georg Posted July 7, 2009 Share #541 Posted July 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) It's an artifact of the lens in combination with the sensor - not CA (you can see a tiny bit of CA at the borders). There are some aberrations caused by the cover glass (=they're not there with film), that's why Digitars or Leica-S-lenses take it into account. But obviously, C1 also seems to be the superior converter to handle this problem - which brings is back to another topic... Seriously, I've shot some images with the (newer) Mamiya or Fuji-lenses. Big, heavy, f4 (some a half stop more with less contrast!), 3k$ and the performance of 20-30 years old Zeiss-designs - that's the cool, new digital MF-world without über-engineered Zeiss & Leica-glass incorporating FE; Aspherics, special glasses? Does a f4-WA or a huge 6k$-zoom with f5.6 really need software corrections to actually WORK and being unusable without crop? I'm sure the 24mm-S-lens will cost 6k$ or more but it will do it's job, just remember what they did nearly 20 years ago with the 19mm without aspherics! That's a different optical league. Every lens shows aberrations, vignetting, distortion - but to what degree? The S-website was made by marketing-people, subtle differences like "no aberrations" or "negligible aberrations" get lost pretty easy... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 7, 2009 Posted July 7, 2009 Hi georg, Take a look here S2 under pricing pressure. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
sdai Posted July 7, 2009 Share #542 Posted July 7, 2009 You guys are bickering over a "problem" which nobody on this forum has ever "seen" yet, or perhaps, it doesn't exist at all. To me, ACR/LR has always been geared toward conversion speed and batch processing workflow, Adobe has never spent as much effort in conversion quality as other raw converters do, the detail and color rendition from ACR/LR are among the WORST raw converters on record. It would be a joke if they bundle ACR/LR with the S2 IMO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdai Posted July 7, 2009 Share #543 Posted July 7, 2009 Another one about software ... From what I've read from Michael Reichman's review on sensor+, PhaseOne owns its patent and you have to combine with the C1 converter to get it work to its full potential. We've heard a lot about that Leica's working on pixel binning too, so without the help from C1, are they coding that part in the software all by themselves too? That seems to be a difficult part, the Hassy H3D-60 is gonna use a similar DALSA sensor but there's no spec or word to say that it's gonna run pixel binning. Apparently, a generic raw converter such as ACR/LR won't be able to deal with pixel binning ... that part is very suspicious to me as well. The best part is, Leica has never given out an official spec of the S2, so what ever it is by September, they can say - this is it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfarkas Posted July 7, 2009 Share #544 Posted July 7, 2009 Another one about software ... From what I've read from Michael Reichman's review on sensor+, PhaseOne owns its patent and you have to combine with the C1 converter to get it work to its full potential. We've heard a lot about that Leica's working on pixel binning too, so without the help from C1, are they coding that part in the software all by themselves too? That seems to be a difficult part, the Hassy H3D-60 is gonna use a similar DALSA sensor but there's no spec or word to say that it's gonna run pixel binning. Apparently, a generic raw converter such as ACR/LR won't be able to deal with pixel binning ... that part is very suspicious to me as well. The best part is, Leica has never given out an official spec of the S2, so what ever it is by September, they can say - this is it. To my understanding, the pixel binning is handled in-camera, outputting a native 9.3MP DNG. This is obviously not an incarnation of Sensor+ as it was in place on the S2 prototypes before the Phase/Leica announcement had ever been made. David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdai Posted July 7, 2009 Share #545 Posted July 7, 2009 To my understanding, the pixel binning is handled in-camera, outputting a native 9.3MP DNG. This is obviously not an incarnation of Sensor+ as it was in place on the S2 prototypes before the Phase/Leica announcement had ever been made. That would be the best case if Leica already figured it out long time ago, we can put a check mark on one more item. Engineers can easily construct a picture from the sensor dump, it's no different from me extracting the raw data from a corrupted file and find my picture. But when given to the end user, they need a elegant way to deal with it and there're 4 pixels to be binned as 1, whatever approach Leica adopts in camera, they need a raw converter to understand that approach and reconstruct the picture ... apparently, a generic raw converter won't be able to handle this unless it has a special profile/plugin developed for this camera. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted July 7, 2009 Share #546 Posted July 7, 2009 Pixel binning is part of the back or in the S2 case the camera itself. It's a sensor thing and I have tried it with the P40+ and a very nice feature. The S2 should be the same just a wee bit smaller file. I don't know the range for the S2 at this time, that we have to wait for. At least that is what I know and I could be wrong. I will see if i can gather more info on the pixel-binning from Doug at Capture Integration. He knows this stuff better than I do on it Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdai Posted July 7, 2009 Share #547 Posted July 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) At least that is what I know and I could be wrong. I will see if i can gather more info on the pixel-binning from Doug at Capture Integration. He knows this stuff better than I do on it It would be great if you could squeeze something out of Doug, Guy. I personally am not extremely interested in it ... if I buy a S2, I buy it for ISO 100 or ISO 50. My suspicion is if Phase say it's proprietary then they probably have patented their algorithm altogether, if you''ve read Michael's review, it has been clearly pointed out that with the Bayer matrix, each adjacent pixel is of a different color and has a different spectral response so it's not just merging 4 pixels into 1, a lot of data crunching is going on on your computer, not the camera. It's also interesting to know how Hasselblad deals with their H3D-60 using a similar DALSA sensor, there's no word on whether they're including such a feature at all. If Hassy doesn't have it, then you gotta admit that it's really some stuff exclusive to Phase. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
georg Posted July 7, 2009 Share #548 Posted July 7, 2009 One thing I've just noticed: They said on the S-website that they will reveal new details about the Phase/Service-partnership in January - which never happened! So it seems clear to me that Phase and Leica knew that their relationship didn't work out, it only took 6 months to become public/official!? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdai Posted July 7, 2009 Share #549 Posted July 7, 2009 So it seems clear to me that Phase and Leica knew that their relationship didn't work out, it only took 6 months to become public/official!? It's probably only because you haven't wasted as much time as we did on the forum, Georg. We sensed it long time ago and there were various forum topics about it, and there were a couple LFI articles indicating that the S2 work is a Leica solo without Phase engagement. It appears that both parties wanted to keep low profile on this matter ... I have no idea why all in a sudden someone wants to make a big fuss about it at this time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guy_mancuso Posted July 7, 2009 Share #550 Posted July 7, 2009 It would be great if you could squeeze something out of Doug, Guy. I personally am not extremely interested in it ... if I buy a S2, I buy it for ISO 100 or ISO 50. My suspicion is if Phase say it's proprietary then they probably have patented their algorithm altogether, if you''ve read Michael's review, it has been clearly pointed out that with the Bayer matrix, each adjacent pixel is of a different color and has a different spectral response so it's not just merging 4 pixels into 1, a lot of data crunching is going on on your computer, not the camera. It's also interesting to know how Hasselblad deals with their H3D-60 using a similar DALSA sensor, there's no word on whether they're including such a feature at all. If Hassy doesn't have it, then you gotta admit that it's really some stuff exclusive to Phase. Yes there could be some secret sauce that C1 does so not discounting that end of it. I did send Doug a note to describe it to me in detail. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebarnman Posted July 8, 2009 Share #551 Posted July 8, 2009 Comparing analog devices to digital devices just doesn't relate. I hear colorful statements to describe how MF images look better than 35mm DSLR images - but I don't see any proof. It's all digital so at some point it's all zeros and ones. I can understand dynamic range being better in some cases. But what else makes Digital MF quality better than 35mm sized sensor camera quality? At least a few things off the top of my head... Higher bit rate, Higher resolution, Less noise, Larger sensor size makes for better crops. Another words, not all photographers use the full frame dimensions as a final print. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted July 8, 2009 Share #552 Posted July 8, 2009 To my understanding, the pixel binning is handled in-camera Real hardware binning always happens within the sensor. For a 2x2 binning, you would combine the charges accumulated within four sensor pixels so only the combined charge will be read-out and digitized. Software binning (averaging already digitized values) doesn’t have quite the same effect. The difficulty to overcome in this case is that for sensors with color filters arranged in a Bayer pattern, the nearest four pixels of the same color inhabit a 4x4 square, so a simple-minded interpolation algorithm would divide the pixel count by 16 – this is the part where Phase One’s raw converter comes in. So you need both a CCD supporting binning and a demosaicing algorithm preserving as much of the original resolution as possible. There has been no mention so far of the S2’s sensor supporting binning. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R10dreamer Posted July 20, 2009 Share #553 Posted July 20, 2009 Back to pricing. I can't understand why Leica hasn't released their suggested retail price for the S2. They have to have a pretty good idea of their production costs and marketing strategy. What is the hold up? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thpeters Posted July 21, 2009 Share #554 Posted July 21, 2009 Beide the pricing, I like to know if the S2 has an automatic dust remover?? theo Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevelap Posted July 21, 2009 Share #555 Posted July 21, 2009 The last info on the expected pricing announcement was 'end of July/beginning of August'. Let's hope that pans out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevesanacore Posted July 21, 2009 Share #556 Posted July 21, 2009 The last info on the expected pricing announcement was 'end of July/beginning of August'. Let's hope that pans out. Does the price really matter? I'll bet it's going to be at least as expensive as the Hasse or Mamiya/Phase with 40MP back. I wish they would price it to compete with DSLRs but I doubt it. Leica's history with pricing is very high, which means that the image quality from this camera better be a level above the other MF cameras out there if they expect to sell any S2s at all. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgcd Posted July 21, 2009 Share #557 Posted July 21, 2009 Does the price really matter? You bet it does! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevesanacore Posted July 21, 2009 Share #558 Posted July 21, 2009 What I was saying is that whatever the price is, there is a small group of photographers that will buy it, if they need it's unique features. Most of us will probably not be able to justify spending $30K + on a camera with a few lenses, and have only marginal improvements over the industry standards. I am afraid it will be just like the M8, great quality but very limited in usefulness, too low MP for it's competition, and overpriced. Now if the body was priced at 10K and lenses for an average of 2.5K, then it would truly make a difference! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted July 22, 2009 Share #559 Posted July 22, 2009 I'll bet it's going to be at least as expensive as the Hasse or Mamiya/Phase with 40MP back. I thought Leica have already openly stated that the price will be similar to other high end MF systems? They have also stated that they believe that the 37MP S2 sensor is on a par with sensors in the 50MP range so we can probably guess which MF backs they are going to use as a pricing benchmark. Personally, I don't have a problem with this - why would anyone expect the S2 body to cost less than an H3D11-50 (and I'm quite sure few in this market expect the lenses to be cheaper or equivalently priced to H system lenses)? My feeling is that sales of the S2 will struggle (certainly in the short term) not because of the price relative to other MF systems but simply because of the dire economic circumstances that the camera is being launched into. I realise that Eric Clapton and Seal probably can't wait to get their grubby hands on the S2 but I suspect that Leica might be disappointed if they think that rich amateurs will make up the shortfall in professional demand. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lxlim Posted July 22, 2009 Share #560 Posted July 22, 2009 ... I am afraid it will be just like the M8, great quality but very limited in usefulness, too low MP for it's competition, and overpriced.... Cannot agree with you there, friend. DSLRs and rangefinders are like left and right hands to me. Which would I rather have? Both, thank you! Alex Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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