S4 product recommendation

[lx1713]

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21 hours ago, helged said:

😉. As far as I recall, one of the central persons in Leica design/development went to Hasselblad, and that the same person was central (Key?) in the development of X1D. X1D was the mirrorless Leica S that some hoped for. But, as we know, Leica focussed on SL and ended up with a somewhat upgraded 007 (=S3) some years later. (Will be interesting to see whether Leica will come with a medium format mirrorless S). 

Jena Optik was involved with Sinar. I think read of this link from the Rollei side of things might help a bit:

https://www.rolleiflexpages.com/Hy6.html

 

[lx1713]

19 hours ago, ynp said:

As someone who owned a full Sinar-M system for about 12 years, I am not so sure that the Sinar and Hasselblad X resemble each other. Firstly, the Sinar shutter only is about 50% bigger than the X1d, you see only theM- shutter  on the picture above. Imagine a huge prism on the top and  huge battery on the bottom, or a smaller battery attached to the left side of the shutter. Secondly, it was a modular beast. With the 180mm. lens and an eMotion back it was about 4,5 kg. As far as I remember, the system was developed by a German company on the request of Sinar Switzerland and was the most advanced medium format system of the time. The AF lenses were from the Hasselblad V line with pretty fast AF motors, recased in Germany as well AFAIR, and  the system was faster in the AF mode than the Rollei 6008af was. 
 

Leica killed Sinar, they also killed the Sinar Hy6 and, now , the CL. It means I have owned three system cameras Leica killed on their way to the bright digital future. And they killed the R before.. 😏

I'm glad I finally found a Sinar M user 😅 The documentation is rare. I moved away from Sinar C2 (film, 12 years) towards a digital workflow (35mm DSLR) in the late 1990s so picking up the bare threads of Sinar tech from 1999 to 2017 was a considerable hobby project. 

Anyway, I've decided to centre work flow solely on the SL system and decided against outfitting my P3 for digital backs. I got the adapter to attach my SL to the Sinar P3 df. 

Not knowing you were a Sinar M user, I would have disagreed with you but I hear you on the killing of the Hy6. Being a user you would know that relationship far better than I. There's hundreds more articles and manuals on everything prior to the Sinar M and the F3.

 

[lx1713]

5 hours ago, ynp said:

Yes the 30/45 is still listed. It’s a shutter-less camera and it relies on the central shutter S-lenses. You have to buy an expensive electronic shutter to use on a view camera with movements.
Why bother if any current mirrorless camera can act as both the shutter and digital back on my Actus. 

I think that's the reason why Sinar died, photographers need to make pragmatic choices. I did the same except I got myself a P3 df which is more limiting than the actus with regards to lenses but has a wider range of movements for macro work. I don't think it makes economic sense today to look beyond the 35mm sensor.

[Stuart Richardson]

Rollei did a very good job of killing themselves with the Hy6...I wouldn't blame it on Leica at all. It was long dead before Leica bought Sinar. I know that the company is apparently still there, but there is no real market for them, unfortunately. I had the Hy6 and a Rollei 6008AF setup that was part of what I sold to pay for the Leica S system. It had some good sides to it, but it was fundamentally a half measure. I waited literal years for them to release a 6x6 back for the Hy6. If they had managed to do so I might have considered staying with it, but fundamentally, a camera like the Leica S made the Hy6 look like it was made in the 90s. It was not without its charms, however. I found it worked best as a film camera, ironically. Paired with the 4560 back it made a great package. The shutter was better damped than the 6008AF and it had a much better shutter release (the 6008AF was an electronic shutter release with hardly any travel or feel...a blemish in an otherwise brilliant camera).

Unfortunately, I feel like the S is in the same position that the Hy6 was in 2008/9. Development has stagnated and there is no longer any obvious market for the cameras. You have a series of brilliant lenses that cannot really be updated because the focusing system is out of date (single point geared AF was out of date when it was released in 2008), and the company seems reluctant to invest any money or RD time into the system. It seems like the two options are 1. A total revamp of the camera body and lenses. 2. Discontinuation.

P.S. I don't mean the lenses themselves are bad. Obviously they are not. Just that the focusing system they employ limits them and how much they can be upgraded. I don't think even if Leica wanted to, they could be made to focus that much faster than they already do. It seems like the S007 was enough to strip the gears out of many lenses.

[Stuart Richardson]

The S 30/45 was a non-starter because it is a product for almost nobody...as Yevgeny said, it is a shutterless MF camera based on a S007, which was designed as a fairly low resolution high ISO capable mobile camera. So the idea to take that kind of camera (limited already in its audience) and aim it at super highly technical studio photographers...makes no sense. They are much better suited to buying Phase or Hasselblad backs...higher resolution, multishot, better flash integration etc. Or on the other side, if you are just looking for a mirrorless digital back something like a Fuji GFX100S costs quite a bit less and has more than double the resolution, a built in shutter, and of course the ability to use it as your main non-studio camera as well. I think the S30/45 was basically a product that was "well, we could make this out of exisiting parts for very little money...why not give it a try?", as opposed to saying "what do studio photographers need and how can we provide it?"

[Pieter12]

29 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

You have a series of brilliant lenses that cannot really be updated because the focusing system is out of date (single point geared AF was out of date when it was released in 2008)

Pardon my ignorance, but I was under the assumption that the AF system was in the body, not the lens.

[Stuart Richardson]

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The part of the AF system that deals with establishing focus and transmitting that data to the lens is indeed in the body. So it is possible to add multi-point focus. What is the biggest limiting factor in the S lenses, however, is the AF motors in the bodies of the S lenses. At the time, most 35mm companies had long since changed their lenses to support ultrasonic focusing motors. Leica instead chose to use screwmount focusing motors, due to the larger lenses and and higher stresses on the focusing elements in the lens bodies. This was an older technology, but one which allowed Leica to build the S lenses the way they wanted to build them, as well as to have the AF precision they demanded. Leica at the time stated that they did not use USM motors because they could not move the large elements in their lenses fast enough or with enough precision. They have since seemed to have figured it out, as the SL lenses incorporate those newer motors. Meanwhile, the S lenses are wedded to their older style motors. As far as I understand it, it is not possible to simply drop a newer style motor in the same lens designs...the lenses themselves would have to be redesigned in order to allow for the focusing groups in the lenses to be light enough to work with the faster, quieter USM motors.

P.S. The advantage to the older style AF motors is that they can give you a much more natural manual focus feel. So that is a big advantage of the older style motors. Still, MF is more important in these cameras because the AF is not as effective as in the newer bodies.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[helged]

Leica R&D is working on the S-system, which is good, but still to early to say whether something mirrorless with IBIS - and compatible with the existing S-lenses - will reach the stores. The R&D-part is confirmed, the rest speculation. 

[Pieter12]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:59 AM, Stuart Richardson said:

Rollei did a very good job of killing themselves with the Hy6

I would love to hear why you think this. It was and is a very sophisticated system with an excellent set of lenses. Quite expensive, but it is aimed for the professional market, who can write off or charge clients for their equipment use. Marketing failures? Lack of support or dealers? Quality issues? Or maybe the Hy6 did not kill Rollei, but the other way around--could the company have been mismanaged or poorly financed? At the time of the Hy6 launch, it was the pinnacle of medium-format cameras, being pretty much the only hybrid film & digital platform available. Maybe part of what killed it was the high price and gradual lack of new digital backs, something beyond Rollei's control. And aggressive forays by Hasselblad, Phase One and Fuji into the MF digital field.

[lx1713]

12 hours ago, Pieter12 said:

I would love to hear why you think this. It was and is a very sophisticated system with an excellent set of lenses. Quite expensive, but it is aimed for the professional market, who can write off or charge clients for their equipment use. Marketing failures? Lack of support or dealers? Quality issues? Or maybe the Hy6 did not kill Rollei, but the other way around--could the company have been mismanaged or poorly financed? At the time of the Hy6 launch, it was the pinnacle of medium-format cameras, being pretty much the only hybrid film & digital platform available. Maybe part of what killed it was the high price and gradual lack of new digital backs, something beyond Rollei's control. And aggressive forays by Hasselblad, Phase One and Fuji into the MF digital field.

If I might chime in with my perspective, I had a Rollei 6008 system for a couple of years. The service complaints would be very similar to what is level against Leica today. My personal experience with the 6008 was I received a lemon while my SL, SL2, SL2S and Q2 has been trouble free so far.

With Rollei, there was a far amount of arrogance in dealing with us users, poor service and a lack of lenses on top of being extremely expensive.

The Hy6 I would leave it to Stuart. He's helped me in my final decisions on the Leica S and shared his thoughts on the Sinar P3. Thanks, Stuart!

Edited June 27, 2022 by lx1713
Added Rollei for clarity

[tom0511]

I once had a Hy6 with a Sinar back before I moved to the Leica S2.

In one way I loved the Hy6, but I found the AF to not be precise, and the software available was not great. The files from the Sinar backs with Dalsa sensor and the Rollei lenses were very very nice. Maybe best tones I ever had in a digital camera.

However at that time I found the Leica S package great to allow medium format IQ in a package nearly as fast and flexible as a dslr.

Later I rebought a Hy6 body for film use, got it modified to the new version, added a 6x6 magazine...its great, but I seem to have transitioned into a digital photographer.

IMO the Hy6 idea was teriffic, but sometimes good products come to the market without enough marketing, maybe Rollei was to weak allready at this time.

Professional and fast service is another point. 

I think it is very sad, if companies develop new innovative products (with a lot of R&D cost), but then fail to keep such products up to date with new generations.

Therefore I really really hop Leica with bring a new model/ S4 with better AF and I hope it will take the exisiting lens lineup without limitations.

And I also hope they will bring a SL3 with AF up to the competition.

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by tom0511

[Stuart Richardson]

I am not sure if the Hy6 killed Rollei or the other way around. Probably the other way around, as you suggested. I think it is a good camera, but I think it was a camera that was introduced into a rapidly disappearing market, and then not sufficiently supported or developed. I found like Tom that the AF did not work accurately, so it was essentially a manual focus system. The bigger problem from my standpoint was the Rollei (and Franke and Heidecke) were seemingly always on the verge of collapsing. I guess I have a particular frustration about the system because of the Sinar eMotion 22 and the 6060 back. I started shooting Rollei round about 2004 or 2005, and my first big camera investment was the Hy6 with a Sinar eMotion 22 back, which I bought used from Calumet. I bought it used, but I still lost thousands of dollars seemingly overnight. Unlike Tom, I found the back to be horrendous. For me I felt like I was using a 22mp version of my first Canon 3mp point and shoot. The DR seemed to be miniscule, and skies were always clipping to pure white with no hope of recovery. I found the colors to be odd by default, often appearing cyan and very "digital", the battery life lasted a matter of minutes, and the noise at anything other than base ISO of 50 was atrocious. Even for 2006, the software felt out of time. It was clearly from the 90s. Syncing the back with the body was also not a given. It was, however, sharp, and when the stars aligned, it could make very good pictures. But for someone who was used to e6 colors and film, it was not convincing.

About a year after I got it, Leica announced the M9, and as soon as I got that, it was game over. Leica's M9 was so much better than the Sinar that it was shocking. All this time, F&H had been promising to provide a 6060 roll film back for the Hy6. I waited and waited and waited. The only response was that it was coming...this was for years. Finally, in 2008 or 2009, I sold the whole kit.

The reason I say the Hy6 killed Rollei is not so much because it is such a horrible camera. In the end, I don't think it really was. It was certainly brilliant with film, and the Schneider and Zeiss lenses for the system were really really beautiful (though I don't think some of the wides were up for digital). The real difference is that the Hy6 system felt like a camera system from the late 90s, early 2000s, which it was. Phase had this problem too, until it brought out the XF. The Hasselblad H series was much more impressive at the time, at least in terms of integration. The promise of the Hy6 was to be native with both film and digital, and unfortunately those things do not go all that well together. Leica realized this with the S system, and when they brought it out, it was light years ahead of the other MF systems in terms of its lens quality, ergonomics and matching the optics to the sensor. To use an automotive metaphor, the Hy6 was like taking a classic car and putting an electric motor in it, while the S2 was like a Tesla.

Now it is the S that is in a similar position. It's technical innovations are now mostly from 2006-2008 (when it was developed), and it is trying to compete against a newer generation of camera technology (really it is Fuji that is the main competitor, which is 1/3rd to 1/2 the price with better technical specs in almost every measure, whether we S users like it or not). The good news is that Leica is in a much much better position as a company than Rollei/F&H was, and as small as its user base is, it is a lot larger than the one for the Hy6 was.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[BernardC]

2 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I am not sure if the Hy6 killed Rollei or the other way around. Probably the other way around, as you suggested.

Rollei's history from the 1970s onward is one of having the right product at the wrong time, or vice versa, and not enough capital. They went bankrupt and changed hands several times, but they never found the right partner. They also never managed to establish themselves in the key US market in the 1980s. I've heard that they were popular in LA, mainly thanks to the 180/2.8 that had no equivalent in medium format, but they never cracked the key New York professional market which belonged to Hasselblad and Mamiya. That left them with a small user base in Germany.

The Hy6 was a last attempt. It could have worked, but their partners were just as weak as they were. The industry consolidated, and they ended-up on the losing end.

[Stuart Richardson]

The 180mm 2.8 Tele-Xenar was lovely. I compared it once to the highly acclaimed 180/4 Sonnar and the TX was sharper. It was, however, enormous. My favorite lens for the system was the 110mm f2 Planar, which was also the favorite in the 200 series. It was sharper on Rollei (as were all the lenses) as they film back design was so much better in the Rollei than the Hasselblad. The straight through design with the big pressure plate and integrated darkslide was brilliant engineering. Since the film was not curling back on itself like it does in the Hasselblad, the film sat flatter. The 60mm Curtagon, 80mm Xenotar and 150mm Tele-Xenar were all superb lenses as well. The 40mm 3.5 Super Angulon was not as sharp, however...at least mine was not. The Leica 35mm blew that lens out of the water, for sure. The picture below was taken with the Rollei 6008AF and 110mm PQ. It had a dreamy quality that is hard to come by these days. This is one of the reasons I wish I could get a film camera that would support the S lenses...I think they might be able to do the same on 645.

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[Pieter12]

These observations kind of agree with my own. I have a Hy6 Mod2 along with a Leaf AFiII 7 back as well as a 6060 film back. The Leaf back gives wonderful, film-like color and rendering, but not as rich or crisp as my S 006. Both are CCD--I much prefer it to the CMOS sensor color I have seen. I bought into the Rollei 6008 system and gradually accumulated lenses, all of which are superb and work on the Hy6 as well. I like the handling of the Hy6, but have had nothing but problems with the film back--a terrible thing since I shoot mainly B&W film. Unfortunately, DW Photo who makes the cameras now is a small operation and their customer service is inadequate to say the least. There is only one (independent) tech in the U.S. and he struggles to get parts and support from the factory. 

[Stuart Richardson]

3 hours ago, Pieter12 said:

Both are CCD--I much prefer it to the CMOS sensor color I have seen. I

You might consider trying the SL2 or the Panasonic S1 (in camera natural). Both have really good color. I prefer their color to the stock color of the S007 and S3. I long shot the S006 and M9.

I am sorry to hear that you struggle with the 6060 back...that should be a dream. Have you tried a 6008 series? I know the batteries are a pain, but otherwise I think they are great to shoot film with...especially if you already have all the lenses.

I guess we took this way off topic!

[Pieter12]

23 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

You might consider trying the SL2 or the Panasonic S1 (in camera natural). Both have really good color. I prefer their color to the stock color of the S007 and S3. I long shot the S006 and M9.

I am sorry to hear that you struggle with the 6060 back...that should be a dream. Have you tried a 6008 series? I know the batteries are a pain, but otherwise I think they are great to shoot film with...especially if you already have all the lenses.

I guess we took this way off topic!

Yeah, we sure went off on a tangent. I started with the 6008 in 2016 and still use it every once in a while. There are sources for rebuilt battery packs with NiMH cells that are far superior to the original NiCads. The Hy6 more compact, more advanced, lighter and a bit easier to hand-hold, but does resort to menus for certain settings. The 6008 has all analog controls--something I do prefer.

[steve.chang]

Would someone, like me, think the lens design for the future mirrorless S system to cover the 645 sensor size? 

The first few iterations may have the crop factor, similar to how Leica went from M8 (1.3) to M9 (1:1).  

 

Edited August 12, 2022 by steve.chang

[shanefking]

8 hours ago, steve.chang said:

Would someone, like me, think the lens design for the future mirrorless S system to cover the 645 sensor size? 

The first few iterations may have the crop factor, similar to how Leica went from M8 (1.3) to M9 (1:1).  

 

As I understand it, you would need a different mount entirely to fit a larger sensor, and thus an entirely new line of lenses.

 

 Arguably they could make more real-estate by incorporating a square sensor, which would be an interesting choice, as there has never been a square format Leica, IIRC.

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[Pieter12]

16 minutes ago, shanefking said:

As I understand it, you would need a different mount entirely to fit a larger sensor, and thus an entirely new line of lenses.

 

 Arguably they could make more real-estate by incorporating a square sensor, which would be an interesting choice, as there has never been a square format Leica, IIRC.

Almost all my photos end up being square (or 6x17--the other end of the spectrum). My Leicas all give me the option of a square format. Just crop.