Having time to do a bit of a deeper dive with the 180/2X combo on the SL2, I’m being reminded of some of what I encountered with it when I used it intermittently last year. It’s quite a list of niggles, prompting me to consider possible alternatives for the combo.

First of all, there’s no shutter priority when the R-Adapter-L is used, as it must be because of its tripod thread used to attach the strap or harness. In M mode, EV works but cannot be assigned to a dial, only accessed by touch screen.

Then there’s the previously-described loss of spot metering and EV when focus magnification is enabled, making it more difficult to achieve critical focus in certain lighting situations. Another niggle with the R-Adapter-L is that the camera takes about six or seven seconds to wake up when a non-ROM lens is attached. No problem with the 180 alone, but the 2X is non-ROM.

The R-Adapter-M and M-Adapter-L used together with the combo allow no lag in wakeup time, but adding the tripod foot would make it a bit unwieldy. As an aside, even if a ROM 2X is used, the R-Adapter-L does not recognize it, and an alternate lens profile must still be selected in order to get stabilization.

Still with me? Gripey as I may sound, the setup produces great images whenever I manage to wake it and guess the right settings. So the SL2 is going nowhere. It’s pure perfection with shorter manual glass in aperture-priority mode. But the notion of another body of similar resolution but different branding has crossed my mind lately.

But which body? Nikon makes a few bodies with 45.4 megapixels, but they all use Sony sensors. so “no” twice to that. The R5 would be perfect—but for the fact that Canon very deliberately crippled it for manual lenses by not enabling peaking when magnification is activated. Fuji, which I’ve completely bypassed since a brief dalliance with an X-E1 a dozen years ago, has some interesting, IBIS-enabled crop sensor bodies. But they seem overpriced for what they offer.

So it all circles back to another SL2 or a choice of emotion, not logic—a CL. Yeah, I know the old saying: “There’s no perfect camera.”

But . . . why can’t there be?

Below, a crop from the 180/2X combo at its worst: at f/5.6 under dim canopy on a mostly black bird. Yeah, the combo satisfies . . .