Leica’s SL system is the vintage German camera maker’s full-frame mirrorless camera workhouse designed for the everyday photographer/videographer. Now, Leica has launched its fastest-ever camera with the SL3-S, to combine superb image quality with speed.
Like the original SL3 was launched in March last year, the SL3-S features the same SLR-like design with a 5.76-million-dot electronic viewfinder, 2.3-million-dot tiltable touchscreen display, controls and button layout in an IP54-certified all-metal body.
However, the SL3-S is able to shoot up 30 still frames per second (fps), doubling that of SL3’s 15fps. In addition, it comes with 779 autofocusing (AF) points compared to 315 AF points of SL3. Furthermore, the SL3-S features the latest phase detection AF, object detection AF and contrast detection AF technologies for overall faster AF.
To achieve such speed, something has to give. The SL3-S uses a 24-megapixel (MP) full-frame image sensor, instead of the 60MP sensor found in SL3. The SL3-S’ maximum video resolution is also reduced from SL3’s 8K to 6K instead.
But the SL3-S is able to provide RAW video recording. Additionally, SL3-S’ maximum video bit rate has been increased to 800Mbps from 600Mbps in SL3. The SL3-S also has a faster USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed of 10Gbps, up from SL3’s 5Gbps. Not to forget, the SL3-S has a higher ISO of 200,000 than SL3’s ISO 100,000.
In short, the SL3-S is targeted at content creators, photographers and videographers who require more speed than image quality.
The Leica SL3-S is now available at S$7,500 (body only) in Leica Store Singapore.