The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

F%$#%$! I just tried out the Leaf Aptus II 6 CRAZY!! So confused???

carstenw

Active member
I don't dislike Hasselblad cameras (other than the colour; oh no, he said it again!). See the other thread for details.
 

thomas

New member
My Sinar screen is no better. I think only the Leaf is larger, and only the Leica is bright enough for outside (supposedly, since in this forum, I think only David Farkas has tried it outside so far).
actually they are all okay outside... they just don't display a very usfull image. The plus is contrastier than the non plus... the black (backlight) of the non plus is not really black so it looks softer. Too, as the non plus has less resolution. The plus LCD is good enough to tell the focus plane if you shoot at wide apertures (so you can roughly tell sharp from soft). On the non plus even this is impossible. With wide DOF both displays are not approriate to judge if the image is really sharp at all (you can't tell softness due to shake for example).
Well, I don't care a lot, I can live with both the LCDs though a kind of focus control on the LCD shooting untethered with the view camera would be fine as focussing on the groundglass is hard sometimes.
As to the LCD of the S2 Michael states on LuLa in his S2 first impressions article:
The camera's large LCD is good, but not great. Apparently it was specified a couple of years ago and was state-of-the-art then.
So I wouldn't expect very much from the S2 display.
 

Dale Allyn

New member
I'm satisfied with the Phase LCD outdoors, but of course there is room for improvement. I'd not want to sacrifice battery life for it though.

I think it also depends on one's expectations of the LCDs though. I read of people complaining that clients can't see the screen during a shoot, etc., but I think that's absurd. It's a tiny control panel for the photographer, not a projection screen for presentation.

My number one concern is histogram (and highlight clipping) so mostly satisfied; and I sometimes confirm focus on the LCD. I'm not so trusting of the LCD for focus check (that's where I'd appreciate a little improvement), so if it's likely to be a problem I usually cover myself with extra frames. Overall though, I prefer to take photos rather than stare at the LCD anyway. ;)
 

Christopher

Active member
How in HELL can someone be satisfied or think it is OK for outdoor use ? I mean yes you can see the image in a form or another, you can even check focus, but to check the exposure it is hard. Without switching between highlight clipping and the histogram it is impossible. That is just sad for such expensive backs. I mean compared to my 5DMkII it hurts every time to go back to that ****ty Phase LCD. I'm not even starting to talk about the new High End LCDs on a d3x. It will be interesting if phase actually re designs their next generation or if they risk to ship the same old LCD from, well it feels like 2000. My Canon 10D LCD was far better.
 

vieri

Well-known member
...
As to the LCD of the S2 Michael states on LuLa in his S2 first impressions article: The camera's large LCD is good, but not great. Apparently it was specified a couple of years ago and was state-of-the-art then.
So I wouldn't expect very much from the S2 display.
Michael was way too kind to Leica when he said that - 2 years ago the high-end LCDs like those sported by the Nikon D3 series were already out and about, let alone specified (D3, announced in August 2007). The S2's LCD, while hopefully good enough, has never been state-of-the-art, not even in the planning stage... shame, for such an high-end product (and for that price). :rolleyes: However, if you are into that kind of things, or if you plan to bring the S2 into heavy fights or that kind of action, you can get the sapphire cover for your LCD. The price? You could buy a good DSLR and a lens or two for the same amount of cash, but hey, what are you going to do... :ROTFL:
 

thomas

New member
How in HELL can someone be satisfied or think it is OK for outdoor use ?
well, if you can't that's your problem. As you can't use it seriously for anything else than the histogram or a rough idea about the composition anyway ... it is okay to see the Histogram. Simple as that. Actually you knew it before or at the latest in the moment you bought the back. If you need the display for anything else than the histogram and changing settings than it's clearly the wrong purchase for you. Use it like a film back with "metering" incorporated; that's all.
Actually I often smile about the LCD, especially the non plus. Indeed it's somehow fun to work with this dinosaur. That's also okay :)
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
How in HELL can someone be satisfied or think it is OK for outdoor use ? I mean yes you can see the image in a form or another, you can even check focus, but to check the exposure it is hard. Without switching between highlight clipping and the histogram it is impossible. That is just sad for such expensive backs. I mean compared to my 5DMkII it hurts every time to go back to that ****ty Phase LCD. I'm not even starting to talk about the new High End LCDs on a d3x. It will be interesting if phase actually re designs their next generation or if they risk to ship the same old LCD from, well it feels like 2000. My Canon 10D LCD was far better.
No matter how good the LCD of a camera/back it's ALWAYS better to learn to read a histogram than to try to judge based on the brightness of the LCD.
 

thomas

New member
No matter how good the LCD of a camera/back it's ALWAYS better to learn to read a histogram than to try to judge based on the brightness of the LCD.
especially as the Phase backs display the image tagged with the default color space and the film curve "linear response".
 

KETCH ROSSI

New member
I have used just about every kind of LCD, LED, Monitors, literally of every brand and up to 20k in value, outdoors, they are all the same, you need a shade, and I always use one, so as I do in my Film sets, I do in my Photography sets, accessorizing my gear is a must, and so I will do the same with the LCD of the P30+ :)
 

jlm

Workshop Member
here is a tip i picked up, any comments?

apparently the histogram readings are taken from the image on the LCD, not directly from the raw data. If you bump up the contrast for better outdoor viewing, you will also change the histogram, effectively underexposing your actual raw file
 

dfarkas

Workshop Member
Michael was way too kind to Leica when he said that - 2 years ago the high-end LCDs like those sported by the Nikon D3 series were already out and about, let alone specified (D3, announced in August 2007). The S2's LCD, while hopefully good enough, has never been state-of-the-art, not even in the planning stage... shame, for such an high-end product (and for that price). :rolleyes: However, if you are into that kind of things, or if you plan to bring the S2 into heavy fights or that kind of action, you can get the sapphire cover for your LCD. The price? You could buy a good DSLR and a lens or two for the same amount of cash, but hey, what are you going to do... :ROTFL:
The S2's screen is much better than the Canon 1Ds mkIII, but not quite as nice as the D3x (all three cameras use 3" LCDs and are current models, so it's the closest comparison). It is much, much nicer than H3DII, P1, or Leaf screens. If you are okay with the resolution and size of an iPhone, you will like the S2's LCD. They are both 360x480 pixels and 3".

I'm not sure why Michael would have written what he did, but my experience differed from his. Outside, the screen wasn't as bright as I would have liked, but it was okay in bright sun. To date, the most visible LCD in bright daylight is still the Leica DMR. Small, yes, but better than anything else in FL sun.

David
 

Christopher

Active member
Well then Phase give us a GOOD histogram and not the one right now, which again compared to Canon, Nikon and even Sony is pretty bad.

@ David let me think. Oh the 1DsMk3 is now two years old. Amazingly Leica managed to produce a better LCD. (Phase look out) On the other hand they managed to produce something worse than a nearly one year old D3x LCD. Sorry but for 20k plus I except more.
 

vieri

Well-known member
The S2's screen is much better than the Canon 1Ds mkIII, but not quite as nice as the D3x (all three cameras use 3" LCDs and are current models, so it's the closest comparison). It is much, much nicer than H3DII, P1, or Leaf screens. If you are okay with the resolution and size of an iPhone, you will like the S2's LCD. They are both 360x480 pixels and 3".

I'm not sure why Michael would have written what he did, but my experience differed from his. Outside, the screen wasn't as bright as I would have liked, but it was okay in bright sun. To date, the most visible LCD in bright daylight is still the Leica DMR. Small, yes, but better than anything else in FL sun.

David
David, I certainly don't doubt your experience nor (as I wrote in my previous message) the adequacy of the S2 screen. However, the point was wether it was "state-of-the-art" when it was planned, which it certainly was not: much better screens were out there two years ago, which means they were specified at least 4 years ago. Leica choose not to use one, which is fine, and choose to offer the sapphire upgrade as a (very) expensive extra, which is fine - a manufacturer can do what they want, of course; however, the good part of this is that we the customers can then vote with our wallets on wether a manufacturer did the right choice for us or not :D
 

thomas

New member
wrong reading of the LuLa article and the issue. If you change contrast, saturation or any other image setting on DSLRs the adjustments (of the image, not the LCD) are reflected in the histogram of the JPEG - and this is what DSLRs display. The same applies to motif programs of DSLRs of course. DSLRs do not display the actual RAW file but the processed JPEGs.
I don't know about Hasselblad but Phase backs do not display the histogram of the actual RAW file (otherwise 1 stop underexposure would shift the histogram half way to the left on the histogram scale). But - this is my reading - they display a (default-) icc profile corrected RAW histogram (and/or maybe any other kind of default adjustment to the RAW file).
I.e.: if you set Capture One to the default input color space and the film curve "linear response" the histogram on the DBs LCD and in C1 match. So in practice it works like it should.
 
Last edited:

yaya

Active member
If you are okay with the resolution and size of an iPhone, you will like the S2's LCD. They are both 360x480 pixels and 3".
David
The iPhone's screen is 3" X 2" (3.5" diagonal) I doubt the S2's screen is as big.
 

dfarkas

Workshop Member
The iPhone's screen is 3" X 2" (3.5" diagonal) I doubt the S2's screen is as big.
Okay, so the S2's screen offers a higher DPI res than the iPhone. If they have the same number of pixels and the S2 LCD is slightly smaller (3" vs. 3.2") it should look sharper.

Thanks for pointing this out.

David
 

dfarkas

Workshop Member
David, I certainly don't doubt your experience nor (as I wrote in my previous message) the adequacy of the S2 screen. However, the point was wether it was "state-of-the-art" when it was planned, which it certainly was not: much better screens were out there two years ago, which means they were specified at least 4 years ago. Leica choose not to use one, which is fine, and choose to offer the sapphire upgrade as a (very) expensive extra, which is fine - a manufacturer can do what they want, of course; however, the good part of this is that we the customers can then vote with our wallets on wether a manufacturer did the right choice for us or not :D
Vieri,

I'm confused. If the S2 has a superior LCD to all medium format systems (many of which carry higher price tags) and is better than Canon's top-of-the-line 1Ds, how do you reach the conclusion that Leica somehow skimped on the technology? Yes, the D3x screen is slightly better, but Nikon also purchases in much higher volume. I'd say that given their relatively low volume, Leica has probably spec'd the best screen they could.

With regards to the Platinum Package with Sapphire glass, this is designed primarily for rental studios. The sapphire glass screen won't get scuffed, even if rented 100 times in a year. The camera will look "newer" and hold its rental value better. And the Platinum Package includes a free shutter replacement. So, after 2 years when the rental S2 has 200,000 exposures on it, the studio can send it in and get a brand new shutter, thus significantly extending the life of the camera. For most individual owners this package isn't necessary, but for the rental houses, it should give them a better ROI over the long term.

David
 
Top