Leica TL2 Mirrorless Camera, Black Anodized Finish

2018-01-07T22:11:36

On my first day out taking cultures just before Christmas of 2017.. I was out in the city and i was stopped several times of people that knew the camera. This mirrorless is pricey for the barebones. But, its worth having around.... Love it.

mars m.

2018-01-02T02:33:59

The low light capability at 3200 or higher is pathetic for a camera of the Leica pedigree. We work all weddings with Nikon 810's. To lighten the load, I acquired this for travel. Lens and body was about the same investment as my 810 and 24-70. As an experiment, I used the TL2 parallel to our 810s on a recent job. Anything shot 3200 or above was embarrassing.

TODD S.

2017-10-20T19:38:07

Nowadays all cameras take great pictures. The Leica TL2 is no exception. I take only raw DNG files, so I cannot speak much to the camera's rendering of JPG pictures. I come from a Nikon DSLR background, but my system cameras had become too heavy and unwieldy due to age, arthritis, and other physical limitations. I hated giving it up, but one must know one's own limits. The Leica TL2 meets my needs as a light weight camera with interchangeable lenses that I can carry around all day without shoulder or back pain. Good. It also requires a completely different approach to photography -- one which requires me to step far out of my comfort zone. Even the way I compose is different. The TL2 is almost entirely menu driven through the touchscreen. A few years ago I would have hated this, but I have been shooting a lot with my iPhone and now I'm used to it. Granted, the interface is completely different than that of the iPhone as well. But the concept didn't get in my way. My preferred method of shooting is aperture preferred, and I like to use manual focus a lot, so I set up the menus so that these settings are on top. I don't mess much with ISO. I have yet to see a camera that renders very high ISO pictures with the quality I would like. Nevertheless, they are quite usable on the Leica and standard noise reduction settings in Lightroom get rid of the most objectionable stuff. The lenses are slower than most of my Nikon gear by about half a stop, at best. I can live with that. Using the back screen to compose and take a picture is difficult for me. I am used to viewfinders and I like to press the camera right up to my eyeball to hold it steady. (The camera, not the eyeball.) You can't do this with the TL2. I am left handed and find that my fingers tend to block the focusing light -- but that doesn't matter much to me because I hate focusing assist lights. If it is too dark to autofocus, I will manually focus, thank you very much. The orange light is a distraction and it shows up in other photographers' pictures. So I turn it off. I do use the electronic viewfinder, but it makes it harder to fit the camera in my bag. Still, it can be done. I plan to use only two lenses -- a telephoto zoom and a wide angle zoom. I hardly ever used my mid-range zoom with the Nikon system and I doubt that I would find much use for it with the Leica. The Leica phone app is terrible. I cannot get it to transfer pictures to my phone even though there is a menu item to do so and the camera is connected. The idea is great, but it has bugs to be worked out. Hope they get it working real soon. Even so, Leica is lightyears ahead of Nikon and Canon on this. Leica obviously thinks very highly of their branded accessories. I recommend buying cheap lens caps and using those every day, lest you lose one of Leica's $65 lens caps. Leica must order them hand made from a blind monk in Switzerland for them to be that expensive. I have no trouble hanging onto the camera, despite its slick finish and small handgrip. I find it is well balanced with the lens attached. I do not use the neck strap at all, as hanging even this small amount of weight on my neck would cause intense pain. I would prefer a small hand strap, actually. I will probably make something with paracord just to make it distinctive. The slow shutter response compared to that of a DSLR is something I have to get used to. But my days of taking a Zodiac out to photograph leaping cetaceans are probably over, anyway. As for other wildlife photography, stealth and the ability to anticipate what your subject is doing are far more important than speed. In this, the Leica actually helps, because it does not block my view of my surroundings. In sum, I think this is the almost perfect camera for a retired semi-professional photographer who now wishes to turn his attention to travel and morning walks instead of portraiture and action.

Christopher C.