S2 Release Date.

[sdai]

Originally Posted by dfarkas

I have no idea what the price will be. How much is a vertical grip for the H3DII or P1 645?

Mamiya hasn't annouced the price for the 645 DF vertical grip yet so I don't know, the H doesn't have a vertical grip.

These are 645 format cameras so they are squarer in terms of framing. A vertical grip seems to be more necessary for the S2 to me because it adopts the 3:2 ratio.

[carstenw]

Originally Posted by sdai

Mamiya hasn't annouced the price for the 645 DF vertical grip yet so I don't know, the H doesn't have a vertical grip.

I get the feeling that this was *exactly* David's point...

These are 645 format cameras so they are squarer in terms of framing. A vertical grip seems to be more necessary for the S2 to me because it adopts the 3:2 ratio.

4:5 and 6:45 people also turns their cameras. The only common format which has no need is the 6x6.

[ptomsu]

Carsten

slowly I need to ask: Since when are you paid by Leica?

[carstenw]

I don't get paid by Leica. I am just a pedant, that's all. I home in on misleading claims (intentional or unintentional).

[tom0511]

IMO one does not necesarly need a vertical grip to be able to shoot vertical.
I dont see any problems to take vertical shots with a lets say D300 or M8 or whatever without a vertical grip.

If I change from horicontal to vertical with my D3x just for 1 or 2 shots I often dont even use the vertical grip but just turn the whole camera 90 degrees holding it at the main grip.
I only would change to the vertical one when I would shoot a whole series vertical images.

I dont see a difference in comfort between 645 and 4x5 or 3x2 - for vertical you have to turn the camera 90 degrees.

The most compfortable thing though is a rotating back or sensor like a Mamiya 67 or Sinar back or Leaf Back.

[ptomsu]

Originally Posted by carstenw

I don't get paid by Leica. I am just a pedant, that's all. I home in on misleading claims (intentional or unintentional).

Well, they seem to even pay you more as you are also trying to defend ....

Don't take this too serious just joking.

[carstenw]

I know

[stevesanacore]

I was told about a six months ago from a MF dealer who has quite a good reputation that the body price was going to be about $12,000US. I wasn't aware that this has changed or that is has not been established as of yet. I think Leica has to target high end DSLR's and not MF cameras as their competition. I also don't see the motive for leaf shutters at all. Are they going after wedding photographers?

[dfarkas]

Originally Posted by stevesanacore

I also don't see the motive for leaf shutters at all. Are they going after wedding photographers?

Leaf shutters are most useful in fashion photography where portable studio lighting is being used on location. To get really vibrant blue skies on a sunny day, you must overpower the sun by one to two stops. So, if the ambient exposure is 1/250th @ f/11 ISO 100 you need lighting capable of outputting between f/16 and f/22 (usually from a battery-powered system). If your camera can only sync to 1/125th, you would need to either shoot at f/32 at ISO 100 or f/22 at ISO 50. Either way, this is a lot of power. Also, you'd be forced to get a lot of depth-of-field and use the lens at a diffraction-limited aperture. With a leaf shutter, you can sync at a higher speed, which drastically reduces the power requirements of the lighting and allows you to shoot at more open apertures. So, ISO 100, 1/500th @ f/11 would yield the desired effect, or ISO 50, 1/500th @ f/8. At lower power levels, battery-operated packs will recycle much quicker and last much longer on a single battery allowing the photographer to travel lighter and shoot faster. In studio, leaf shutters aid in reducing any visible ghosting caused by moving models under bright (>500w) modeling lights.

Of course, having the option of a fast focal plane shutter would let that same photographer flip a switch on the back of the camera and shoot wide open at f/2.5 and 1/4000th for super-shallow depth-of-field with available light.

For landscape photography at slow shutter speeds, leaf shutters cause less vibration than focal plane shutters.This could result in sharper pictures at slowish speeds (like 1/8th, for example).

David

[AlanG]

On leaf shutters, I agree that they may be a benefit for use with flash in brightly lit situations.. Especially giving the potential that David described above. However I can't say I personally needed 1/500th flash synch too often. All of the MF gear I've shot with had leaf shutters. And I have a lot of powerful battery strobes. But maybe others frequently use this technique.

Since we're talking about fast leaf shutter speeds, I though I'd mention something I learned in school that I have rarely seen discussed since. Leaf shutters are affected by a loss of efficiency at high speeds and small apertures. To understand this realize that the shutter blades move at a constant speed and take a certain amount of time to open and close. So if the shutter is set at 1/500th of a second the amount of time that f22 will be uncovered is much greater than how long f2.5 will be uncovered.

So consider a shot in full sun that will require 1/500th at f16 to make the sky darker than the strobe lit subject. However the the effective shutter speed may top out around 1/250th when stopped down to f16. I'm not sure if modern electronic shutters and apertures use any techniques to try to compensate for this.

Additionally leaf shutter speeds are calculated from the time they are 1/2 open until they are 1/2 closed. So the bottom line is that at higher speeds, leaf shutter speeds are not "accurate" in the manner we're used to with focal plane shutters.

[Gentleman Villain]

Alan, that's an excellent point

I hope David doesn't mind...but I figured this was a good time to link to some information on his blog about the S2 flash sync speed:

Another speed question, and one that I'm particularly interested in myself, is the sync speed on the leaf shutter. The answer is "at least 1/500th of a sec, hopefully more." I asked about meeting or beating certain market competitors. Apparently, the team at Leica benchmarked their competitors and what is claimed on spec sheets is not always reality. The Sinar Hy6 with PQS lenses actually syncs at 1/750th not 1/1000th. The H3DII was clocked at 1/650th not 1/800th. Stephan gave me a brief education on leaf shutters. Leaf shutters do not work in a vacuum. Their speed is dictated by the aperture setting as well. The exposure time will actually double from wide-open to fully stopped-down. In other words, a leaf shutter that can sync at 1/500th wide open can only sync to 1/250th when stopped down. Most manufacturers rate their shutters for wide-open performance. Leica finds this method inaccurate. So, they will actually rate the shutter for stopped-down speed and slow it down as the aperture is opened up. This way, there is no exposure shift at varying f-stops. This means that Leica's 1/500th spec applies to all apertures. David Farkas Photography Blog

[giordano]

Originally Posted by AlanG

So consider a shot in full sun that will require 1/500th at f16 to make the sky darker than the strobe lit subject. However the the effective shutter speed may top out around 1/250th when stopped down to f16. I'm not sure if modern electronic shutters and apertures use any techniques to try to compensate for this.

Additionally leaf shutter speeds are calculated from the time they are 1/2 open until they are 1/2 closed. So the bottom line is that at higher speeds, leaf shutter speeds are not "accurate" in the manner we're used to with focal plane shutters.

Someone said on this forum a while ago that Leica have developed their own super-duper in-lens shutters which somehow avoid this problem. If so, it's quite an achievement. I wonder if they used two sets of blades:

1. Shutter cocked. "O" blades closed, "C" blades open
2. Shutter release starts two timers TO and TC running.
3. When TO fires (usually after a microsecond or so) the O blades start to move.
4. When TC fires (usually milliseconds later) the C blades start to move.

The idea is that for "ordinary" exposure times and apertures the difference between TO and TC will be a fraction more than the set exposure time, just enough to compensate for the effects Alan described. For short exposure times and small apertures the system would compensate by reducing the difference between TO and TC - possibly to the extent that for 1/500 at f/16 the C blades would be released an instant before the O ones.

[cpclee]

Originally Posted by dfarkas

With a leaf shutter, you can sync at a higher speed, which drastically reduces the power requirements of the lighting and allows you to shoot at more open apertures. So, ISO 100, 1/500th @ f/11 would yield the desired effect, or ISO 50, 1/500th @ f/8.

Hi David: On your blog you have several location portraits with intense blue sky taken with the DMR. Did you use HSS to create that effect? My understanding is that with HSS you'd lose a lot of flash power, so wouldn't you still need very powerful strobes there? Is the situation somehow different with leaf shutters? Thanks.

[dfarkas]

Originally Posted by cpclee

Hi David: On your blog you have several location portraits with intense blue sky taken with the DMR. Did you use HSS to create that effect? My understanding is that with HSS you'd lose a lot of flash power, so wouldn't you still need very powerful strobes there? Is the situation somehow different with leaf shutters? Thanks.

You can check out the entire blog post with pictures and behind the scenes at David Farkas Photography Blog: August 2006

These were not done with HSS (High-Speed Sync). That system only works with a TTL-compatible flash on the camera hot shoe (or wirelessly with the new Pocket Wizard TT1/TT5s with Canon). They were shot with either one or two Elinchrom Ranger RX 1100Ws battery packs and/or Profoto Pro-7b 1200Ws packs.

The R9 syncs at 1/250th. If you look at the behind the scenes post, you can see that there were two Contax 645 cameras each with a Leaf Aptus 75 and a Hasselblad 501C/M with an Imacon 528C digital back. The Contax only syncs to 1/125th (same as Phase/Mamiya), the R9/DMR that I was shooting syncs at 1/250th, and the 501 C/M syncs at 1/500th. It was very interesting to see how each system worked under the same conditions.

The Contax needed twice the amount of light that the R9 needed. The R9 needed twice the amount of light as the Hassy. So, you need four times the amount of light to accomplish the same look at 1/125th as you do at 1/500th. For the horizontal shot of Rachael leaning on the fence (black one-piece suit), we needed two packs outputting full power for the Contax to get this dark a sky (ISO 50 1/125th @f/22). Two packs at full power is twice the amount of light as one pack. That is what one stop means! On the R9, I was able to do the same shot (same ratio of flash to ambient) with two packs, each at half-power. The Hassy could have done the same with both packs at 1/4 power. On the Ranger and Profoto 7b, you can get about 2000-3000 pops at 1/4 power, but only 250 at full. Recycle time drops from 2.8 secs to less than 1 sec as well. So, having a leaf shutter would have been very advantageous. In fact, the same could have been done with two smaller and much lighter Profoto AcuteB 600R packs (10lbs).

Of course, all the pictures I posted were shot with the R9/DMR ISO 100 and 1/250th, between f/11 and f/22. The issue with HSS and small strobes is limited range and power as well as a lack of modifiers. Most of the shooting I did that day was with 27" white beauty dishes. I would have gotten very different results using a bare Metz flash.

Hopefully this (and the pictures) will help clarify.

David

[markowich]

interesting. seems a lot of technical sophistication. i wonder why a company with all this technology at its disposition did not figure out that the cameras (m8) they started to sell with big hype had:
*serious magenta shifts
*(medium iso) banding
*green (or red, do not remember) vertical lines appear at certain isos
*
*
*
with serious focus shift lenses (costing thousands of euros..).
what do you guys base your trust on? doesn't history teach us something?
peter

Originally Posted by Gentleman Villain

Alan, that's an excellent point

I hope David doesn't mind...but I figured this was a good time to link to some information on his blog about the S2 flash sync speed:

Another speed question, and one that I'm particularly interested in myself, is the sync speed on the leaf shutter. The answer is "at least 1/500th of a sec, hopefully more." I asked about meeting or beating certain market competitors. Apparently, the team at Leica benchmarked their competitors and what is claimed on spec sheets is not always reality. The Sinar Hy6 with PQS lenses actually syncs at 1/750th not 1/1000th. The H3DII was clocked at 1/650th not 1/800th. Stephan gave me a brief education on leaf shutters. Leaf shutters do not work in a vacuum. Their speed is dictated by the aperture setting as well. The exposure time will actually double from wide-open to fully stopped-down. In other words, a leaf shutter that can sync at 1/500th wide open can only sync to 1/250th when stopped down. Most manufacturers rate their shutters for wide-open performance. Leica finds this method inaccurate. So, they will actually rate the shutter for stopped-down speed and slow it down as the aperture is opened up. This way, there is no exposure shift at varying f-stops. This means that Leica's 1/500th spec applies to all apertures. David Farkas Photography Blog

[Jamie Roberts]

Originally Posted by markowich

interesting. seems a lot of technical sophistication. i wonder why a company with all this technology at its disposition did not figure out that the cameras (m8) they started to sell with big hype had:
*serious magenta shifts
*(medium iso) banding
*green (or red, do not remember) vertical lines appear at certain isos
{snipped}

Well, I for one base my trust (in the M8) on facts.

The M8 has no serious "magenta shift" but it does have an IR problem that filters completely fix. It has no medium ISO banding--I don't know what you're talking about there (if we agree that ISO 640 is medium ISO--maybe you don't).

In fact, the only image artifact the M8 suffers from is the very rare green band. I agree that's a bad artifact, but in tens of thousands of shots and 2.5 years of M8 professional use, I've seen it less than 3 times.

Hardly untrustworthy, IMO. My Canons had worse banding problems (and they were good too, but no technology is perfect).

The DMR is unaffected by the M8's compatibilty design, and doesn't suffer from any image flaws whatsoever.

So technically, Leica has always been superb.

The only question for me is whether they can create a high-end service pipeline. That will make or break the s2--I have no doubt that technically it will deliver the goods.

[pascal_meheut]

Not to mention that the M8 offered the best compatibility with existing lenses I've seen in a digital camera, which is quite a technical achievement compared to other manufacturers.

But who cares about the truth when it simpler to engage in Leica-bashing without even knowing what the problems are?

[stunsworth]

Originally Posted by Jamie Roberts

n fact, the only image artifact the M8 suffers from is the very rare green band. I agree that's a bad artifact, but in tens of thousands of shots and 2.5 years of M8 professional use, I've seen it less than 3 times.

I've seen it in two shots out of 19,000 - and they were consecutive frames. It's an issue that shouldn't be there, but not a serious one.

I've never noticed a banding issue.

The only real issue I've noticed is the camera locking up and requiring the battery to be taken out and reinserted before being able to continue. That's annoying and has happened maybe 10 times in the last two and a half years.

There seem to be a number of people here condemning the S2 before it's even released. I can't help but notice that some of them have already invested large sums of money in other systems. Maybe they do it to try and mentally protect their existing investment? Maybe, just maybe, it would be better to wait and see how the system performs and how much it costs before dismissing it as a failure.

[ptomsu]

While the M8 turns out to be a great and reliable camera once over the initial introduction issues and once you learn to live with it's limitations, Leica still needs to prove that they can do better in terms of introduction to market and support with the S System. I have big doubts there

I have no doubts that the S System will be technically superior

[markowich]

sorry jamie, but by D3- series cameras let me think that iso 640 is low---))
just to put some historical facts straight, the m8 has a serious IR problem, for which leica months after delivery proposed an awkward fix, namely the filters. my first m8 was exchanged by leica because of what i call medium iso and you call high iso banding. ok, that was a problem of the imaging pipeline which the company which provides the m8 circuitry for leica got fixed after time. all that tells me is that the low-medium tech opto-mechanical company leica has serious problems going hi-tech after years of denial that the future of photography is digital. it is all patch work until now. hasselblad, leaf and phase have years of experience in the digital mdium format area, will be very hard to beat. certainly not in final IQ, which is determined by the sensor, the image pipeline, the software and to a somewhat lesser degree by the lens quality. and please keep in mind that i said 'final' IQ, which means after PP, where many lens defects can be fixed nowadays.
and then yes, as you said, the service structure is going to be a main challenge for them.
i reiterate, what leica should do is produce lenses for nikon, canon, sony and maybe even for the medium format players. leave all the rest to the big boys.
peter

Originally Posted by Jamie Roberts

Well, I for one base my trust (in the M8) on facts.

The M8 has no serious "magenta shift" but it does have an IR problem that filters completely fix. It has no medium ISO banding--I don't know what you're talking about there (if we agree that ISO 640 is medium ISO--maybe you don't).

In fact, the only image artifact the M8 suffers from is the very rare green band. I agree that's a bad artifact, but in tens of thousands of shots and 2.5 years of M8 professional use, I've seen it less than 3 times.

Hardly untrustworthy, IMO. My Canons had worse banding problems (and they were good too, but no technology is perfect).

The DMR is unaffected by the M8's compatibilty design, and doesn't suffer from any image flaws whatsoever.

So technically, Leica has always been superb.

The only question for me is whether they can create a high-end service pipeline. That will make or break the s2--I have no doubt that technically it will deliver the goods.