Leica explains the SL3-P and how it sets itself apart from the market

Leica’s product manager for the SL series cameras, Gerrit Gissel describes them as the company’s “technology lighthouse:” the thing that acts as a guide for all the company’s other efforts.

We spoke to Gissel about the SL3-P, who it’s for, how it fits into the lineup, and the challenges of creating a product with more direct rivals than most of the company’s other offerings.

“We see there’s a big potential out there of photographers who just want to have the best technology available, and for us the SL system is the answer to that demand,” he says: “But there are more layers to that.” 

“There’s also an internal perspective where we use the SL system to develop new technologies to see how far we can push certain things, that we then later benefit from in other product lines. Especially in the Q series we see many similarities, but then also in other compact cameras. So the SL is the camera where we develop that, where we invest a lot in, then we can benefit from later on.”

The user interface is an example, he says: “I think we have a quite recent example for that with the SL3 generation. We have for the first time implemented our new user interface that now, last December, was also integrated into Q-Series because we got the feedback from our customers and we carefully listened to them that they liked it a lot. They think it’s very well thought through and also cameras like the Q series could benefit from that.”

Setting the SL3 series apart

We asked whether the company has to approach the SL series differently, given it has more direct competition than the Q or M cameras.

“Well of course we do lots of benchmarking. We know, especially in reviews etc, that we are compared with each other so, whether we want that or not, we will be compared.” says Gissel: “So that’s why we focus on finding our own our own position in that competition out there. We find our our own language, that I think we found quite well with the SL system: being user intuitive, user friendly, not overloaded with features, and just allowing the photographer or videographer to focus on his or her work. This is a bit like the credo that we are following. And of course every decision; feature versus added complexity, is discussed having this in mind.”

This focus on operability, as well as build quality, emerge as two of the things that can set the SL apart, beyond hardware specifications: 

“So the obvious thing is the operation. You will see that immediately once you’re touching the SL, and I think that makes your job so hard because you have to write about it, you can show some pictures, but to really understand that you have to have to touch the camera and feel it.”

But there’s another critical factor, he says:  “of course what is probably the thing we invest the most in is defining and refining our image quality. So if you see the results at the end, then you can understand what the Leica SL system is, compared to the other ones out there. So the way you create and the result in the end, neither thing is particularly visible when looking at a technical data sheet.”

The SL3-P is the third camera in the third generation of SL cameras, and the most all-round capable so far.

Gissel’s comfort with the SL3-P not necessarily having every possible feature that its hardware would allow, seems in part to come from the confidence that Leica understands its customers well. “It always depends on whom you are designing for. When you try to please everyone, of course you have the tendency to bring all the features in there. I think we have a bit of a clearer mind to our customers. We know our customers maybe a bit better than others and that’s why we can design our solutions a bit more specific maybe and probably it’s easier for us to sometimes say ‘we don’t need that’ because we know that the majority of our customers would be more confused by that than it would be actually helpful.”

This understanding comes from two sources, he says. “one is the, let’s say, the old fashioned, but still very important, way: we just travel around, we visit our stores. I mean we have the big advantage that we have our own store network with people that are in daily interactions with our customers and our salespeople there, and sometimes also when we meet customers there they give us very valuable one-to-one feedback. So we try to do this as much as possible and this always brings value.”

“And then we have a more systematic approach. We have a database, we have a strong customer care department, and capture every feedback and feature request. Also some complaints. They are all tracked in that system, they are tagged to which system they apply so that we really systematically sometimes can say ‘okay this and this feature was asked for by so many people’ so we prioritised this over another one.”

Looking beyond existing customers

But what about the people who aren’t current customers, we asked. “We have one mechanism I didn’t already mention: we do customer research where we not only ask our own customers about their current thoughts and their future wishes but also try to get in touch with people who have cameras from other manufacturers,” he says: “but also even people who are not into photography yet or who are smartphone users that just have a certain tendency. We try to get in touch with these people too we then have professional support to do these surveys, and this is part of our of our work too.”

The importance of this comes through as we discuss our experiences of learning how the camera works: “I think getting this right is important” he says: “I think this camera is very attractive for people who haven’t considered a Leica to switch to us.”

Technology and tradition

The SL3-P came about as much through technology making it possible, as through customer feedback, he suggests. “The bigger portion [of SL buyers] is always the non-S, high resolution variant, so the SL2 and later the SL3. And we just saw that we could, compared to these two cameras, massively improve the autofocus capability. The SL3-P is a bit of a specialty in that customers didn’t know that we were thinking about bringing a third variant in one generation. So this is kind of a of a novelty, right? And that’s why here the decision also came from we saw what will be possible technology wise and we added that to the customer feedback.”

That possibility comes primarily from the fast, high-resolution sensor becoming available, he says. “It’s always the combination [of sensor and processor], so neither of both parts is powerful alone. But if we compare the main difference between SL-3, SL3-S, SL3-P, it is this time the sensor because they all share the same processor platform.”

Leica’s Gerrit Gissel, photographed with his own product

Leica SL3-P | Leica Vario Elmarit-SL 24-90mm F2.8-4.0 @ 76mm | F4.0 | 1/500 sec | ISO 100

But creating a new model entails a lot more than just simply changing which sensor sits in the camera, he says: “both in the hardware and software, many things have to be rethought.” 

“You think you would only swap the sensor, but in fact you have to re-think every component of the camera once again. ‘Does that still match?’ ‘Does that still make sense?’ And ‘is this, for the use case we intend this camera for, still the right fit?’

“I have a good example for that for the SL3-P in in a software solution that we came up during a running project.” he says: “So we knew if we integrate this sensor, we knew that we will get a more complex and powerful video setting possibilities. And we ended up with one hundred and fifty seven video options. We then decided we need a more intuitive, dynamic way to select these video settings because otherwise our consumers could be overloaded. And that’s why we came up with the new video setting selector, which was very well received by everyone who’s was testing it. But that was a result out of the decision to go for that new sensor.”

With all this in mind, we circled back to one of our original questions: what does Leica do to ensure the SL offers something distinctive in a crowded, competitive market?

“It consists of, I would, say two elements that if you hear them, at first not are really logic with each other,” says Gissel: “The first is keeping the the heritage of both Leica and what we have achieved with the SL system over the past ten years. So excellent haptics, superior image quality, of course, things like our very strong viewfinder, IP54 rating, so everything the system was known for.” he says: “And then on the other hand, innovation. I’ve learned from my colleagues who have been here much longer than me that innovating and reinventing is also part of the Leica DNA, so that’s why it’s maybe not a contradiciton to combine these two things with each other.”

For example: “the improvements we’ve made with the autofocus in the in the past years, they are just like a reinvention,” he says: “it’s such a big improvement we considered whether it should sit apart from the existing SL3 models.”

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