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S Is For Show Us Your S2 Shots

paulmoore

New member
No doubt it's a stellar lens... but not sure there aren't equally good one's around. My Rollei glass held it's own head to head with the Leica lenses. I may have something that will compare favorably with the Leica 120 makro in a few weeks and we shall see...
I have the rollei lenses.. yes they are good.. the 90mm macro is really nice.. but it is 90 f4 and manual .. as marc has pointed out.. there is nothing in the rollei line that meets the 120mm leica..period.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
My preference would be to avoid the adapter route too but at $7k a lens and limited availability it's something I may have to live with for a while. Accurate AF is a very big plus for me as I still struggle with MF on some of my modeling shoots especially with low camera angles and low light/back light situations. Truth be told, a Hassy with WLF and TF might be a better solution for those situations but after shooting the S2 for a while I'm just not going back to that form factor. And no... there is nothing in the Rollei macro lineup with a 2.5 max aperture. But since I still have all my Rollei glass (and nothing to shoot it with) it can't hurt to experiment.
Understood, and I most certainly grasp the thinking having done the same many times myself. :)

-Marc
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Understood, and I most certainly grasp the thinking having done the same many times myself. :)

-Marc
Dear Marc and David

I am keenly interested in your perspective S2 vs MFDB, and your comments on the use of lenses and adapters is following mine. I have many great Hassey lenses, and of course have the C645 lenses, AF. I have been using the 350/4 AF for birding and it just has trouble finding the exact image. AF cant read minds :eek:
That said a lot of shots are OOF or missed with MF. Thus I was interested in how the hassey adapter on the S2 worked. Does it confirm focus? For me that's almost as good.

My probelm is being 68, bum shoulders (now a broken wrist, skiing!:mad:) and although I have in to upgrade from P65+ to IQ180, I may switch to S2. I am sure there will be a ready market for a discount on an IQ180 with warranty 3yrs, and there are still a lot of C645 to absorb my stuff (I bought years ago, so I dont need to squeeze ever penny out!)

I would be left with M9, S2 and hassey lenses. A lot for just a serious amateur.

Marc have you completely given up on adapters? if you had the 350 SA wouldn't you want to try on the S2? (or can it be used on the H system?

regards
Victor
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Dear Marc and David

I am keenly interested in your perspective S2 vs MFDB, and your comments on the use of lenses and adapters is following mine. I have many great Hassey lenses, and of course have the C645 lenses, AF. I have been using the 350/4 AF for birding and it just has trouble finding the exact image. AF cant read minds :eek:
That said a lot of shots are OOF or missed with MF. Thus I was interested in how the hassey adapter on the S2 worked. Does it confirm focus? For me that's almost as good.

My probelm is being 68, bum shoulders (now a broken wrist, skiing!:mad:) and although I have in to upgrade from P65+ to IQ180, I may switch to S2. I am sure there will be a ready market for a discount on an IQ180 with warranty 3yrs, and there are still a lot of C645 to absorb my stuff (I bought years ago, so I dont need to squeeze ever penny out!)

I would be left with M9, S2 and hassey lenses. A lot for just a serious amateur.

Marc have you completely given up on adapters? if you had the 350 SA wouldn't you want to try on the S2? (or can it be used on the H system?

regards
Victor
Victor, I think it has everything to do with how and what you shoot.

Like you, I used a Contax 645 with both the Zeiss AF lenses including the 350/4 APO ... and a NAM-1 adapter to use my relatively vast collection of V lenses both CF and FE. It became more and more apparent that outside the studio, I wanted/needed AF for my style of more spontaneous shooting. When it became crystal clear that the C645 would never improve the AF, I moved on to the H system ... which has continually improved the AF system, and along with it my In Focus hit ratio ... culminating with True Focus and the H4D/60 where DOF and focus accuracy is even more critical. IMO, minor differences in optical qualities pales in comparison to too many OOF shots.

Then along comes the S2 with unquestioned optics (IMO), and AF. When I tested the S2 before buying into the system, almost all the time was spent testing the AF and form factor for my style of shooting.

I also just "LOVE" getting older ... where the sins of youth visit themselves on you with a vengeance :eek: I have a bone-on-bone arthritic sports knee that should have been totally replaced a decade ago, and I broke a couple of toes in the Studio a couple of weeks ago ... good thing I don't have a wedding to shoot soon :ROTFL: Plus when younger, I severely damaged my right eye, and it is also getting worse faster than my left eye ... making AF more important. I can focus the M even with the 0.95 because I use mags ... plus rangefinders are easier to manually focus anyway.

So, lugging around a really big system is something I'm less inclined to do now ... but I'm addicted to file quality.

The only adapter I now own is one to use Leica M lenses on a Sony NEX ... and I don't consider it a serious item, more for fun. I truly am not interested in any adapted anything and sold all of my V system and even the CF adapters to use V lenses on the H camera ... even though the H had focus confirmation with manual V lenses. It was all just too slow.

Sure I'd like to "try" a 350SA on a S2 ... but it is not something I'd ever buy ... I just do not use longer lenses very much ... actually hardly at all. I'd like to see a 1/4X APO extender for the Leica S180 and that would be all I'd ever need.

So, it is all predicated around what and how you shoot.

-Marc

Me in my "Big Zeiss Lens" days ... :rolleyes:

View attachment 41732
 

Paratom

Well-known member
One thin I have to add in the MF vs AF discussion is the center AF point "problem" when using shallow DOF (which I like to use).
As many know here I take many images of my kids and want the focus on the eyes. Focus and recompose can be a problem here, not only because it might slightly change the distance caused by the different angle when recomposing, but also because after recomposing until waiting for the right moment (expression of the face for example) the subject (or myself) might have slightly moved.
So I realized that I often end up and keep the center AF point of the S2 on the eye, which means I have to crop afterwards to get the framing I want.
This means I loose some resolution.
True focus (like the Hassy) might help for some part but not solve the total problem.
Various AF points would be really a serious advantage for me (I used it all the time with Nikon).
In good light the nice viewfinder of the S2 helps however and even though my eyes are not as good as the AF in most case it helps to judge if the focus is still fine and I can manually correct if needed.
Here is also one point where fast lenses help, because they lead to a brighter viewfinder and shallow DOF which both help for manual focus.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Wouldn't body sway or subject movement affect critical focus no matter where the active focus point was located in the viewfinder?

Apparently, how far from center that auxiliary AF points can be placed is an issue for current technology. Even AF points in a 35mm DSLR aren't really placed very far from center ... and tend to be less sensitive than the center one even when touted as being improved cross type sensors. It seems even less spaced out when that current technology is overlaid into a MF viewfinder. I wonder what the technological issues are that prevent a more useful placement of AF points? I wonder why, with today's computerized abilities, that three separate AF systems couldn't be included ... One center, and two others at either side ... selected with a simple rocker switch like the mirror control on a car?

I use off-center compositions frequently when shooting people, which I do a lot of since I mostly photograph weddings, environmental portraits, and a fair amount of wiggle worm active kids at play. I also favor wider apertures to isolate the subjects.

After a full year of using Hasselblad's True Focus/Absolute Position Lock feature I've found it to be the best solution currently available even compared to the multi-AF sensors in the Canon 1DSMKIII, Nikon D3/D3X and Sony A900 I've used extensively. The reason is that it always uses the more sensitive center AF point, and that AF point can be placed anywhere in the scene even the very edge of the viewfinder, so the focus/recomposing action is faster than wheeling AF points around in a 35mm DSLR window. The trick is to practice the decisive moment of TF lock-on, and swiftly recompose-shoot without hesitation. The other practice one has to master is to rotate for recompose using the wrists as the pivot point, not the body at the hips because that can tend to introduce body sway more easily.

TF is NOT faster if one uses a 35mm DSLR auxiliary AF point as the lock/shoot without any slight recomposing. Which I tend to not like because the AF point placements are grouped around the center to much.

Manual focus tweaks are always possible with modern clutch type lenses like the S line, but I've found that pretty hard in lower light. I suppose a really good fresnel screen would help.

-Marc
 

D&A

Well-known member
Marc Wrote--->"Even AF points in a 35mm DSLR aren't really placed very far from center ... and tend to be less sensitive than the center one even when touted as being improved cross type sensors. It seems even less spaced out when that current technology is overlaid into a MF viewfinder. I wonder what the technological issues are that prevent a more useful placement of AF points? I wonder why, with today's computerized abilities, that three separate AF systems couldn't be included ... One center, and two others at either side ... selected with a simple rocker switch like the mirror control on a car?"<<<

Marc, dead on! On the Pentax 645D MFD body, there are 9 AF points in the VF to select from, all clustered around the center of the frame. Shuttling from one to another isn't near as fast as in say in a Nikon D3 and spacing of them as you say, is too close for any practical advantage except one that I can think of at the moment. When a irregular shaped subject/object "close-up" fills the frame, such as a arrangement of flowers, it then becomes easier to select a focusing point and and keep it precisely locked on, without disturbing camera/tripod set-up. Except for this and I'm sure other exceptions, its generally more intuitive to use the center AF point (which seems more sensitive than the others) and just recompose, especially while shooting landscapes at infinity.

I too have wondered what the technical issues were that prevented an array of AF sensors to be placed, so that they were able to be spaced out and placed near the sides and top/bottom of the viewfinder as well as the center, in some acceptable fashion without cluttering up the entire view inside the VF. Maybe user selected overlays (called up via a button or menu option) that allowed the photographer to select an overlay that fit their application at the time of shooting. Sort of like calling up electronic grid lines in some DSLR's.

Dave (D&A)
 
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David K

Workshop Member
Victor, I have the Hassy adapter for the S2 and it works well but it's dumb, i.e. no chip to provide communication between the lens and camera. I've been told by a guy who understands this stuff better than I that developing such a chip is feasible (this was in the context of my asking if I could somehow get my Rollei lenses working on the S2). I've shot the 110/2 and 350 SA on the S2 and the results are superb. I haven't shot with the new Leica 120 macro but, based on the shots Marc posted, I'd say it would make the 110/2 redundant. On the other hand, if you're not shooting macro and don't use that focal length often, you can save $4-5k and still get great results. And Leica doesn't yet have anything to offer in the SA range. I could have used my 350 SA and 1.4x for shooting the super moon last night :)

As far as AF goes... the Nikon D3 is light years better than anything I've shot in MF. The MF players need to work through whatever technical difficulties there are to improve this. IMHO, this is the weak link in the MF chain...
 

woodyspedden

New member
Victor, I think it has everything to do with how and what you shoot.

Like you, I used a Contax 645 with both the Zeiss AF lenses including the 350/4 APO ... and a NAM-1 adapter to use my relatively vast collection of V lenses both CF and FE. It became more and more apparent that outside the studio, I wanted/needed AF for my style of more spontaneous shooting. When it became crystal clear that the C645 would never improve the AF, I moved on to the H system ... which has continually improved the AF system, and along with it my In Focus hit ratio ... culminating with True Focus and the H4D/60 where DOF and focus accuracy is even more critical. IMO, minor differences in optical qualities pales in comparison to too many OOF shots.

Then along comes the S2 with unquestioned optics (IMO), and AF. When I tested the S2 before buying into the system, almost all the time was spent testing the AF and form factor for my style of shooting.

I also just "LOVE" getting older ... where the sins of youth visit themselves on you with a vengeance :eek: I have a bone-on-bone arthritic sports knee that should have been totally replaced a decade ago, and I broke a couple of toes in the Studio a couple of weeks ago ... good thing I don't have a wedding to shoot soon :ROTFL: Plus when younger, I severely damaged my right eye, and it is also getting worse faster than my left eye ... making AF more important. I can focus the M even with the 0.95 because I use mags ... plus rangefinders are easier to manually focus anyway.

So, lugging around a really big system is something I'm less inclined to do now ... but I'm addicted to file quality.

The only adapter I now own is one to use Leica M lenses on a Sony NEX ... and I don't consider it a serious item, more for fun. I truly am not interested in any adapted anything and sold all of my V system and even the CF adapters to use V lenses on the H camera ... even though the H had focus confirmation with manual V lenses. It was all just too slow.

Sure I'd like to "try" a 350SA on a S2 ... but it is not something I'd ever buy ... I just do not use longer lenses very much ... actually hardly at all. I'd like to see a 1/4X APO extender for the Leica S180 and that would be all I'd ever need.

So, it is all predicated around what and how you shoot.

-Marc

Me in my "Big Zeiss Lens" days ... :rolleyes:

View attachment 41732
Marc

I just finished a week long trial with Son Minh Pham's 350 SA and with the S2 you can make truly remarkable images.

I did not buy it ultimately simply because lugging it into the field with the body, several other lenses and a tripod is just more than I can handle at my age and physical condition. If I was still in my 50's it would be a no brainer! I don't often wish to be younger but when it comes to field work I certainly do.

Woody
 

David K

Workshop Member
Thought I'd share something I just learned with those who do plan on using adapters with the S2. Apparently the S2 "remembers" the aperture setting on the last Leica lens that was mounted before using an adapter. So, if you were shooting with the 70mm at f/8 and then decided to use a lens with an adapter the camera will not meter properly... all the shots will be seriously overexposed. That's true for both aperture priority and manual mode. The workaround is simply to put on a Leica lens and open it wide, e.g. 70mm at 2.5. Don't need to shoot there, just set the lens. Then switch to adapter with (in my case) 110/2 and the camera meters properly... again, in both aperture priority or manual mode. Drove me nuts trying to figure out what was wrong. Once again having a knowledgeable dealer is worth it's weight in gold.
 
David, that is news to me. I am thoroughly confused because I used both the Hasselblad and Pentax 6x7 adapters on the S2 when I went to the Everglades and changing the manual aperture certainly seemed to affect the metering. I didn't have many images with exposure problems and the ones I did have were more toward over exposure. Maybe I was lucky and coincidently set the S lens aperture open before switching to the Hassey or Pentax lenses.
 

David K

Workshop Member
Mark, it was news to me too. Happened once before and I stumbled upon the fix without knowing it so when it happened again I didn't have a clue. I suspect you had the last Leica lens mounted open wider than the max aperture of what you were shooting with the adapter. Be interesting if someone else with an adapter could try to recreate what I found. I'd guess it's a universal S2 issue since David F knew what the problem was and how to resolve it.
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Wouldn't body sway or subject movement affect critical focus no matter where the active focus point was located in the viewfinder?
...
The point I mean when shooting portrait its not like focusing/composing/pressing the shutter because you would wait for the right moment meaning there are delays between those actions.
I usually have C-AF on the AF button. When I can keep the AF-point on the eye means I can continous focus right until the moment when I press the shutter release.
 

woodyspedden

New member
Mark, it was news to me too. Happened once before and I stumbled upon the fix without knowing it so when it happened again I didn't have a clue. I suspect you had the last Leica lens mounted open wider than the max aperture of what you were shooting with the adapter. Be interesting if someone else with an adapter could try to recreate what I found. I'd guess it's a universal S2 issue since David F knew what the problem was and how to resolve it.
Mark and David

When I first bought my adapter I had these metering issues (Hassy adapter from Dale Photo). David Farkas made it clear that when removing the lens currently on the camera you had to have it set at the wide open aperture. Have not had a problem since.

Woody
 

gogopix

Subscriber
Thanks all
Interesting comments, including about the effect of the 'calandar' :p

Marc, agree shooting and style drive a lot of considerations. That's why the "fly before buy" is so important.

David(s) the adapter issue is not surprising. On each shoot with Hasseys I have to rmind myself of the 'slide the ap lock, compose, check meter, stop down...." but once set I can fire off a number of shots faster than AF!

Right now. I need to see what th IQ180 does for me... but THAT is for another thread

all the best, guys
Victor
 
Thank you for setting me straight David and Woody. I must have been very lucky when I used the adapters because I had no issues. I came away with very positive experience.
 
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