Yearly Archives: 2026

A wireless remote for the Leica SL2-S

Leica

Inexpensive and versatile.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

Wireless remotes are useful tools whether it’s for bird photography or shake-free images in the studio when the camera is on a tripod.

With my Nikon D800 sold I was using a $12 wired remote with the Leica SL2-S in the studio for macro photography, along with the required $7 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter to fit that remote to either of the two coaxial sockets under the rubber cover on the left side of the body. But I had a hankering for a wireless remote but none is listed specifically for the Leica SL series.

It struck me that the Oppilas Pixel wireless remote I used with the Nikon D700 and D800 might be easily adapted for use with the SL2-S, needing just a 2.5mm to 2.5mm coaxial cable (this replaces the one with the 2.5mm to Nikon multi-connector plug cable) along with the above mentioned 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. And, sure enough, it works perfectly.

If you do not already have one of those remotes, buy the one for the Panasonic S1 – $35 – which has a 2.5mm female socket on the body and add the 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. Add four AAA batteries, two for the trigger and two for the receiver. This is how it looks on the camera:



On the Leica SL2-S.

The device uses radio frequency waves to communicate between the trigger and the on camera receiver so line-of-sight is not required. The receiver attaches to the hot shoe of the Leica and has a locking device. In practice, in the studio I have a wireless strobe trigger connected to the hot shoe so I simply attach the receiver to the camera’s neck strap with a wire tie. The receiver is not a hot shoe device, making its sole connection with the camera through the coaxial cable.

The manufacturer claims a range of 262 feet (!). My home test with one wall between the camera and the remote showed it works fine at 60 feet after which I ran out of corridor! And I’m not sure that in the field I want to be any further away from so costly a camera.

Will this work with other models in the SL range (SL601, SL2, SL3, SL3-S, SL3-P)? I do not know as I prefer to remain solvent, having just the one SL2-S body, but as all the SL bodies appear to be fitted with 3.5mm female sockets I would guess there should be no problem.

The trigger has four positions – Single shot, Continuous, Bulb and Self timer. If you keep the button depressed in Single shot mode the camera will take an image every second. For Continuous set the drive mode on the SL2-S to Continuous and the selector on the remote likewise. As long as the remote’s button is depressed the camera will bang away at the frequency you elected. For Bulb exposures set the SL2-S to Manual exposure, the exposure time to ‘B’ and the remote to Bulb. A first press on the remote’s button opens the shutter, a second press closes it. For delayed action set the remote’s selector to the clock face and you will get a 6 second delay after pressing the button before the camera’s shutter is released – this works in either Manual or Auto exposure modes. Handy.

Bottom line? This inexpensive wireless remote ($35 + $7 for the coaxial adapter), which I have been using for over a decade, adapts well to the Leica SL2-S with no operational issues. Just be careful not to knock that protruding adapter when it is inserted in the camera’s socket. Have you checked Leica’s repair costs and turnarounds recently?

Leica SL2-S firmware update 6.3.0

Leica

Plain sailing – with one precaution.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.



Firmware 6.3.0 installed.

Leica is to be commended for its continuing support of the discontinued Leica SL2-S body.

They just issued firmware update 6.3.0 which does the following:



Changes in firmware 6.3.0.

While I have not had the DNG file issue when using Adobe Denoise, it’s nice to see that Leica is on top of this.

The PDF file listing the above is erroneously captioned ‘6.2.0’, but no matter, and there are no English installation instructions, but the process is easy.

I just updated and had no issues. It took 4 minutes during which time the rear red LED flashed. After copying the firmware file to the SDHC card and starting the update I was prompted to insert a fresh, fully charged battery. I suggest before you run the update (Menu Page 6->Camera Information->Camera Firmware Version->Start Update) you save your user profile to the SDHC card. The firmware update will ask if you want to do this, as long as you are doing this using the camera, not an iPhone.

It’s a laborious task to set up user profiles and the camera will be reset to the factory defaults after the firmware update.

Precaution:

Do not update the firmware using your iPhone, which is an option. That update path will not allow you to save your user settings file – there is no prompt to do so. If you must use the iPhone be sure to save the user settings file to the SDHC card first. (Menu Page 4->User Profile->Manage Profiles->Export Profiles->Yes).

To recover/reinstall the profile(s) go to Menu Page 4->User Profile->Manage Profiles->Import Profiles->Yes.

Worked for me and all my preferred settings are once more active.

Paul Prudhomme

Cooking, Dining

Cajun cooking.




Cajuns migrated from southern France to Nova Scotia whence they were kicked out by the British, moving to French Louisiana. This was before Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, buying Louisiana and a bunch of other states from Napoleon. Nappy promptly wasted the proceeds on his disastrous invasion of Russia.

Paul Prudhomme (1940-2015) was a Louisiana born chef, the youngest of thirteen (!) children, who learned cooking from his mother. The home had no refrigerator so everything was sourced daily from the surrounding land. He remains the dean of French influenced Cajun cooking, and of its Creole cousin with its more African focus.

Cajun cooking has a strong focus on chicken, shrimp and fish, and both the classic ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen‘ (Cajun and Creole) and ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Seasoned America‘ (countrywide American dishes) make extensive use of spices, often as many as nine or more. So probably ill suited to bland English palates. The books were published in 1984 and 1991 and, rightly, remain in print. Invest in these and your spice drawer will grow. Mine comes in at no fewer than 68.

Prudhomme opened his famous restaurant K Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in 1979 (now closed) and I was fortunate to dine there, in beautiful New Orleans, in 1982, enjoying a still memorable seafood and Andouille sausage gumbo with a Cajun Martini*. The line was out around the corner and I was accompanied by my girlfriend of the time, appropriately a Southern beauty and native of nearby Mobile, Alabama. As we waited behind a couple of cops, she got into conversation with one and they discovered that they has been high school classmates some 20 years ago!

Anyway, if you like properly and subtly spiced food in Cajun and American styles these two books are strongly recommended. Clearly Louisiana natives have abundant time on their hands as some of these recipes are anything but speedy. No problem for this retired old fart. Be warned that the layout is dated – solid text interleaved with (beautifully photographed) color plates – maybe just 5% of the recipes illustrated. From a health standpoint our understanding of saturated fats and their artery clogging proclivities is far better than it was when these tomes were written, so I would advise cutting back on processed Andouille sausage, and replacing margarine (ugh!), butter and vegetable oil with extra virgin olive oil, in the interest of heart health. Also the recipes frustratingly use volume (cups) instead of weight, though that is easily fixed with the knowledge that 1 cup = 8 ounces.

Tip: Unless you like your books splattered with food, juices and oils, no cookbook should ever see the inside of a kitchen. Take a picture with your cell phone, print and annotate the result and it’s off to the stove.

A word of warning: A few of the recipes call for warming up your pan until it is smoking hot, adding the fish or chicken and then immediately adding butter. That’s a prescription for fire. In a large, professional kitchen with large, vented hoods that’s likely not an issue. However, in the tighter confines of a home kitchen you could be looking at a visit from the fire brigade. I avoid those recipes.

Searing: I have found that the safest way of searing meat is to use a cast iron pan and avocado oil. Avocado oil has a smoke point of 515F (270C) which is the highest of any commonly available vegetable oil. By contrast, extra virgin olive oil smokes at 375F (190C) – far lower. I heat the oil in the pan until it just starts smoking then add the meat of choice. Safe, with negligible fire risk.

*Soak coined jalapeno peppers in dry/white vermouth for a week, strain and add vodka. Liquid fire.