tips I googled in the Leica forum, nothing helped.
I send a message to the Leica store where I purchased the camera, pointing out that I was three days into a once in a lifetime vacation and I needed help to reset the camera (the SL2-S seemingly has no hard reset) or with whatever trick they have up there sleeves to somehow overcome the failure.
Well…I even got a return message two hours later. They wrote that they talked to Leica Service and they indicated it most likely is a shutter failure and they need to resend the camera to the factory for repairs.
Leica, in case you read this: My Nikons never ever failed me like this. My Olympus workhorses never ever failed me like this, whatever I did to them. This Leica SL2-S is a brand new camera that costs triple what I payed for these other cameras. And it simply stopped working, without warning, being handled and operated with care. Shutter Failure. Are you kidding me? And I’m simply being told I will have to send in the camera for repairs. No apologies, no nothing. A suggestion that I might want to look for a retailer in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that maybe can take a look. Not even sending me addresses or phone numbers. Not even a simple sorry for having a new high end 5000 Euro camera fail on vacation.
Leica, your customer experience sucks! I would have at least expected some kind of “sorry”. Or a proactive suggestion how I could get it looked at here in Israel. And even when I get this thing repaired within warranty…how can I ever confidently take this camera on vacation again or use it on a wedding gig? So disappointed…so disappointed….
Now the old M240 and my iPhone 12 will have to cover the rest of the vacation. At least I brought a 10 year old backup and some vintage primes. And the iPhone camera is also quite capable. I’m looking forward to the challenge to get the best of the failed SL2-S luxury camera. To still capture all the memories of our trip to beautiful Israel.
The first day of our trip to Israel took us to the holy sites at North Shore of the Sea of Galilee. A first opportunity to take out the Leica and capture some vacation memories. Classic travel photography, so to speak. Being part of a tour group, the day and the evening are fully packed. So I decided to just dump the memory card onto the Macbook and share some out-of-camera jpgs captured with the Leica’s high-contrast monochrome program for a first episode of Israel explored – Sea of Galilee….
Having had the opportunity to test a Leica SL2-S full frame mirrorless system over the weekend, I have asked Big Girl to pose for an impromptu indoor portrait session. I wanted to do another test of the high ISO capability of the camera and find out how usable the files are in terms of noise when shooting at higher ISO. And, I have to say, the Leica performed admirably. But see for yourself…
Over the weekend I had the opportunity to test an amazing camera, the Leica SL2-S, bundled with the Leica Vario-Elmarit 1:2.8/24-70mm Asph. I was particularly interested in the low light capability of the 24mp full frame mirrorless camera. So I headed into town to do some nocturnal street photography…
Haven’t posted a portrait of Big Girl in a while. She doesn’t look like having worked 4 consecutive night shifts as pediatric nurse on the oncology ward of Nuremberg’s Children’s Hospital.
Image taken with my Leica M (Type 240) and the Summicron 50mm F/2. Jpg out of camera.
I was very much looking forward to this, shooting with a 60 year old lens. My Dad gave me a vintage 90mm Leica Summicron F/2 for Christmas (thanks, Dad, for the awesome present). The beauty of the Leica M system is that you can attach any lens from the Leica (M)esssucher (=rangefinder) system introduced back in 1954 to modern Leica digital cameras with an M-Mount. And as I have acquired a (for digital camera standards also vintage) used Leica M (Type 240) about a year ago, the 90mm is a great addition to my small collection of Leica prime lenses.
We’ve been living a happy life these past two weeks, as The Significant Other and I had managed to escape into the Austrian Mountains for a dearly needed break from our daily routine and Covid-19.
From a distance – wasn’t there this song by Bette Middler? It’s the core theme of these days, with countries slowly returning to the “new normal” and people trying to find the right balance between staying safe and the necessity of somehow have to carry on with their daily lives.
This photograph of a mother and her child was also taken from a distance. I was standing on the balustrade above the “Liebesinsel” (Island of Love), a small island in the River Pegnitz in Nuremberg’s Old Town.
