Leica SL3 & Sigma 500 F/5.6 Review after 6 Weeks in Alaska & Hokkaido, Japan

Leica for Wildlife!? Well, I tried. I paired the Leica SL3 with the brand new Sigma 500 F/5.6 DGN Sports Lens and travelled to Alaska and then on to northern Japan to test out this unique combo.
See below for time codes, and please, let me know your experiences with Leica and or Sigma for wildlife and landscape photography. Mahalo!
Lee
Time Codes
0:00 Intro
1:57 Real Time Review
12:10 The Best Chance for Success
13:10 In Gallery Review
13:25 Issues with Auto Focus
14:24 Advantages of the Sigma 500 F/5.6
14:50 Animal Tracking
15:40 Auto Focus Workarounds
18:40 Slow Wake Up Time
21:20 The Good Things
22:22 Excellent High ISO Performance
24:40 High ISO Images
25:50 Image Quality
27:40 Print Quality and Sample Prints
30:49 Conclusion
31:41 The Enjoyment
38:38 Real Talk with Uncle Lee
44:15 Final Images

[The_golden_charlie]

I have an Sl2, with a Sigma 100 400 and used it for bird photography. I switched off prefocus, used single spot focusing and found the focus to be very good even handheld. Battery life is much better with prefocus off, no chimping. I processed my high iso files with dxo raw 4 and found them fabulous to manipulate.

[DidierMOULINPhotography]

Thanks a lot for this confirmation of my poor trust in this camera for wildlife. No valuable improvement despite the phase detect AF

[ArielSaltiel]

Thanks for your review. I had exactly the same experience you describe. The main point as you said is, if you nail it, it's outstanding, but you need to achieve that and some times its very difficult and frustrating. Now I know the problem its real and its not only my lack of experience using this camera.

[GillesQuennevilleGQ]

In 55 years of wild life photography I have never used auto focus. And I never will. I am from the old school mind set. I produce my photigraphy…i will never let my camera do what auto focus can do or choose the light for me. No way.

[nicoxg]

Thank you for your review. I own the SL3 and the 60-600 and, generally speaking, i agree with your findings. One can only hope that Panasonic will help out Leica in the AF department and future firmwares will improve the experience. It is still beta after all. I'm happy with the setup though because when you DO nail it, it just blows your socks off. :-)
Would you share your custom profiles by any chance?

[KeeeeenW]

The price of the SL2/SL2s and Sony A1 has gone down to a point that for the price of a new SL3, you can get a used SL2 or SL2s for everyday use and a used Sony A1 for situations like this one that require reliable and fast autofocus. I don’t see any reason to get the SL system for wildlife.

[BrandonTalbot]

Took my SL3 and SL2S to South Africa for a safari just days after it released. I had the Sigma 70-200 2.8 and the Sigma 150-600. From prior experience I never turned on AFC. It was always AFS. With the Sigma 150-600 neither camera autofocused well with it and so I manually focused it. The photos I did nail looked incredible, but man I get your frustration. Plus Leica isn't putting either the RAM or the Processors or both in their cameras to make it a reliable camera for high FPS or just rapid inputs like diving into the menu, grabbing a quick clip, checking the clip, switching to photo...they bind up. The battery life, the power button, the zoom magnify is really poor compared to the SL2/SL2S. Also when are we gonna get battery grips that are actual batteries and not just giant chunks of wasted space.

[goldfinch]

Strange review! Who has ever said that the Leica SL3 is a wildlife camera? It is a great camera, but not for wildlife. You should know how to choose the right tool for the job you need to do; especially when giving the impression that you are a professional.

[totomie]

maybe for bears! lol by the time you take your shot with birds it's already 10 meters away that's how sht auto focus leica is