GFX100S vs SL2/X1D

[beewee]

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16 minutes ago, Cobram said:

My experience from automotive bussiness indicates Leica sales numbers are too small for manufacturers of electronic components. I think this is the root cause of Leica's reported (many threads on LUF) problems with electronics. They are just to small. 

Totally agree and therein lies the problem. Component suppliers simply are not interested in customizing anything unless you’re buying millions of units and Leica simply does not have the volume to do that. Even buying components in tens of thousands is often considered peanuts. Designing/fabricating a custom ASIC and sensor (if Leica even does that anymore) is probably where the money is going. Just to put things into perspective, even once you have a chip design, to get your first prototype made at a semiconductor fab will cost several millions of dollars for a handful of prototype wafers. If you’re only selling a 30-50 thousand cameras over the course of a product life cycle, there aren’t many units to amortize the fab cost, let alone all the R&D.

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[LocalHero1953]

People use smart phones for taking and posting single shots; posting them to social media with minimal processing* doesn't require as much wifi connectivity as you might think - it is only one shot and many social media sites downgrade the images. Try using your phone for 50-100 images and uploading them to the cloud as full res DNGs for later processing and distribution to different outlets, including social media; you will quickly find that phones have similar limitations. I often do this: when I use my phone for taking quite a lot of shots, I use Onedrive to upload them to the cloud (I have used Lightroom CC for the same purpose in the past) and it takes for ever - almost as much a pain as using Leica Fotos. At least with my camera I can connect it or its SD card to a laptop for fast downloading - a clunky option on a phone.

 

* you bid your terrible camera connectivity and I'll raise you my crap smartphone post processing 

[PeterGA]

2 hours ago, beewee said:

If all you want to do is share JPEGS then you are better off taking photos on your phone camera. In fact, you would get better photos with your phone because it’s always with you and it would be more flexible and people tend to behave more naturally in front of a phone as compared to a big camera. Trying to use a big chunky camera for instagram shots seems like the wrong tool for the job if what you care about is social media where an iPhone would be a better tool.

If you want to have the best of both worlds where you have full size DNGs and smaller JPEGs, the FOTOS app works well enough that you can import JPEGS to your phone and instagram away but that seems to be complicating things unnecessary. A phone camera is good enough for most things.

Car analogy: complaining about workflow for a beefy interchangeable lens camera being ill suited for social media is a bit like complaining that a Ferrari LaFerrari is not very good for grocery shopping because it’s doesn’t have enough storage space and doesn’t do well with speed bumps at the parking lot. Or a Porsche 911 GT3 isn’t really great for winter driving because the road salt/gravel/grit chews up the aero work in the under carriage. They just weren’t really designed for that use case.

I have never said that all I want to do is use jpg's.

Files have multiple use cases - right now I have to shoot - download SD to computer, save copies to various places, open Capture One or LR and Photoshop save image to various sizes for various uses and then export to website/Instagram etc - we all know the workflow - you dont need to 'school me on file types but thanks anyway....

With my iPhone I can make a photo or a video and upload it to social media - immediately. When cameras are developed that make the uploading to social media easier than they do today - i will get interested in new cameras again - until then - I'm more than happy with the cameras I use today - which is why I have no interest in current offerings (as per the thread question) - hardly a controversial position I would have thought.

 

1 hour ago, Cobram said:

I agree 100% with your comment. 

Young users are less attracted to Leica. Believe it or not, in last two years only one proffesional photographer asked me about my Leica, when he saw me using my M combo.

All other comments were limited to "how beautiful is your mechanical film camera". How old is it? Was your grandfather's?"😅

Leica is pushing prices but not the technology. How many young users will be inclined to deal with redish skin tones and time consuming grading as they already know the iPhone/Huawei,.. can snap, make AI Bokeh and color grading as well as upload in 1-2 minutes? 

BUT: I really don't want Leica to compete with smartphones market. Huawei-Leica partnership is very good solution. What I want is Huawei knowledge inside Leica cameras. Why? Because they produce and know details about electronics components and can help Leica to make more reliable and cheaper (niche) cameras. My experience from automotive bussiness indicates Leica sales numbers are too small for manufacturers of electronic components. I think this is the root cause of Leica's reported (many threads on LUF) problems with electronics. They are just to small. 

I currently own only M-E220 and SL and sincerely hope Leica will survive Industry 4.0 revolution. Leica rendering is now part of my DNA 😅

Actually my comments weren''t designed at criticising Leica - I think all camera manufacturers are pretty mcuh the same - they make great cameras and lenses to be used as they are used today. I'd be happy if FOTOS worked properly on my CL or SL2 or my GFX equivalent wasn't as clunky and unreliable in its useage - making cameras talk to phones isnt rocket science - I just dont think manufacturers have thought it through - have a look at the link I provided in my original post to what is coming - this is the type of functionlity that would make me think a change is worth while - for me. In the meantime I'll keep using what i use.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by jaapv
political comment removed

[PeterGA]

30 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

People use smart phones for taking and posting single shots; posting them to social media with minimal processing* doesn't require as much wifi connectivity as you might think - it is only one shot and many social media sites downgrade the images. Try using your phone for 50-100 images and uploading them to the cloud as full res DNGs for later processing and distribution to different outlets, including social media; you will quickly find that phones have similar limitations. I often do this: when I use my phone for taking quite a lot of shots, I use Onedrive to upload them to the cloud (I have used Lightroom CC for the same purpose in the past) and it takes for ever - almost as much a pain as using Leica Fotos. At least with my camera I can connect it or its SD card to a laptop for fast downloading - a clunky option on a phone.

 

* you bid your terrible camera connectivity and I'll raise you my crap smartphone post processing 

Yep.

Edited February 18, 2021 by PeterGA

[Stuart Richardson]

A bunch of old people arguing about what young people want is always interesting, as I think it tends to make people out to be monolithic. I am still in my early forties and have no idea what young people want. That said, I was teaching a full class of young photography students yesterday about film scanning, and several of them were using film cameras and all seemed pretty interested in the possibilities. In my experience it is not young people that are driving people to use their phones as a camera, it is all people. My dad uses an iphone and used to use full sized cameras. But the people who are interested in photography are still interested in real cameras.

It would be great if current cameras could solve the problem of dissemination of work, but at least for my work it is far down the list of priorities. I do my photo work and artwork on full sized cameras, and communicate with friends and family more often then not using the phone. It is interesting to hear that it is potentially the wifi that is a bottleneck. Certainly the integration between app and camera is remedial and takes too long to integrate. The slow speed of the integrated apps for remote operation is more relevant for me than being able to post photos on social media from the camera. Zeiss seems to have tried with their camera, but it seems like it is in a lot of ways the worst of all worlds: I don't think anyone really wants to edit their photos on the back of a camera screen, nor buy a separate lightroom subscription just for their camera. Again, it seems like Sony is the leader for this kind of thing, but only because it makes both cameras and phones. The Xperia Pro is 2500 dollars, but it does natively integrate with the Sony mirrorless bodies. Perhaps Leica could do something like that with Huawei, but frankly, unless they can do it with Apple, I am not interested.

[frame-it]

4 hours ago, Cobram said:

Young users are less attracted to Leica.

another Sweeping statement............but it depends on which part of the world you're in

[Cobram]

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17 minutes ago, frame-it said:

another Sweeping statement............but it depends on which part of the world you're in

Planet earth? 🤣

[frame-it]

6 minutes ago, Cobram said:

Planet earth? 🤣

haha so funny

[Cobram]

46 minutes ago, frame-it said:

another Sweeping statement............but it depends on which part of the world you're in

https://viraldocks.com/iphone-x-launch/

To me is obvious. Or not?

[Succisa75]

While it depends what part of the world they are from, you are seeing a trend of younger users don’t really know about Leica nor understand why it’s so expensive when a Sony, Canon or Fujifilm  can do so much more for less. 
 

Additionally the market is becoming more video focused, so these features will help drives sales. While the SL2-S is geared towards video the AF isn’t really good for it. 
 

I personally saw one younger gentleman and his girlfriend walk into a leica store to specifically test out the SL2-S for video. He was excited because he loved the design. The rep put on the 50 SL Summicron and when he went to film some test footage of his girlfriend walking around the store it wouldn’t hold focus. He politely put the camera down said thank you and walked away. 
 

if you want to attract this new market you need products that perform to the level of what they are used to using. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Succisa75

[BernardC]

5 hours ago, PeterGA said:

Files have multiple use cases - right now I have to shoot - download SD to computer, save copies to various places, open Capture One or LR and Photoshop save image to various sizes for various uses and then export to website/Instagram etc - we all know the workflow - you dont need to 'school me on file types but thanks anyway....

With my iPhone I can make a photo or a video and upload it to social media - immediately.

Try this: open the Fotos app, find your image, click on share. Done.

It seems that you go through several optional steps with your camera images that you skip with phone images. That's a workflow issue.

[Simone_DF]

Is that a hint to that the SL firmware will be released for both SL2s models on the 28mm press release?

"The ever-expanding portfolio of Leica SL lenses are built to withstand the elements and the test of time, matching its futureproof counterparts in the SL2 and SL2-S with their rugged construction and continuing firmware development ensuring a long service life."

[Succisa75]

10 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Is that a hint to that the SL firmware will be released for both SL2s models on the 28mm press release?

"The ever-expanding portfolio of Leica SL lenses are built to withstand the elements and the test of time, matching its futureproof counterparts in the SL2 and SL2-S with their rugged construction and continuing firmware development ensuring a long service life."

No. Leica has been stating this since the launch of the SL2. It’s called marketing and PR  

[Hendo]

I can not see why the SL2 firmware should not be improved to the same level as the SL2-S. After all, the SL2 is still the top model in the SL line. Not improving the SL2 while improving the SL2-S would seriously impact the reputation and drive customers away from buying premium models.

[Succisa75]

17 hours ago, Hendo said:

I can not see why the SL2 firmware should not be improved to the same level as the SL2-S. After all, the SL2 is still the top model in the SL line. Not improving the SL2 while improving the SL2-S would seriously impact the reputation and drive customers away from buying premium models.

Hope so, but unlike the SL2-S they have not announced a firmware update to the SL2. Not really confidence inspiring if you ask me. 

[LD_50]

I don’t see the SL2 or SL2-S as being the top model. They serve different purposes and I would expect some differentiation in capabilities. I do think the AF updates will come to the SL2 unless there are hardware and/or bandwidth limitations. 

[beewee]

1 hour ago, Succisa75 said:

Hope so, but unlike the SL2-S they have not announced a firmware update to the SL2. Not really confidence inspiring if you ask me. 

There’s an SL2 update to be expected about 2-3 months after the already announced SL2-S update.

[Succisa75]

5 minutes ago, beewee said:

There’s an SL2 update to be expected about 2-3 months after the already announced SL2-S update.

So towards end of 2021? Can link to this? 

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Hallo,

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[beewee]

26 minutes ago, Succisa75 said:

So towards end of 2021? Can link to this? 

I don’t remember where it came from but the source was from Leica. It’ll probably around summer.

Edited February 21, 2021 by beewee

[BernardC]

9 hours ago, Succisa75 said:

Hope so, but unlike the SL2-S they have not announced a firmware update to the SL2. Not really confidence inspiring if you ask me. 

What is confidence-inspiring is the fact that Leica has been very diligent about firmware updates over the past decade. They will announce it when it's ready. In the meanwhile, your camera works at-least as-well as it did when you bought it, and probably better.