Leica CL in Scotland 2018 - Part 4
Don't miss Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this elongated review of the Leica CL.The weather up here in north west Scotland is quite bonkers. I was woken by the house physically shaking as 80mph winds flew in from the Atlantic. I've never been in a house that shakes before, so it was quite a revelation. Luckily it wasn't much colder (3C) otherwise we'd have been in blizzard territory again.Today the mission was to head to the very north of Scotland to visit some abandoned lime kilns in the middle of nowhere. On the way up we stopped at Oldshoremore, which is a tiny hamlet and an amazing beach. The 80mph winds hadn't abated, so I decided to make a feature of the way that they blew the long grasses that were a major feature of the dunes that led up to the beach. Sometimes it's good to turn 180 degrees to the "obvious" shot (beach, waves, rocks) and get something a bit different.
Asides from struggling to stand up in the high winds, it was a gorgeous location and absolutely deserted apart from Gordon and myself.Anyhow, back to the Leica CL. I'm not changing lenses very much because the 18-56 zoom is so flexible. I have only used the 55-135 very occasionally. As a result, the I'm finding no sensor dust issues. My M10 used to be a bit of a dust magnet, which was probably due to the fact that, when using primes, you tend to change lenses very frequently. I've had the 18-56 on the camera pretty much all the time so lens swapping has been minimal and sensor dust is non-existent.
You'll have seen some annoying aspects of the CL in the previous three episodes of this review, and I'm not hesitant to add some more. I'd really like the shutter button to be threaded so it will accept a cable release. With the camera mounted on a tripod, and needing to get the timing spot on (e.g. a wave breaking on a rocky shore), it's simply not good enough to guess things with a 2-second shutter delay, or risk moving things by pressing the shutter release at just the right time. You could use the app on a smartphone, but lets be realistic - nobody can be arsed to get a smartphone out and pair it to the camera and hold it in sea spray in order to get the timing right. It should be pretty simple to have a threaded shutter button.
Another point to moan about is that the inbuilt spirit level is not actually all that accurate. It's a very handy feature that gets things pretty well level, but it's not spot on. I have found myself levelling pictures in Lightroom after the fact even though the inbuilt level has lit up green. I'm prepared to forgive this one as, typically, I am completely crap at getting anything level in camera, and the spirit level gets it more-or-less accurate.
So, another day in the dramatic north west of Scotland. If you haven't been here, you should come. It's really amazingly spectacular. The CL continues to be very impressive despite the minor niggles mentioned above. Image quality is amazing, and the 18-56 has been a pretty permanent fixture on the camera. Tomorrow should be a lie-in day with bacon and egg sandwiches, but Friday weather looks more promising with a likely climb up the Quinag range.Go to Part 5