Leica Vario Elmarit SL 24 90mm F2 8 4 ASPH Review | 54 Data compared

The ePHOTOzine review highlights the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH lens for its exceptional, prime-like optical performance across its versatile range, featuring outstanding central sharpness, minimal distortion, and suppressed chromatic aberrations. Built with an indestructible, weather-sealed metal body, the lens also includes fast, quiet autofocus and effective image stabilization. While offering excellent image quality, the lens is notably heavy (1,140g) and bulky, which can make handheld shooting challenging, and it carries a high price tag typical of Leica products. Despite these drawbacks, it is considered a top-tier performer for professional L-mount users.

This review covers the Leica SL camera paired with the Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH zoom lens during a street photography outing at a classic car boot sale in London. The reviewer notes that this bulky, "in-your-face" setup is the antithesis of a traditional discreet street camera, yet it functions exceptionally well at public events where people enjoy being photographed and mistake the user for an official photographer. Despite the lens's large size and weight, it feels perfectly balanced on the camera thanks to the SL's substantial handgrip. Ultimately, the reviewer praises the system as an undeniably competent, professional-grade choice for event and sporting photography. The system offers several distinct advantages alongside notable trade-offs: Pros Ideal focal range: The 24-90mm range offers more versatility than standard 24-70mm professional lenses, easily handling wide vehicle shots and tight portraits. Prime-quality sharpness: The lens delivers exceptional definition and rich colours, effectively replacing a bag full of classic focal lengths (24mm to 90mm) without sacrificing rendering quality. Fast and accurate autofocus: The autofocus system works in nanoseconds, successfully nailing and holding focus on fleeting moments....

The Leica SL (Typ 601) is a mirrorless full-frame camera that boasts a rugged, minimalistic build consisting of two solid aluminum blocks. The camera delivers an exceptionally sharp, detailed video picture and offers extensive recording versatility, including internal 4K DCI shooting at 24p (100Mbps) and full-frame 1080p recording up to 120fps. Among its standout features are an outstanding, highly accurate electronic viewfinder (EVF) that eliminates the need to magnify the frame to judge focus, long battery life, and a reliable autofocus system in manual mode that utilizes a joystick or touchscreen to quickly lock onto specific spots. Additionally, it supports clean 10-bit 4:2:2 external output over a large HDMI port, features functional zebra and peaking aids, and displays no signs of overheating during long shoots. However, the camera presents serious usability obstacles, particularly regarding low-light performance. Due to permanent internal noise reduction, any footage captured above ISO 800 becomes highly noisy, underexposed areas turn muddy, and live preview accuracy is lost once recording begins at high ISOs. The dynamic range is quite limited, even when using Leica's customizable L-LOG gamma...

The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm F2.8-4 ASPH is a premium L-mount standard zoom lens praised as a robust, high-performance workhorse for photographers. It provides exceptional edge-to-edge sharpness across the zoom range, minimal distortion, smooth bokeh, and fast autofocus with effective stabilization. However, the lens is notably large and heavy, weighing over 1,100 grams, and features a variable f/2.8–4 aperture, which, along with its high price point, positions it as a luxury, high-end option. The lens also displays significant vignette at 24mm wide-open, and its extending barrel design may require care in dusty conditions. For the full specifications and user reviews, visit DPReview.

The Leica SL is evaluated as a highly versatile, professional-grade mirrorless workhorse capable of effortlessly transitioning between diverse shooting environments, from fast-paced action and event photography to meticulous landscape and macro work. The reviewer notes several prominent advantages, including exceptional build quality with robust weather sealing that handles severe conditions flawlessly. Its innovative, fully flexible control layout allows fast, eye-level setting changes via a precise joystick and a responsive top-plate LCD. Photographers will benefit from lightning-fast single-shot autofocus, a massive and bright electronic viewfinder (EVF) that excels in low light, reliable built-in GPS, seamless dual-card backup, and a deep shooting buffer. Furthermore, its native zoom lenses deliver prime-quality sharpness, and the system offers unmatched backwards compatibility with legacy Leica M, R, S, and T-mount glass. However, the review highlights distinct trade-offs, primarily regarding the system’s physical footprint and ergonomics. Weighing 847 grams, the Leica SL body is much heavier than competing mirrorless options like the Sony A7 series, making the camera somewhat obtrusive and "in your face" for candid or low-profile street photography. Additionally, achieving top-tier edge-to-edge sharpness requires massive...

The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH. is a standard zoom lens designed for the Leica SL system that delivers crisp images and a longer-than-average zoom range. Lab testing paired with a 24-megapixel Leica SL (Typ 601) revealed sharp optics exceeding baseline expectations, specifically reaching peak quality at the 50mm focal length. Additional advantages highlighted in the review include minimal distortion, optical image stabilization, a close-focus capability down to 1 foot (0.3 meters), and a rugged, weather-sealed body protected by a hydrophobic AquaDura lens coating. Despite its excellent 4.0 performance rating, the lens has several noticeable drawbacks, primarily its big and heavy design, weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 5.4 by 3.5 inches. Reviewers also noted a variable rather than fixed aperture that drops linearly down to f/4 at 90mm, along with a noticeable vignette at 24mm. Finally, its high cost—priced around £5,259 ($4,950)—makes it a very expensive investment, though it remains a solid, professional performer for the SL system.

Leica SL Review Summary The Leica SL (Typ 601) is a highly responsive and exceptionally well-built mirrorless camera that delivers an efficient professional shooting experience. In field testing, its Single Autofocus (S-AF) proved to be extremely fast, decisive, and accurate in good to moderate light, while the high-resolution electronic viewfinder (EVF) stood out for its ability to keep up with action better than most competing EVFs. The camera features seamless built-in GPS and reliable direct Wi-Fi connectivity to mobile devices. It also excels as a manual focus platform, offering a sharp EVF and handy joystick-activated magnification tools that allow photographers to easily use classic adapted lenses like the Leica Summicron-M 50mm f/2. Furthermore, its native Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH kit lens delivers incredibly crisp images with low geometric distortion and effective optical stabilization. However, the camera suffers from significant performance bottlenecks, most notably a very slow RAW buffer clearing speed. When shooting bursts at 11 frames per second, the buffer stalls after just three seconds, forcing photographers into a severe 45-to-60-second slowdown unless they switch exclusively to JPEG capture. Additionally,...

The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH lens is characterized as a top optical performer, delivering exceptionally uniform sharpness across almost all focal lengths and apertures, along with negligible lateral chromatic aberration. Its standout performance includes excellent backlight handling, allowing for significant shadow detail recovery in post-processing. Photo Review Conversely, the lens exhibits moderate edge softening at maximum aperture, though this improves quickly by f/5, and diffraction slightly reduces sharpness beyond f/11. While offering high contrast, the lens can produce blocked-up shadows in harsh lighting conditions prior to editing.

The Macfilos review explores the unconventional "mix-and-match" pairing of the budget-friendly, original 2020 Panasonic Lumix S5 camera body with the premium, highly-regarded Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4.0 ASPH lens. The author tested this unique L-mount setup at an outdoor Italian car exhibition, noting that despite criticism from gear purists, the setup forms a highly functional and "happy marriage". Because the lens serves as the primary driver of overall image quality, the 24MP sensor of the Lumix S5—which shares striking similarities with the significantly more expensive Leica SL2-S—performed exceptionally well, yielding ultra-sharp, detailed, and professional-tier photographs. The primary pros of this combination include a massive 200g weight reduction over standard Leica SL bodies, making the setup much more stable and comfortable to handle via the S5's generous ergonomic grip. Furthermore, autofocus speeds proved surprisingly snappy, the 24-90mm focal range serves as the "perfect all-rounder" for event photography, and the Lumix S5 features a highly versatile fully-articulated rear screen. On the downside, the key cons focus on the physical traits of the lens and body layout; the lens is notoriously massive, heavy, and...

The Leica SL3 represents a refined evolution of Leica's mirrorless system, offering a significantly improved, highly customizable user interface and a slightly more compact, "cuddly" body profile that handles better than its predecessors. The camera’s standout strengths include its logical, finger-friendly menu system that eliminates arbitrary page numbers, an exceptional 5.76 million-dot electronic viewfinder with a 120 fps refresh rate, and excellent integration with other Leica models like the Q3 and M11. Additionally, the introduction of customizable control lock features successfully prevents accidental focus point drifting, a major upgrade for traditional focus-and-recompose photographers. While native Leica SL glass remains optically superb but notably heavy, the author found that pairing the body with lightweight, budget-friendly Panasonic Lumix S primes and zooms transforms the SL3 into a highly manageable, day-to-day carry camera. However, the camera has notable drawbacks, most significantly its poor battery life, which is officially rated at just 260 frames per charge—a clear step backward from the older SL2 and a low figure compared to rivals from Canon and Nikon. The transition to a soft power button left the reviewer...

The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH. is hailed as a highly versatile, sharp, and durable L-mount lens featuring excellent optical performance, minimal distortion, and effective weather sealing. It is well-suited for travel and general photography, offering optical image stabilization and strong close-focus capabilities. However, the lens is heavy, expensive, and features a variable aperture that limits speed at the telephoto end. Other drawbacks noted include significant vignetting at 24mm and lower edge resolution compared to the center.

The review of the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f/2.8-4 ASPH lens on Shige's hobby highlights its sophisticated modern design, featuring 18 elements in 15 groups, a fast rear-focusing system, and effective internal focusing that maintains a consistent length during AF acquisition. Additionally, the lens features built-in optical image stabilization, a rare and valuable inclusion for a standard zoom lens. However, the analysis notes that the stabilization offers limited benefits at the 90mm end and is barely noticeable at 24mm. Key drawbacks include an electronic, front-mounted focus ring lacking tactile feedback and distance indicators, along with a significantly telescoping barrel that reaches maximum length at 90mm.