New S2 competitor from Phase One

[c6gowin]

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I really like the S2 size. It felt good in my hand, easy to handle, and not too large. The 70mm CS lens filter size is 82mm (I am pretty sure) and isn't noticeably bigger than say a Canon 24-70mm f2.8 (77mm filter size). Here is photo of me holding the S2/70mm combo. For reference purposes, the photo was taken by Justin (from Leica) with my M8 and 50 Lux. It is also important to note that my hands and fingers are not large.

 

[ptomsu]

well,

 

showing someone holding this beast in front of their face does not really help to judge the size and handling

[c6gowin]

You are absolutely correct Peter. No photo can really show you how the camera will fit your hand or how the ergonomics will work for you. I posted the photo and my thoughts on the S2 size and handling for those that are interested in another opinion. Hopefully, you will get a chance to handle the S2 soon so you can form your own opinion.

[tom0511]

As a Hy6/Rollei user I am not that much concerned about the size and weight of the Leica S lenses

Of course it would be nice if Leica packed the lenses without shutter in a smaller "package". Maybe they will do it later?

On the other side it would be nice if Mamiya would finally bring leaf shutter lenses to the market.

 

Frankly I am concerned anyways how Leica wants to bear all those development costs, specially with the price development of the MF-market.

I think it was a massive mistake to not first bring a digital R10 for all those people who allready own some Leica R lenses and which should be a much larger market than the MF-battle-field.

[ptomsu]

As a Hy6/Rollei user I am not that much concerned about the size and weight of the Leica S lenses

Of course it would be nice if Leica packed the lenses without shutter in a smaller "package". Maybe they will do it later?

On the other side it would be nice if Mamiya would finally bring leaf shutter lenses to the market.

 

Frankly I am concerned anyways how Leica wants to bear all those development costs, specially with the price development of the MF-market.

I think it was a massive mistake to not first bring a digital R10 for all those people who allready own some Leica R lenses and which should be a much larger market than the MF-battle-field.

 

1) Hy6/Rollei - true, then you are not concerned about size. This is one of the main reasons for me to exclude this system from my wish list

 

2) Leaf shutter - I fully agree, both that Leica lenses without Leaf shutter would be great, as well as Mamiya showing finally the most popular lenses with Leaf shutter

 

3) Leica R - well I think meanwhile that this system is dead and it actually should have died already years ago, because of a new R system breaking with old R lens mount. I hope really that the new R system will be also designed and built from the scratch but with the option to use old R glass (most) with an adapter.

 

I think it was the right decision to come first with the S system, as all the rest (R and M) can be derived from this pretty easily

 

My concern is, if Leica can afford to build and sell successfully 3 systems in the future

[lct]

...I think it was a massive mistake to not first bring a digital R10 for all those people who allready own some Leica R lenses and which should be a much larger market than the MF-battle-field.

Agree, unless the money earned with the S2 allows the R10's launch i guess. Big 'if' here though.

[tom0511]

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I think it was the right decision to come first with the S system, as all the rest (R and M) can be derived from this pretty easily

 

My concern is, if Leica can afford to build and sell successfully 3 systems in the future

 

If Leica brings the digital R10 in 15 months many people will allready have sold their R-glass and have moved to Nikon or Sony+Zeiss-glass. This means in the end Leica will have lost many customers to other brands IMO.

 

They could have also develop the R10 and take this knowledge for the S2.

The other point is that a R10 with the right sensor might even come close to MF image quality. Finally Leica could have taken advantage of the high resolution of their lenses.

With DSLR sensor getting more and more resolution the lenses get more and more the bottleneck.

 

I wish the best for Leica and the S2, but I just doubt that there is much money to make in the MF-market today.

[paulmoore]

As a Hy6/Rollei user I am not that much concerned about the size and weight of the Leica S lenses

Of course it would be nice if Leica packed the lenses without shutter in a smaller "package". Maybe they will do it later?

On the other side it would be nice if Mamiya would finally bring leaf shutter lenses to the market.

 

Frankly I am concerned anyways how Leica wants to bear all those development costs, specially with the price development of the MF-market.

I think it was a massive mistake to not first bring a digital R10 for all those people who allready own some Leica R lenses and which should be a much larger market than the MF-battle-field.

 

I am a rollei user and very pleased that the S2 is sized so small.. really taking advantange of it small high resolution sensor... I would be surprised again if the future R10 is that much different from the S2.. or shall I say different enough to justify both, I am hanging on to my dmr and r lenses, yet if I replace my rollei with an S2 would I even need an R10..I will probably want one but need? Seems the S2 would fill the bill for all but extreme view camera work.

btw.. a note to S2 team.. work on some TS attachment like hasselbald's hts so that you can mount med. to short telephoto for product work.. tilt and shift are not just for wideangle architecture work. Personally I would love to mount the S2 to my rollei xact2 and use the rollei schneider lenses ( lots of coverage) with it.. but that is a pipe dream.

Or.. who better to make a simple technical bench system than Leica..with S2 lenses.

[plasticman]

If Leica brings the digital R10 in 15 months many people will allready have sold their R-glass....

 

For every person that sells their R-glass... someone else buys it!

[AlanG]

If Leica brings the digital R10 in 15 months many people will allready have sold their R-glass and have moved to Nikon or Sony+Zeiss-glass. This means in the end Leica will have lost many customers to other brands IMO.

 

They could have also develop the R10 and take this knowledge for the S2.

The other point is that a R10 with the right sensor might even come close to MF image quality. Finally Leica could have taken advantage of the high resolution of their lenses.

With DSLR sensor getting more and more resolution the lenses get more and more the bottleneck.

 

I wish the best for Leica and the S2, but I just doubt that there is much money to make in the MF-market today.

 

I think Leica realized that with the cost of making lenses in Germany they would be more competitive in the MF market. I think a scaled down 35mm version of the S2 would be pretty primitive and unnecessary considering the features in the S2. (No IS, no live view, 1 focus point, etc.)

 

With the M and S2 systems in place, what would be a logical direction to go? I think they need to make a 24x36 camera with an EVF. Pretty much a full frame Panasonic GH-1. This would be a platform for a new line of AF lenses, but would also accommodate R and S2 lenses. (A thin body and a tilt/shift adapter would allow all S2 lenses and perhaps other lenses to be used on it.) And it would give full frame functionality to M lenses that are long enough to work with it. So it would find a market with M users, R users, S2 users, and new users (if it is priced right and has a line of reasonably affordable lenses even if that means they are made in Asia.)

 

A design like this would be forward looking and could be grown into a very versatile and competitive system for still photography and video.

[stunsworth]

I think they need to make a 24x36 camera with an EVF.

 

But EVF viewfinders look crap, and the R10 will be a very expensive camera. I know what you are going to say, that EVFs will get better over time, but marketing an R10 on the basis that the R11 will have an acceptable viewfinder isn't a recipe for success IMHO.

 

Also there are issues such as battery life and noise on a full frame sensor.

[ptomsu]

An EVF equaling somehow the quality of a mirror finder is something like 10 years out in the future.

 

Then - with a resolution of say 20MP and a high dynamic range and excellent refresh rate - say 200 fps - yes, then slowly it could become a competition to classic ones.

 

Before that it is just garbage and waste of time, efforts and money!

[AlanG]

An EVF equaling somehow the quality of a mirror finder is something like 10 years out in the future.

 

Then - with a resolution of say 20MP and a high dynamic range and excellent refresh rate - say 200 fps - yes, then slowly it could become a competition to classic ones.

 

Before that it is just garbage and waste of time, efforts and money!

 

I think it is the way to go right now. The mirror reflex finder is not always better. There are many advantages to an EVF system for various applications. Yes there are trade-offs too. Any improvement over the EVF of the G1 would probably be enough for now. I use the live view on my 5DII quite a lot and it works very well even though it is not up to what a current state of the art EVF in the G1 will do.

 

My experience with live view on the 5DII has shown me a few things. Magnified live view allows for extremely accurate manual focusing. It also allows for accurate framing and focusing in low light. One can set up the camera and use a remote monitor when shooting still life photos. This allows you to arrange the props on set without going back and forth to the camera. It is a huge advantage for video. Why should Leica ignore the video market? News photography and photojournalism is moving in that direction.

 

They already have the S2 and M8 for traditionalists. There is no point in building another "me too" dslr system. With an EVF they will be making a much more versatile system for the future and will provide an evolutionary direction for Leica. It can also be significantly smaller and lighter than the S2 system and somewhat smaller and lighter than other FF35mm DSLRs. If they make a model with an optical viewfinder/rangefinder on it, Leica will really be covered for those with M lenses.

 

This is happening with the micro 4/3rds whether Leica likes it or not. New small rumored models from Olympus might start encroaching on applications that photographers currently do with M models. I bet Canon, Nikon, and Sony will have small lightweight entry level EVF interchangeable lens models before too long. We saw Leica miss the trend to SLRs in the late 50s and the requirement for a system camera with TTL metering when they came out with the first Leicaflex. Then they missed out on AF (It will be more than 24 years since the Maxxum came out before Leica sells an AF camera.) And they missed out on making an integrated FF dslr. Then they completely dropped the R system as they realized it was uncompetitive due to not having evolved the R line into an AF FF DSLR system. Here is Leica's chance to get a FF EVF system out before the entire field is dominated by others.

[delander †]

 

With the M and S2 systems in place, what would be a logical direction to go? I think they need to make a 24x36 camera with an EVF. Pretty much a full frame Panasonic GH-1. This would be a platform for a new line of AF lenses, but would also accommodate R and S2 lenses. (A thin body and a tilt/shift adapter would allow all S2 lenses and perhaps other lenses to be used on it.) And it would give full frame functionality to M lenses that are long enough to work with it. So it would find a market with M users, R users, S2 users, and new users (if it is priced right and has a line of reasonably affordable lenses even if that means they are made in Asia.)

 

A design like this would be forward looking and could be grown into a very versatile and competitive system for still photography and video.

 

Yes Leica could do all that (probably if they tried hard) but then it would not be Leica would it? They would just morph into being another competitor along with the rest, mainly Japanese giants. Would they have a future in that pike infested pond?

 

You could argue the same for Phase One or Hasselblad but then they too would become just another face in the crowd.

 

Leica has to be different and that is very hard but I dont see any other way forward if one wants to retain the real Leica. I get the impression that M8 and M8.2 sales are pretty steady now even 2½ years after intro. I am sure there is market

 

Jeff

[AlanG]

 

Also there are issues such as battery life and noise on a full frame sensor.

 

The 5DII will run in live view for about 2 hours on one battery. Most of the power is used to run the 3" LCD. A small EVF should be much more efficient. The sensor does not get noisy in my experience.

 

At this point, live view on FF sensors is almost 2 year old technology. So it is well proven and should be even better when the next new models come out. I expect to soon see various clip on EVFs from 3rd party vendors for use on current Canons and Nikon models. (Maybe Canon and Nikon will make them soon too.) This will really help for video work but also have other benefits.

[AlanG]

Yes Leica could do all that (probably if they tried hard) but then it would not be Leica would it? They would just morph into being another competitor along with the rest, mainly Japanese giants. Would they have a future in that pike infested pond?

 

 

Gee the S2 doesn't look like anything that Leica previously made. Or did I miss the other traditional 30x45mm AF DSLR models from Leica?

 

And don't they market all of those re-badged Panasonic models as actual "Leicas?" It isn't like the old days when Nikon called their lower priced models Nikkorex or Nikkormat. A lot of people using Panasonic models are on this forum thinking they are using a Leica. Are they or are they not? A micro 4/3rds EVF "Leica" is probably in the cards.

 

I am proposing that Leica get ahead of the pack for once and not be left in the dust by the competition. It beats trying to compete with the Japanese giants with a regular DSLR.

 

Whatever they try, whether they have a future is yet to be determined. Regardless of the strengths of the S2, when it hits the market as an unproven product with only 4 lenses and minimal accessories, it is probably not going to make a big immediate splash. Although sales may do well over time if Leica makes a major effort to quickly advance, support, and market the system. If anything, this may eat up resources and not generate significant income for some time.

[carstenw]

An EVF equaling somehow the quality of a mirror finder is something like 10 years out in the future.

 

Then - with a resolution of say 20MP and a high dynamic range and excellent refresh rate - say 200 fps - yes, then slowly it could become a competition to classic ones.

 

I think you are inventing numbers. 100Hz is more than we can perceive directly already. But yes, they need higher refresh rates. The best one I have seen is the G1, and it has lag and motion blur, and the resolution is too low.

[carstenw]

This is happening with the micro 4/3rds whether Leica likes it or not. New small rumored models from Olympus might start encroaching on applications that photographers currently do with M models.

 

I love how the Olympus camera's specs aren't even known yet, nor is the performance or anything about the camera really, except that it won't look like the mockup, yet Leica has already lost. Let's wait a little and see what happens, shall we?

[AlanG]

I love how the Olympus camera's specs aren't even known yet, nor is the performance or anything about the camera really, except that it won't look like the mockup, yet Leica has already lost. Let's wait a little and see what happens, shall we?

 

Leica Ms have been steadily losing out to a wide range of cameras for decades. Any small versatile high resolution interchangeable lens camera will simply add to the choices. I'm not proposing they drop the M. Just make more products to try to become competitive. I can't see how a high end 35mm format DSLR system will do that for them or they would have already evolved the R line into that.

 

Maybe the R10 will be a micro 4/3rds.

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[georg]

4/3 is an amateur-system, much of the effort and skill of Leica in mechanics and optics (and will always make them as expensive as other pro-systems) are lost by the tiny sensor-size.

 

But they mentioned a non-traditional M-based system with electronical viewfinder-components, I think the M-bayonet is their entry to smaller non-SLR-cameras and the lens-designs are perfect for that. But it will take some time to get better EVF, I think we see a "classic"-rangefinder M9 first and it should have live-view, that would be really useful for a rangefinder.