S2 shoot and some P45+ comparisons

[freusen]

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.........Well, first of all thank you Tim for the effort and for sharing your findings with us, much appreciated.........

 

.........I hope that Leica will add some real WA in the lineup, otherwise they will be missing a serious part of the market.........

+1

 

With the S2 camera Leica tries to find a niche in the digital camera market, it had been suicide to produce another new 35mm DSLR or MF camera system.

It is David against Goliath, I hope they succeed.

 

FrankR

______

[tashley]

Why not keep just the Phase back and buy a Tech Cam you need and sell the rest of the Phase gear and buy a S2?

 

I am almost at this stage now, having no money invested currently in MF.

 

I think I will go with a P45+ (maybe used) and an Alpa cam with 1 or 2 great lenses (Schneider or Rodenstock) for serious landscape.

 

And a S2 with 3 lenses 70 and 180 being fix starters. Will see what I need in the WA area.

 

And good thing then, I still can remain in C1 for processing all my files :-))

 

It's an attractive idea - but I already have a very nice tech cam and glass and the trade in value of the remaining Phase kit (body and some glass) is pretty limited.

 

My main desire is to consolidate and reduce equipment levels to try to regain some purity. When I open my gear cupboard I'd like to see one MF system, one SLR system, and M9 and glass, and something pocketable. In my dream world this gear would all use one battery charger too, and one of the larger sensored items would also shoot 1080p video. So at the moment I have Oly Pen/ 5DII/ M9/ Phase SLR and tech and what I'd liek to end up with is S2/M9/X1 but that leaves the tech and video bases uncovered...

 

Sigh. Money doesn't help... there's just no answer, at any cost!

[Vieri]

The WA limit for the S System is only for the beginning 35, there will more WAs follow, look at the Leica site.

 

So also WA would be covered nicely, actually far nicer compared to other MF solutions, with the S2.

 

Actually, I looked - the few things below are pretty important for me:

 

- first, after the first talks about the lens line-up (mentioning a 24 mm as the widest lens) there is no announcements of future WA lenses that I could find. Maybe you could point me to the announcement of these, or even to the announced date for the 24 to ship;

 

- second, even assuming that the 24 is still in Leica's plans, that would be a 20 mm FOV compared to 135 format (roughly), while both Phase & Hassy have a roughly 17 mm FOV, which is a significant difference in my book;

 

- last, but definitely not least, if you want to go out and shoot today, meaning if your customers want a photo today, while the S2 & 35mm are "nearly there" (which is quite not good enough for a shoot anyway), the 24 isn't much more than a ghost.

 

On a different note, I am a bit surprised at your clairvoyant comment that "WA would be covered nicely, actually far nicer compared to other MF solutions", when the the S2's 24mm's angle of coverage will be smaller compared to the other MF solutions and - most important - when nobody has seen the ghostly S2's 24mm yet let alone having shoot with it.

[ptomsu]

It's an attractive idea - but I already have a very nice tech cam and glass and the trade in value of the remaining Phase kit (body and some glass) is pretty limited.

 

My main desire is to consolidate and reduce equipment levels to try to regain some purity. When I open my gear cupboard I'd like to see one MF system, one SLR system, and M9 and glass, and something pocketable. In my dream world this gear would all use one battery charger too, and one of the larger sensored items would also shoot 1080p video. So at the moment I have Oly Pen/ 5DII/ M9/ Phase SLR and tech and what I'd liek to end up with is S2/M9/X1 but that leaves the tech and video bases uncovered...

 

Sigh. Money doesn't help... there's just no answer, at any cost!

 

Well,

 

it remains to be seen what the S2 can do, right?

 

If you are going for landscape with the S2 instead of a tech cam, then in my opinion stitching is the better way in any case, So using the S2 and stitching must bring great results. I do NOT believe in that a tech cam lens is better than a S2 lens. If it comes down to TS, then maybe a tech cam will be better, need to wait for the S TS lens. But as I normally do not use TS anyway, for me this is not a big issue and I could easily survive with just the S2 for "normal" MF work and landscape.

 

WRT other systems in parallel? Well I think that the M system might cover most of the remaining situations, but if it really comes to action and sport shooting neither the M nor the S system will do. For this I am keeping my Alpha system, simply because it is enough for me WRT speed, and I also have highest confidence in Sony to produce future sensor and DSLR upgrades at a high quality level for a good price and not heavily overpriced as Nikon and Canon. And I do like their in body IS, because it works for all lenses and IS in the lens is always coming with lower IQ, no matter what vendors promise.

 

And finally - a compact - I think that the X1 is rather limiting and will not be so much more outstanding in quality compared to say the M4/3, so I choose to go with a Pana GF system here.

[ptomsu]

Actually, I looked - the few things below are pretty important for me:

 

- first, after the first talks about the lens line-up (mentioning a 24 mm as the widest lens) there is no announcements of future WA lenses that I could find. Maybe you could point me to the announcement of these, or even to the announced date for the 24 to ship;

 

- second, even assuming that the 24 is still in Leica's plans, that would be a 20 mm FOV compared to 135 format (roughly), while both Phase & Hassy have a roughly 17 mm FOV, which is a significant difference in my book;

 

- last, but definitely not least, if you want to go out and shoot today, meaning if your customers want a photo today, while the S2 & 35mm are "nearly there" (which is quite not good enough for a shoot anyway), the 24 isn't much more than a ghost.

 

On a different note, I am a bit surprised at your clairvoyant comment that "WA would be covered nicely, actually far nicer compared to other MF solutions", when the the S2's 24mm's angle of coverage will be smaller compared to the other MF solutions and - most important - when nobody has seen the ghostly S2's 24mm yet let alone having shoot with it.

 

WRT S 24, I agree it is not there, but I am confident it will come - not sure when though ....

 

WRT IQ I am simply sure that Leica IQ will be better than any of the MF competitors. All the 28's for Hasselblad and Phase have their issues and without heavy lens correction in post processing are not really useable full frame. Also if stopped down. If you consider this, then it is not such an amusing part of the Phase / Hassi stories today :-(

 

Of course, if you really want highest WA IQ, then you should go for a tech cam - period. But if you are sure you want to do this, then the S System will remain just another MF system in your lineup and this will be expensive, because in fact you buy then 2 backs (S2 and some other MFDB) and lenses for both systems. Not sure that I do not want to go this path myself, but to be honest for the biginning I need to concentrate on one solution - simply a question of money

 

But you are definitely right with your assumption that it might/will take some long time before we will really be able to buy all planned lenses of the S System lineup - unfortunately Leica did not change in this regards.

[tashley]

Well,

 

it remains to be seen what the S2 can do, right?

 

If you are going for landscape with the S2 instead of a tech cam, then in my opinion stitching is the better way in any case, So using the S2 and stitching must bring great results. I do NOT believe in that a tech cam lens is better than a S2 lens. If it comes down to TS, then maybe a tech cam will be better, need to wait for the S TS lens. But as I normally do not use TS anyway, for me this is not a big issue and I could easily survive with just the S2 for "normal" MF work and landscape.

 

 

 

Sorry, I disagree - my Cambo allows me to take three shots with all movements on the back rather than on the front and then stitch them. That means no parallax error, and perfect 'flat-stitching' with no software interpolation. Which is just better, period. Also, the Schneider 35XL is widely regarded as one of the finest lenses ever made, and it has a leaf shutter and no focal plane shutter or mirror so you can use light tripods and heads and slow shutter speeds.

 

 

 

 

WRT other systems in parallel? Well I think that the M system might cover most of the remaining situations, but if it really comes to action and sport shooting neither the M nor the S system will do. For this I am keeping my Alpha system, simply because it is enough for me WRT speed, and I also have highest confidence in Sony to produce future sensor and DSLR upgrades at a high quality level for a good price and not heavily overpriced as Nikon and Canon. And I do like their in body IS, because it works for all lenses and IS in the lens is always coming with lower IQ, no matter what vendors promise.

 

And finally - a compact - I think that the X1 is rather limiting and will not be so much more outstanding in quality compared to say the M4/3, so I choose to go with a Pana GF system here.

 

I sort of agree with a lot of that... the X1 will be limiting but it is genuinely pocketable unlike the panny or the oly pen so I really will always have it with me rather than always intending to have it with me... And I like the 5DII because it is way better at higher ISO than the Sony (sorry!) and shoots great video.

 

But we all have different needs and perceptions...