New S2 Owner

[Grummz]

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I just picked up my S2 and 70mm from OC Camera in Orange County, CA. Incredible shop and service, btw!

 

They had loaned me an S2 over the weekend for evaluation. I tried it hand held, outdoors, indoors and with a full studio setup with profoto equipment (for Mother's Day family portraits).

 

I am not a professional, and I shoot as a hobby. I've been shooting landscapes, art, street, glamour and portraits. While I use a Nikon D40x and a D300s, my main cameras are actually film. I use two Nikon F4s' and a Leica M6. It was my experience with the M6 that lead me to invest in the S2.

 

Loved:

 

Resolution was phenomenal coming from 35mm. I enjoy shooting film for the look as well as the resolution, but now with the S2 I get the resolution (actually much more resolution) and the digital look as well (clean, no grain). I can finally crop digital images and not worry about losing too much resolution.

 

Also, the feel was incredible. The camera is really not that much bigger than my DX D300s, and smaller than the D3x. But more importantly, the four button layout on the LCD is great, as is the clicking wheel and the shutter. The controls feel almost perfect to me, and the menus are much faster and easier to use than my Nikons. Workflow is important to me, as I have to be pretty fast sometimes!

 

Optics, optics, optics. I was floored by the quality of negatives I was getting from Leica glass, and the S2 is no exception. Even my non photographer friends have picked up on the sharpness and contrast that I've been getting from Leica lenses in images that highlight their strengths.

 

Not so Loved:

 

Did not like the image playback controls. It was the only thing I could not figure out on my own without reading the manual. Boo.

 

White Balance. Auto white balance seemed to freak out and provide inconsistent results, even under studio lighting conditions.

 

Lens Girth. While the body is quite comfortable, I often pick up cameras by cradling the base of the lens near the center of mass. Not so easy with the S2 with its huge lenses and prone to slippage...stick to the grip.

 

Exp Compensation. I was frustrated that this was not a top level control for the camera, and that it lacked an in-viewfinder display. However, programming custom functions turned out to be easy, and I soon had it on a convenient button on the LCD panel.

 

Handheld blur. It's tough to keep this camera from blurring at slower shutter speeds. Not sure why. Maybe the mirror mass?

 

Low ISO. I've been fine up to 640, and coming from film, its much better than I'm used to...but I still envy the Nikon D3s, and wish that a firmware update in the future would allow bucketing or some other technique for a few more stops of sensitivity.

 

The good news is that the new firmware is supposed to address all my top issues (well, except for shrinking the lenses and handheld blur by fixing white balance, displaying exp. comp and fixing picture review workflow. Once my Leica owner's account is activate, I'm going to try it. It is VERY annoying that it takes 24 hours to activate the account when every other website pretty much does it instantaneously!

 

On issues of Moire that Erica experienced, I did not see any on my studio shoot with the family. I tried with rough silk and all of us were wearing various materials. Not sure why I haven't seen it yet.

 

Conclusion:

 

I think that as a 35mm SLR user, the S2 is a great transition to medium format. I don't think I would deal well with the odd form factor of the Hassy, or its other quirks such as slower shooting speeds, slower lenses, leaf shutters and other traditional medium format traits. I felt right at home with the S2 and I think this is maybe what Leica intended as a primary market...since I can't see why a medium format user would convert at this point to an S2.

 

The S2 will serve very well as my studio and landscape camera. My D300s will handle the action and lower light shots, and the film cameras will still be doing lots of my more artistic and street work. Loving it so far!

[c6gowin]

Hi Grummz. Welcome to the forum and congratulations on getting your new S2. There are getting to be more and more S2 owners on the forum now so we help each other and grow together with the S2 system.

 

I agree with your loves of the S2 and will try to address some of your not so loved items. First off, you are right the new firmware makes some nice changes.

 

Did not like the image playback controls. - Control is a bit different from other cameras and it is not immediately obvious how to zoom, scroll around image and move from image to image. However, once you figure it out it works well. The new firmware changes the default status of the thumbwheel during image playback from zoom to change images.

 

White Balance. Auto white balance seemed to freak out and provide inconsistent results, even under studio lighting conditions. - I haven't had this problem. In fact, I very rarely have to tweak the white balance more than just a few degrees from the automatically selected value. Most of the time the auto white balance works very well for me. I don't shoot in a studio, but I would expect you would have very good control over the color temperature and would be better off setting it manually rather than using auto.

 

Lens Girth - Yes, the 70mm lens does have a large diameter. I can only guess that it is that large so it can accommodate the central shutter (the non CS lens is the same as the CS lens except it doesn't have central shutter). I have got used to lens size now, maybe you will too. I frequently pick up the camera by the lens and it is not a problem now that I am familiar with its feel.

 

Exp Compensation - The latest firmware makes exposure compensation visible in the viewfinder. I have the bottom right button programmed for exposure compensation. This way I can press the button with my thumb and change exposure compensation without having to take my left hand off the lens. The only problem with the new firmware is that it doesn't show the exposure compensation changes in real time as they are being adjusted, it is only shown when the change is committed.

 

Handheld blur - The S2 is very well dampened so the handheld blur is usually caused by camera movement from the user more than mirror slap. This is the price of high resolution. I try to keep the shutter speed at 1/125 or above for hand held shots and my percentage of sharp photos goes up with each increase in shutter speed (1/250 or more is almost always sharp). I have managed to get a critically sharp hand held (not braced) photo at 1/30, but I would never expect that result very often. The beauty of digital is that it doesn't cost anything to try and the instant feedback lets you know if it worked or not.

 

Low ISO - Medium format cameras are not good at high ISO and the S2 is no different. I would it if high ISO were possible without much loss in dynamic range and sharpness, but that isn't the case. I am hopeful that Leica will be able to improve high ISO performance of the S2 in future firmware updates or profiles. Like you, I have a dSLR for high ISO and action photography.

[Grummz]

Thanks for the welcome.

 

I just got the firmware installed. Leica USA helped me by sending it directly to me. I still can't get into the owners section though, but they are working with Germany on that.

 

Looking forward to some shooting this weekend, possibly in Big Bear. Will post shots.

 

- Markus