Leica split internally on future S configuration

[Jeff S]

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OVF vs EVF?   According to this interview with Dr. Kaufmann, there has been disagreement regarding the next step [3-5 years from now (last Photokina)]...,

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2019/07/breakfast-with-dr-andreas-kaufmann/

Note... interview was last year, so thoughts have likely evolved since then.

Jeff

Edited July 13, 2019 by Jeff S

[hoppyman]

Thanks for sharing that link. There are a number of interesting insights in there. It seems clear that the S3 will get to market when complete ( no surprise R10 moment).

What they might look at in form of a successor (being 3-5 years away) is a lot of photography from now for me. I hope we see the SL2 before then and more of the SL Summicrons in production. None of the 35s here (Australia) as yet AFAIK

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[BernardC]

There's nothing really unexpected: model cycles are 3-5 years, they are looking at mirrorless, but they won't go in that direction if it doesn't improve the product. I think they will wait until they can get SL-like performance out of a medium format sensor, and until they can procure an EVF that is almost as good as the S's optical viewfinder.

Speculation: it seems that the S's market is different from the Fuji and Hasselblad offerings. Both of those are aimed at advanced-amateur landscape shooters (and a few professionals of course, but probably only every 50th customer).

It doesn't make sense for Leica to compete in that market. It's already very crowded, and it's a lot more price-sensitive. This would force them to cost-cut the product extensively, in order to hit a price point. That's not Leica's brand values, so it's a non-starter.

[Jeff S]

45 minutes ago, BernardC said:

There's nothing really unexpected:

I think the statement that they are (were) split into two camps is interesting.  This was apparently the situation regarding the form factor for the SL, i.e., internal division over a  ‘mini S’ design (more smooth contours) and the eventual more ‘brutal’ design. Kaufmann now reveals that the next SL will be more elegant; perhaps an admission that they misjudged. 

Jeff

[BernardC]

3 hours ago, Jeff S said:

I think the statement that they are (were) split into two camps is interesting.

I would love to sit-in on a design meeting (I would have to brush-up on my German, of course). It's refreshing to hear that Leica is willing to re-think their designs. The CL is a good example, it's a complete re-think of the interface, compared to the TL.

That being said, the SL's design is lovely, and it only becomes lovelier the more I use it. I hope they don't mess it up.

 

[peterv]

I think it’s only natural that they have internal discussions, just like we have here on this board.

And I think it’s a good thing that Dr Kaufmann is open about it.

We each have our own wish list,  but contrary to the doom and gloom of the storm crows that pass by every now and then, the S system is alive and well. 

Edited July 17, 2019 by peterv

[Photon42]

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Sure internal discussions are normal. I just find it interesting that they have not decided yet on a major decision point. No matter how you slice it, innovations are going to happen mostly exclusively in the mirrorless space. This is not my wish, but rather it is fact that most research goes into that segment, which includes camera company suppliers (think sensors, software, viewfinders).

If Leica wants to continue the S line in future, they have to come out with a mirrorless option. It is not weight or form factor alone - it is the whole innovation behind mirrorless. The S in its present appearance is not classy and handy enough like the M, to survive in a niche, I would think.

So - in case the Oracle in Wetzlar predicts a future for a mirrorless S: Would Leica go for an entire new lens line to make specifically wide angle lenses benefitting from the reduced flange distance, or would they create a mirrorless body with the same flange distance? I am guessing the former, but who knows.

[mmradman]

4 hours ago, Photon42 said:

Sure internal discussions are normal. I just find it interesting that they have not decided yet on a major decision point. No matter how you slice it, innovations are going to happen mostly exclusively in the mirrorless space. This is not my wish, but rather it is fact that most research goes into that segment, which includes camera company suppliers (think sensors, software, viewfinders).

If Leica wants to continue the S line in future, they have to come out with a mirrorless option. It is not weight or form factor alone - it is the whole innovation behind mirrorless. The S in its present appearance is not classy and handy enough like the M, to survive in a niche, I would think.

So - in case the Oracle in Wetzlar predicts a future for a mirrorless S: Would Leica go for an entire new lens line to make specifically wide angle lenses benefitting from the reduced flange distance, or would they create a mirrorless body with the same flange distance? I am guessing the former, but who knows.

One option to address transition from mirror to mirrorless is to provide adapter that fully supports existing S lenses, as is the case with Canon and Nikon. This shouldn’t be beyond Leica capabilities as they made adaptors for third party medium format lenses to fit to S cameras. Only than next generation of shorter flange lenses can be considered, providing Leica is still in medium format business.

[BernardC]

This will go against the grain, but I don't think that the solution is to create yet another largely-incompatible mirrorless option for landscape shooters. Surely that market is over-saturated? There's Sony at the low-end, Hasselblad and Fuji in the middle, Alpa at the high-end, and a considerable number of satisfactory options in between.

The market doesn't play to any of Leica's strengths. It's not a niche, lens performance is largely irrelevant (any modern lens looks OK, shaded and stopped-down to the diffraction limit), and Leica couldn't claim the "premium" market segment. Leica wouldn't even be first to market, by a long shot.

Long story short: this has all the signs of a market disaster. A few people here would buy it, as well as some who like to own the latest-and-greatest, but the rest of the world isn't waiting for a "Fuji with a red dot at twice the price."

The only thing that would make a Leica mirrorless medium format workable is if they released a truly disruptive product like the SL: something twice as fast and twice as tough as the competition, with features that are a generation ahead. Such a camera wouldn't be aimed at landscape shooters. It would target the current S and SL audience: photographers who shoot fast in all kind of weather, and who push lenses to the limit.

[alan.y]

Can Leica really ever compete with the Japanese companies on bodies? I suspect to disrupt the market Leica would need to leapfrog the sensor size yet again—a 6x7 sensor for example.

Lately Leica seems to focus much on touting the SL lenses’ optical prowess, an echo of the “small camera, large prints” philosophy that launched the M. This seems implicitly an answer to the mirrorless Hasselblad and Fuji—that 47-plus megapixels and a consistent line of superb f/2 lenses on 35mm is not only good enough but actually the better compromise. Maybe it’s not even implicit—I think Kaufmann or Karbe said as much.

That said I handled a GFX100 at B&H yesterday and was rather taken with it. Much better build quality than the 50R. Grip felt good. Body alone is about as heavy as the S but felt more compact and more centrally balanced using the 63mm. Most importantly the EVF looked good until the 50R’s.

Edited July 18, 2019 by alan.y

[mgrayson3]

The 63 is the smallest and lightest of the Fuji MF lenses. Try it with the 23 or the zoom.

I, too, was surprised at how good the GFX100 felt in the hand - like a Canon 1DX. But with S (lenses) and X1D (weight) systems, I'm not going for the MF trifecta.🤣

(and SL for the AF and the zooms .. they are frighteningly good - sharpness and bokeh.)

 

 

[BernardC]

31 minutes ago, alan.y said:

Can Leica really ever compete with the Japanese companies on bodies?

They can. There isn't a Japanese (or Swedish) camera that I would rather use than the SL, or S, or M.

Leica users assume that all cameras are shaped for human hands, and have interfaces that are simple and logical. That design philosophy isn't common in the camera industry.

If anything, body design is one of the fields where Leica has a clear advantage. Others may have more features, or faster development, but they fall short when it comes to building a camera that I enjoy using. My photography gains more from using a well-crafted instrument, than it loses from not having some esoteric features hidden eight-levels down a menu labyrinth. 

[alan.y]

22 minutes ago, BernardC said:

They can. There isn't a Japanese (or Swedish) camera that I would rather use than the SL, or S, or M.

Leica users assume that all cameras are shaped for human hands, and have interfaces that are simple and logical. That design philosophy isn't common in the camera industry.

If anything, body design is one of the fields where Leica has a clear advantage. Others may have more features, or faster development, but they fall short when it comes to building a camera that I enjoy using. My photography gains more from using a well-crafted instrument, than it loses from not having some esoteric features hidden eight-levels down a menu labyrinth. 

No disagreement there, but the question you posed remains: will people in general pay twice (actually more like 2.5 times) for a Fuji with a red dot sans complicated menu and passable ergonomics? As it happens I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the IBIS setting or even the start video recording button was on the gfx100, although the ergonomics seemed quite good. Still lots of buttons but moving in a minimalist direction already.

Edited July 18, 2019 by alan.y

[BernardC]

They wouldn't pay more if the camera was "a Fuji with a red dot." That was my original point. The world does not need more landscape mirrorless camera systems.

They could possibly pay for a "medium format SL," but that camera would not appeal to the same crowd. First, it wouldn't have maximum-megapixels. Second, the lenses would thrive wide-open in difficult light, not stopped-down on a sunny day. Third, it would lack many features that are de rigueur: waist-deep menu options, 18-finger interface, AI-enhanced bokeh balls, etc.

That's why those who say that Leica should release an S that is a Fuji copy will be disappointed. The concept makes no business sense.

[xiaubauu2009]

10 hours ago, BernardC said:

They wouldn't pay more if the camera was "a Fuji with a red dot." That was my original point. The world does not need more landscape mirrorless camera systems.

They could possibly pay for a "medium format SL," but that camera would not appeal to the same crowd. First, it wouldn't have maximum-megapixels. Second, the lenses would thrive wide-open in difficult light, not stopped-down on a sunny day. Third, it would lack many features that are de rigueur: waist-deep menu options, 18-finger interface, AI-enhanced bokeh balls, etc.

 That's why those who say that Leica should release an S that is a Fuji copy will be disappointed. The concept makes no business sense.

It's a different menu concept for the fuji. Particularly now that GFX100 has separated its functionality to Photoshoot, Multishoot, and Video through a knob selector. It's actually intuitively simple. It gives you a choice of shooting simply or going through the menu system if you want to waste time playing around. Much more improved, all be it's not Leica simple... But then, it's a camera with lots of feature that you need to set. I basically set it once and never really need to bother with pressing much other the the AEL, Q, and the button above that Q thingy....

I think the best feature coming out of this GFX thing is it's IBIS, very very robust. You hit a lock on, you really can't make it shake/vibrate... very impressive.

[Photon42]

20 hours ago, mmradman said:

One option to address transition from mirror to mirrorless is to provide adapter that fully supports existing S lenses, as is the case with Canon and Nikon. This shouldn’t be beyond Leica capabilities as they made adaptors for third party medium format lenses to fit to S cameras. Only than next generation of shorter flange lenses can be considered, providing Leica is still in medium format business.

Of course with a 100% adapter. If Leica does not reduce the flange distance, they remove the genuine opportunity to increase flexibility in lens design.

[TomLiles]

EVF S is not an S, to me. A big part of what is good, and characteristic, about the S starts and ends at the finder.
No objective value-judgement is intended here: I'm supremely comfortable with the existence of EVFs in the marketplace and super happy that there are photographers who love them... I just want to express that the OVF is a sine qua non of the S.

In fact, there are probably three:

1) Optical Viewfinder => big, super high quality, speed-of-light latency and speed-of-brain refresh rate, with a properly useable matte focusing screen that lets me see the focus directly rather than be hostage to secondary gizmos---a finder that lets me work like photographers have traditionally worked. Name a modern digital camera, professional grade, or, OK, serious camera grade, that offers that, a finder like the S. (tumbleweeds blow across the screen)
Photography, on a basic level, is about me and the thing I want to photograph---why is building in mezzanine levels to that process a good idea? Find me a modern, serious camera that does the least to intrude on the photographic practice, and in this specific connection maybe the most important bit: lining up and focusing -- seeing -- your shot... outside of the S, I struggled to find one. I felt like Leica were the only maker that understood this (the finder) is massively important and not to be tampered with or treated like an afterthought.
I want to feel connected and responsible for the photography; not a wish, not a thing it would be nice to have: that's a straight must. I don't want a handheld computer that puts layers of UI between me and the subject and tries to do everything for me (succeeding very impressively in recent generations). I don't need 200-odd cross-type focus points with 99.99999% coverage etc., etc., when I can just see what is, and isn't, in focus. By looking, I mean. By concentrating (in the true sense). I must be mad, but I for one would never like to see them increase the number of AF points and f*** up the clean finder experience. I don't need a live exposure preview, not personally. I don't need spirit level overlays and data readouts and tons of hieroglyphic icons and a non-tearing 99% aRGB gamut display and on and on and on and on. It's all noise. I want reality, optical reality, with a capable and reliable recording mechanism ready to capture it. Photography is a seeing craft, it is literally crazy to me that camera makers do not spend the lion's share of their R&D time and money on viewfinders and the finder experience. Leica is not perfect, but the S does at least do well in this regard---change this and lose a huge part of why we all love the S. At least, I think so.

more briefly now,
2) Stripped down controls: like the finder, cut all the bullshit => photographic controls that photographers use, nothing more. Das Wesentliche, etc. Find another serious grade camera that follows through with that... thin pickings

3) Best-you-can-get Lenses: "best" is a tough term, but I hope you appreciate the spirit of this phrase (I don't have time or appetite to argue about which brand of lenses are really the "best").
A huge sell-in, to me, on the S was the mount was designed ground up for digital sensors. They really went for it, and yea, since using the system for almost three years now, it shows (in my limited capacity to properly appreciate and notice). I see the fashion, with recently released Nikon Z and Canon R mounts, etc., to talk about mount design... but Leica already had the chance to do anything they wanted, and they did, and they made the S mount. And it wasn't a fail (re: optics).
[Semi-Unrelated Point: I don't really know what extra I get from Leica starting all over on a mirrorless mount for their Pro Format sensor size. I know I won't be interested in adapting lenses: we use the S for quality, in most use-cases. It makes no sense, to me, to go S, then not use S-lenses.]
The very first camera system I ever bought and used was the original 4/3 format, which, like the S, was designed ground up for digital sensors (for a high degree of telecentricity). I still use that first camera now (DMC-L1 btw!) and the lenses still impress. True story. I think this experience very much colored my opinions on the S. I still wish to try other camera systems in the future... I am in no rush---but whenever I do, the S has set a high bar, it will be a special camera system that does better. I haven't found one yet.

So, there it is---the three things, to me, perhaps others too, that make the S the S, without which it could not be: OVF, control gestalt, the lenses.

Change any one of those and it is a different system to me, and not one I would be interested in (obviously, because I am interested in the S-system, not the not-S-systems). It's not that I'd quit the S-system or anything hysterical like that if they changed the OVF to an EVF and called it "S4," or whatever, just that I wouldn't be interested in that. Probably the first thing I'd do is start saving money to buy up as many OVF typ006 and typ007 bodies as I could afford.

Don't ditch the best OVF in digital photography. Just my take!

Edited July 21, 2019 by TomLiles

[mgrayson3]

I, too, have been confused by the "flexibility" of mirrorless designs. Yes, I can use inferior lenses. Great... On the other hand, magnified manual focusing is still available in Live View, so I feel the S(007) gives the best of both worlds.

 

[Jeff S]

An underrated aspect of Leica cameras (especially by those outside the Leica community) is the core belief in best-in-class viewing experience. The M is the ultimate window to the world; the S with its big and gorgeous OVF; and the SL, which at launch, leapfrogged every other EVF viewing experience.

For me, too, the first priority of any system purchase is how I see and focus on the subject. If it doesn’t meet that threshold, the rest doesn’t matter.  Lenses, control interface, ergonomics and other aspects follow. I haven’t subscribed to Sean Reid in a long time, but he wrote an essay, I think called ‘Seeing the Subject’, that captures this philosophy and that still resonates.

Unfortunately I still haven’t bonded with any EVF, even the one in the SL. The tv-like viewing just grates, although I recognize some clear technological advantages that the EVF offers.  But since the industry is moving this way I hope the gap (for me) in EVF/OVF viewing experience continues to close. Meanwhile, it’s nice that the S remains a holdout.  

Jeff

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[ynp]

3 hours ago, mgrayson3 said:

. On the other hand, magnified manual focusing is still available in Live View, so I feel the S(007) gives the best of both worlds.

 

Just add the terminal for an articulated EVF and I will be happy with the current design.

I am waiting for a right angle finder, I bought it recently,  maybe it will help with shooting  my S2P from a lower position. My knee pads are not elegant enough. 😀