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diglloyd revisits the Leica S2


R3D-D0T

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Thoughts?

Primarily that in the online age people with very little insight - but a proclivity for shouting loudly - can successfully market themselves as 'experts'.

 

Diglloyd and Ming Thein are the co-leaders of a strange resolution cult that has precious little to do with photography.

Edited by almoore
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Yawn. Quite unsure why some posters do nothing but create and share negativity. If you don't like Leica, move along. Forum after forum on this website, the same guys making negative commentas or blowing things out of proportion. As I said, yawn.

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It's hard to tell about Leica's viability. They certainly are doing some strange things. But my overriding feelings are they will conquer current problems and will rebuild things.

 

Regarding Loyds points:

1. It does seem plausible that the S System is dead. It's really strange how it's been handled and it seems there has been real damage to the brand.

2. I agree with his thoughts on the M. I feel hung out to dry with it too. I've invested a lot building a system and the M10 has locked me out with no tether. I still see no real reason to upgrade from my M9.

3. I don't think the SL is that bad, it's good. But I think it is a missed opportunity. I would not buy it in its current guise but would have strongly considered it if it was 50MP. The X1D/Fuji is more enticing to me.

4. I don't think Leica have wasted money. It takes longer than a year to establish a system like the SL. In terms of investors reluctant to drop more cash, I think Leica have always been a clever and long term company with plans that run into decades and more and I'm sure this is written in to the plan so i'm can't agree with that just yet.

 

I can't imagine many S cameras are going to be sold now. I certainly won't buy one and I was seriously considering it, more so since the M10 is not adding much to my life and infact takes important and fundamental things like tethering away. So time to look at other brands.

Edited by Paul J
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A bunch of conflicting opinions are expressed in the article, without facts.

Sort of like the OP. Just take a look at his post history, my money says paid by a competitor or works for a non-Leica dealer. Moderators should dig in, this guy is not for real. I came across about 25 of his posts in the past week on the M10, SL and this forum just baiting.

Edited by 349A
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Dignified reply R3D-DOT

 

 

I've considered MF with an S, especially for the glass and OVF. However there are issues of lens reliability, number of megapixels, support and long-term survival of the system, and of course there is now serious affordable digital MF competition.

Edited by MarkP
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I would not call that a "review" of a camera.

 

The two pictures are snapshots poorly taken and not indicative of what the S2, or any camera for that matter, is capable of doing (the second shot of the bridge is a landscape shot taken at full aperture, ISO 320 and 1/30... no tripod? no ISO 100? no stopped down? really?!). Not sure I understand how the article itself could be called "review" as there is no one single fact substantiating the comments. 

 

That being said, the general comments on Leica are a bunch of speculations and personal opinions and I guess that everyone is free to express his own opinion. Fair enough and I believe we can all respectfully disagree and it is up to us to give them credibility. For each argument I could come up with a counter argument as valid as his to prove the opposite or simply to prove a different opinion. For instance, I could easily argue that an M doesn't need tethering because most of the M users would not use the M in studio and for studio photographers there are so many alternative systems that are better at that while there is only one M and I would agree that Leica should accommodate the core M users (i.e. majority of buyers) instead of trying to please everyone if pleasing everyone means compromising (with all respect to Paul and many others who may be using the M for tethering in which case I can see why they are disappointed by Leica and it's fair that they voice their opinions - and probably if there were enough people complaining and voicing the need of tethering such capability would have been left in the M10).

 

I do think that for a small company like Leica the product range is possibly too broad and it requires a lot of financial resources to cope with the obsolescence of each product. Though the reality is that we are clients using their products and depending on the use that we do of these products we may be pleased or not with them. Cameras are horses for courses. And we may end up using the camera as the majority of users do and be happy because the camera was designed with us in mind or we may end up using the system as a minority and be disappointed because we wish the camera was different. But from our user's experience we can't judge how the business is run. Leica is a private company with little information out there. Are these products profitable? Are they expanding the client base? Do they allow to cross sell other products to the same clients? what's the return on capital invested? How the liquidity position is affected by the product mix? etc. Without knowing that one cannot make such accuse on a company as diglloyd did, unless one is doing it from his own perspective as a client who may or may not be biased and who may be happy or unhappy. And if you don't like Leica, that's great, just move on and buy something else. No need to make unnecessary noise. 

 

By the way, Canon and Nikon are the largest camera makers with the largest research and development budget and yet they are the least innovative camera makers. I am still waiting for something very innovative or disruptive on the market coming out of Canon or Nikon. Instead, lately I have seen more innovation from Fuji, Sony, Hasselblad and to certain degree even Leica than Canon and Nikon. Do we want to then talk about it? But again, are we users or investors? 

 

Cheers everyone,

Lorenzo

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With the advent of the SL, my thoughts immediately turned to the next possible evolution of the S on the same lines as the SL. It turns out Hasselblad had been thinking the same thing - voila X1D. It is my sincere hope that Leica has been working on a medium format equivalent of the SL. Yes, I know that the OVF would be gone, but I could live with that. Especially since it might allow for a similar reduced price point and equal or better mp as the X1D.  Time will tell. 

 

Richard

Edited by rsmphoto
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I do think that for a small company like Leica the product range is possibly too broad and it requires a lot of financial resources to cope with the obsolescence of each product. 

 

 

I think this is a key point and it relates not just to obsolesce but also to service support for each line, in each market - which the users expect to be excellent, given the high price of the cameras, but which has been very inconsistent across product lines and geographies. Going forward, I wish Leica could leverage their know-how (i) from the SL:  to bring an MF mirrorless platform for the S lenses; with 50-80MP resolution, at the approx. EUR10-12k price point, to compete with the X1D, and (ii) from the Q: to bring a compact, highly ergonomic mirrorless platform for the T and M lenses, with 24-36MP resolution, at the approx. EUR4-5k price point, to compete with the Sony bodies. I am not sure it makes sense to continue developing the M - the M10 seems to suggest that not much further innovation is possible in the present body, with a mechanical rangefinder, cloth shutter, etc. I am still with Leica because of the lenses, new and old, S and M. All I care about is having a top spec, reliable platform for using these; the "RF experience" is not so important for me. I think Leica also made a very good effort with all the intelligent lens adapters for the S system - this is the kind of innovation I am prepared to pay for as it expands the performance envelope and saves costs. And while we are at it, Leica could make the bodies' flash protocol compatible with one of the other widely used systems, maybe Nikon iTTL (just like Hasselblad did with the X1D).

 

And by the way, I've never agreed with Lloyd's view of the S2 - my experience was that it was a very accurate (if slow) focusing body and the sensor produced absolutely lovely colours. And I am still thrilled with the images I am getting from the S007.

Edited by albireo_double
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I wish Leica could leverage their know-how (i) from the SL:  to bring an MF mirrorless platform for the S lenses; with 50-80MP resolution, at the approx. EUR10-12k price point, to compete with the X1D ...

 

 

Me too.  That would be my ultimate camera for many things - travel, landscape etc ..... and if they produced a wide TS lens (a true Leica one) with it too for architecture, then that would be sublime.

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What would be the main advantage of a mirrorless medium format camera compared to the S?

 

you gain smaller size,

the cost are:

worse viewfinder with limited DR,

probably longer some delay in the EVF,

worse C-AF, 

 

And what you gain with a smaller camera if you want to put S-size lenses on the camera?

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