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Summary

The Leica SL3-S is a more affordable version of the SL3, swapping its 60 Megapixel sensor for one with 24. The lower res sensor has better video capabilities, much faster burst shooting with autofocus, and more manageable file sizes. As such it’ll appeal to anyone who desired the SL3, but either couldn’t afford it or is more of a hybrid shooter. It’s the same approach employed by the earlier SL2-S. Thing is, I feel if you’re really serious about fast burst shooting, or high-end video features and have SL3-S money to spend, you’ll be better-served by one of the more mainstream brands with more confident subject tracking and perhaps a stacked sensor for reduced skewing. Then there’s the usual caveat that like many Leica cameras, you can almost certainly find the same sensor in a much cheaper body, with the SL3-S specs looking a lot like the Lumix S5 II. If you’re looking for this level of burst and video performance at the lowest cost, Panasonic has you covered. But the Leica SL3-S is a very different camera and experience. You’re coupling that sensor with Leica’s image processing and packing it into one of the best built full-frame bodies around with a refreshingly clean and simple user interface. Like all premium or luxury products though, only you can decide if it’s right for you. One thing’s for certain: the SL3-S will give you the SL3 body experience at a lower price point, and that could do it for you.

Buy it now!

Check prices on the Leica SL3-S at B&H, Adorama, WEX UK or Calumet.de. Alternatively get yourself a copy of my In Camera book, an official Cameralabs T-shirt or mug, or treat me to a coffee! Thanks!

Leica SL3-S review

The Leica SL3-S is a mirrorless camera aimed at hybrid shooters who equally value photo and video. Announced in January 2025, it essentially takes the body of the SL3 with its L-mount and swaps the 60 Megapixel sensor for one with 24, making the camera faster, the video capabilities mostly preferable, the files more manageable, and the price lower too.

It’s an approach shared by the earlier SL2 and SL2-S, with the latter not only being more suitable for hybrid shooters, but providing a more affordable means to access what was then the latest Leica L-mount body.

But affordability is relative and we are talking about Leica here. The latest SL3-S may “only” cost three quarters the price of the original SL3, but that still makes it £4500 versus £6000. And I’ll address the elephant in the room right now. Like the previous models in the series, the same or at least very similar sensors can be found in cheaper bodies. For example, while no manufacturer will confirm, the SL3’s 60 Megapixel sensor is almost certainly the same in the Sony A7R V at roughly half the price, while the new S model’s sensor shares the same specs as the Panasonic Lumix S5 II, which currently costs around £1700.

But a camera is more than the sensor alone. Leica couples them with their own Maestro IV image processor and packages them in a unique body made in Germany and stamped with their aspirational branding. And now the SL3-S allows you to enjoy the SL3’s body in a cheaper version. Whether that’s still worth spending almost three grand more than an S5 II is up to you, but in the video below I’ll show you what you’ll get. If you prefer to read the written highlights, keep scrolling! I’ll intersperse the review with photos straight out of camera.

At first glance the SL3-S shares the same body as the previous SL3, albeit now with the main Logo in black rather than white. Similarly for the engraved label atop the flash hotshoe. I realise the same approach was used for the previous SL2-S, but I’m not sure if Leica owners prefer discretion or wearing their brand with pride. What do you think? There’s still the red Leica badge on the front though.

Like the SL3, the full metal housing is built like a brick, feeling incredibly solid and exuding confidence in your hands. Sure at 862g including battery, it’s among the heavier full-frame bodies, but there’s little that looks or feels like this. And unlike most manufacturers, Leica also gives it an IP54 rating, meaning it’s sealed from water splashes in any direction, albeit not constant running water.

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Looking around the body you’ll be struck by the absence of labelling, not to mention fewer buttons than most rivals. There’s an understated sense of simplicity here that’s refreshing, and pretty much every control is customisable.

There’s three control wheels, one on the top left, one on the top right, and a third for your thumb that’s embedded within the body. All are large, chunky and provide satisfyingly clicky feedback when turned.

A large portion of the upper surface is occupied by a generous 1.28in square LCD information panel which provides context-sensitive shooting information at a glance. I like how in Photo mode, you have aperture, shutter, ISO and compensation clearly indicated in rows.

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Like the SL3 there’s no power switch, with the camera instead turned on and off with a button that also glows to indicate charging status. To me this feels a little more like an appliance than a camera, but I like the different approach.

To the right of the viewfinder is a chunky joystick, while to the right of the screen are three large buttons, for Play, Function and Menu, the only labelled controls on the camera. Again it’s a very clean design, although I’d say more comfortable to use for those with larger hands.

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Moving onto composition, the SL3-S inherits the excellent viewfinder of the SL3 which I’m filming through right now. It sports a 5.76 Million dot OLED panel with 0.76x magnification when displaying the native 3:2 image shape. There’s also 60 and 120 Hz refresh options, and an eye-cup housing that includes a large diopter wheel that’s easier to adjust than the tiny wheels on most cameras.

In use the view is larger, more detailed and ultimately more immersive than most 24 Megapixel cameras, while also avoiding temporary drops in resolution when autofocusing that can affect the higher res viewfinders on Sony’s top models.

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Meanwhile the screen employs a 3.2in panel with 2.3 million dots that can be pulled out and angled up by 90 degrees, neatly clearing the viewfinder, or down by about 45. It can only tilt vertically, staying in-line with the optical axis which will please many, albeit unable to flip forward to face you which may bother some of the target hybrid audience. I personally like the articulation and it’s worth remembering the previous SL2-S had a fixed screen.

Behind a large rubber flap on the left side you’ll find 3.5mm microphone and headphone jacks, a remote accessory terminal and a full-size HDMI port which can output RAW video up to 6k to a compatible recorder.

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Below these behind its own flap is a USB-C port that can be used for charging, data transfer, tethering and for connecting USB SSD drives, although I don’t believe it can present the camera as a standard webcam. A limitation shared with the S5 II. Meanwhile on the left side of the viewfinder head is a port for timecode, plus of course the hotshoe atop. The fastest flash sync is 1/200.

Suffice it to say there’s also wireless connectivity which works when paired with the Leica Fotos app running on a compatible smartphone, which I tested on my Galaxy S20. You can embed locations, automatically transfer images, and access various looks to apply to photos.

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Storage is provided by a pair of slots behind a door on the right side, and like the SL3, you’re getting one Type-B CF Express slot and another for UHS-II SD cards. There’s no built-in storage.

Below the camera is a lever that ejects the entire battery with an additional push. We’ve seen this approach before from Leica, but I still enjoy the process – who needs battery doors? Before moving on, a respectful nod to the tripod mount which includes a second hole for a guide pin. And look, there’s the panel which proudly states the camera was made in Germany.

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Moving onto the sensor, the SL3-S employs a full-frame 24 Megapixel BSI CMOS, which as noted earlier shares essentially the same photo, video and burst specs as the Lumix S5 II.

The camera also sports IBIS, shifting the sensor in five axes to deliver up to five stops of compensation with unstabilised lenses. There’s no mention of working alongside optical IS to deliver enhanced stabilisation.

Like other SL bodies, there’s an L-mount providing compatibility with any L-mount lens, including more affordable options from Panasonic, Sigma and others. You can of course also adapt lenses from other systems, including Leica M.

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The maximum resolution is 6000×4000 pixels and you can choose to record them in either JPEG, Adobe DNG RAW on drive mode or both. DNG files have 14 or 12 bits of dynamic range depending on the drive speed, more about which in a moment. I like how Leica adopts DNG rather than forcing a proprietary RAW format.

Under the JPEG settings you can adjust the noise reduction, apply Leica Looks, a dynamic range booster, or five customisable Film Styles including an excellent Monochrome High Contrast option.

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There’s also the choice of six different cropped aspect ratios, although no lower resolution modes available, unless you shoot in the cropped APSC mode at which point the native resolution becomes 10.3 Megapixels for both JPEG and RAW.

The 24 Megapixel resolution may be fairly modest, but like the Lumix S5 II, there’s an optional high resolution pixel-shift mode that exploits IBIS to capture and combine multiple images to generate a potential higher resolution file up to 96 Megapixels.

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To demonstrate what’s possible, let’s start with a single 24 Megapixel frame from the SL3-S fitted with the Summilux-SL 50mm f1.4 lens, and zoom-in for a closer look at the details. I’ll keep this version on the left and now show you a pixel-shifted version taken using the tripod mode. I’ve also enabled the option which attempts to compensate for motion artefacts.

On the static building, you can definitely see finer details on the high res version on the right, but while the motion compensation has eliminated ghostly moving subjects, the detail around them looks fuzzy and off-putting. So I’d personally turn it off and retouch, or more sensibly, stick to truly static compositions with no movement, like pure architecture with no people, still-life or archive. On the plus side, like Panasonic, I’m glad Leica are generating the composite file in-camera rather than forcing you to identify and assemble the frames in software later.

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Moving onto exposures, the SL3-S keeps things simple with just the four traditional modes: Program, Manual, Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. You can directly dial-in shutter speeds as long as 30 minutes, or select Bulb for longer still, while at the other end the fastest shutter is up to 1/8000 using the mechanical shutter, or up to 1/16000 with the electronic shutter or hybrid mode which switches between them.

There’s exposure bracketing in three or five frames and a built-in interval timer, but no multiple exposure or focus bracketing options that I could see.

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For autofocus the SL3-S employs a hybrid system with contrast and phase detect technologies at its disposal. You can see it refocusing between the bottle and background in the spot AF area, using the Summilux-SL 50mm f1.4, wide-open of course.

You can also choose Multi-Field, Field, Zone and object tracking options, as well as choosing Eye / Face and Body detection, or Animal Detection which was labelled as beta on my model.

Object tracking allows you to place a white box over the desired subject, after which holding a half-press should follow it around the frame. It worked well with objects that were a different colour from the background.

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Like Panasonic, the human mode places frames around multiple figures, switching to faces or eyes on those who are close-enough, while arrows on either side allow you to switch between targets using the joystick or touch screen. It works really well for quickly selecting the desired person wherever they are on the frame.

In my tests the Animal detection successfully surrounded most dogs and birds with AF frames when sufficiently close, but it didn’t indicate their eyes and I didn’t get to try it with other creatures.

Burst shooting represents one of the biggest differences over the original SL3 which shot up to 7fps using the mechanical shutter or up to 15fps with the electronic. The big downside to the SL3 though was only allowing autofocus in bursts up to 5fps, which always felt a bit odd considering the Sony A7R V could do it twice as fast.

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Anyway, the SL3-S may share the same 7fps mechanical shutter as the SL3, but now can shoot at up to 15 or 30fps with its electronic shutter, and crucially supports AF at all speeds. This makes it up to six times faster than the SL3 if you need autofocus, although RAW shooters should note the 14 bit DR is only supported up to 5fps, reducing to 12-bit from 7fps upwards. Let’s see how it all comes together in practice.

For these bursts on the Brighton seafront, I fitted the SL3-S with the Lumix S 70-200mm f4 Pro zoom, mostly at 200mm f4, here in Manual mode with Auto ISO. I used the animal AF mode and selected the fastest 30fps burst speeds which employ the electronic shutter.

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In my tests, the SL3-S did a good job at recognising the birds in flight and keeping them focused throughout most of the bursts, while delivering a lot of frames to choose from. But like the Lumix S5 II, this is not a stacked sensor, so you should beware of potential skewing when swinging the camera around. You can see it in my examples when the birds pass buildings or poles which should be vertical.

Of course you can avoid this by switching to the mechanical shutter, but then you’ll be limited to 7fps, which isn’t much different to the SL3’s top speed of 5fps with autofocus. I should also note the SL3-S sadly lacks a pre-burst shooting mode, so you’ll be relying on your reactions alone to capture the decisive moment.

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Moving onto video, the SL3-S shares the same core capabilities as the Lumix S5 II. So in full-frame you’re getting 1080 from 24 to 120p and 4k or 6k from 24 to 30p, all in either 16:9 or wider DCi shapes. Switch to Cropped APSC mode and 4k becomes available in 50 or 60p. Meanwhile a dedicated slow motion mode can film 1080 up to 180p, but the top two speeds of 150 and 180p are recorded without sound or autofocus.

Like the S5 II, you’re also getting the chance to film in a 6k Open Gate mode from 24 to 30p which records the full sensor height in the native 3:2 shape. There’s also the chance to encode in Long-GOP, All-i or in certain modes ProRes.

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To compare the quality, I filmed clips in 1080, 4k and 6k Open Gate, which I’ve presented in my video review at the top of the page. Open Gate has the benefit of having slightly higher resolution, allowing you to zoom in by around 1.5x while maintaining 4k quality.

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More importantly, thanks to having a taller frame to start with, Open Gate gives you greater flexibility in repurposing clips for multiple platforms. For example on the left I’ve cropped the frame vertically to deliver a wide 16:9 frame, while on the right I’ve cropped it horizontally to deliver a 9:16 portrait shape for phones. So while the original SL3 has the benefit of 8k that’s lacking here, I’m happy to swap it for the greater all-round flexibility of 6k Open Gate.

The SL3-S also shares the same autofocus subject modes including object tracking, human body, face and eye detection, and the animal mode again labelled as beta. I tested single area, human face tracking and animal mode for both dogs and birds.

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Next for human face detection with the same 50 1.4 lens, where you can see the camera confidently tracking me across the frame. As with still photos, the camera surrounded most of the people in the frame with boxes, allowing me to choose the one I wanted using the joystick or touch screen.

As for animal detection in video, the SL3-S struggled at times to recognise this dog as the main target, although it may have got confused a little with the dark clothing behind it. I enjoyed slightly more success here with birds in flight, so long as they weren’t in front of busy backgrounds, but then to be fair, even the best cameras struggle to detect them as they pass the buildings or beach.

Leica SL3-S verdict

The Leica SL3-S is a more affordable version of the SL3, swapping its 60 Megapixel sensor for one with 24. Beyond a lower price, the lower resolution sensor has better video capabilities, much faster burst shooting with autofocus, and more manageable file sizes too. As such it’ll appeal to anyone who desired the SL3, but either couldn’t afford it or is more of a hybrid shooter. It’s the same approach employed by the earlier SL2-S.

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Thing is, while the SL3-S is roughly three quarters the price of an SL3, I’m not sure a typical Leica customer is that price-conscious, or happy to trade the ultimate quality of a 60 Megapixel sensor for one with 24 even if it has faster bursts and Open Gate video. I feel if you’re really serious about fast burst shooting, or high-end video features and have SL3-S money to spend, you’ll be better-served by one of the more mainstream brands with more confident subject tracking and perhaps a stacked sensor for reduced skewing.

Then there’s the usual caveat that like many Leica cameras, you can almost certainly find the same sensor in a much cheaper body. As usual no-one will confirm, but the SL3-S sensor specs look a lot like the Lumix S5 II to me. If you’re looking for this level of burst and video performance at the lowest cost, Panasonic has you covered.

But the Leica SL3-S is a very different camera and experience. For starters you’re coupling that sensor with Leica’s image processing and packing it into one of the best built full-frame bodies around, in turn sporting a quality viewfinder and a refreshingly clean and simple user interface. Performance and value in Leica’s World is about way more than sensor specs.

Like all premium or luxury products though, only you can decide if it’s right for you. If it were me given the choice between the SL3 and the new S version, I would personally invest in the original for the ultimate resolution. But Leica wouldn’t make the S versions if there wasn’t demand for them, so I’d love to hear from anyone in the Venn diagram where fast bursts, hybrid shooting and Leica quality all overlap. One thing’s for certain: the SL3-S will give you the SL3 body experience at a lower price point, and that could do it for you.

Check prices on the Leica SL3-S at B&H, Adorama, WEX UK or Calumet.de. Alternatively get yourself a copy of my In Camera book, an official Cameralabs T-shirt or mug, or treat me to a coffee! Thanks!
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