Leica’s $5,300 SL3-S is its newest hybrid digicam for stills and video
Leica has a brand new digicam for execs who shoot each video and stills. The $5,295 Leica SL3-S, which launches lately, is a full-frame mirrorless hybrid digicam optimized for fast-action stills and 6K video. Just like the SL3 it’s in line with, the SL3-S has a compact frame and three.2-inch tilting touchscreen show. However the place the SL3 with its 60mp sensor is principally for nonetheless pictures, the SL3-S is optimized for pace: its 24mp sensor can shoot video at 6K with 12-bit uncooked photos, and it will probably seize stills at as much as 30fps with frequently monitoring autofocus.
The SL3-S’s newfound video chops imply it helps open-gate 6K (5952 x 3968 decision) recording of its complete 3:2 sensor at as much as 30fps, or as much as 60fps in 4K, and it will probably document immediately to an SSD by means of USB-C connection. Whilst it doesn’t have an extremely high-resolution sensor for stills, it makes up for that with pace and focusing talent. The SL3-S has 779 phase-detect autofocus issues, greater than double the SL3’s 315 issues. It additionally has progressed object detection and monitoring focal point, and it shoots immediate sufficient to permit 48- and 96-megapixel high-res multi-shot composites and not using a tripod.
In a different way, the SL3-S stocks so much with the SL3 — using the similar frame design with twin card slots (one UHS-II SD and one CFExpress Sort B), tilting touchscreen, color-coded menu device (crimson for photograph / yellow for video), and that quirky light-up energy button. (Significantly, why is the ability button no longer a pleasing bodily transfer like each and every different digicam?) It’s a an identical option to the only Leica took with its last-generation SL2 and SL2-S, with the SL3-S as soon as once more taking a look similar to its pricier counterpart, excluding some blacked-out Leica lettering.
The SL line is aimed toward execs who want their fancy German digicam to be extra of an all-around workhorse, with high-res video recording and autofocus, as an alternative of a slower-paced, specialised device for pictures like a Leica M rangefinder. So it is smart that Leica is baking its Content material Credentials into the SL3-S, using Adobe’s Content material Authenticity Initiative for symbol verification find it irresistible first did at the M11-P. Surprisingly, this option isn’t to be had in the usual SL3, which introduced in March 2024, and received’t be added by means of firmware improve. Leica spokesperson Nathan Kellum-Pathe informed The Verge that the SL3 lacks the important {hardware} and that whilst software-based content material authentication is conceivable, it “does no longer meet Leica’s usual for encryption of this essential information.”
You probably have Leica cash, however no longer limitless Leica cash, the SL3-S seems like the simpler worth for all however the pickiest pixel peepers.