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Leica To Sell Lens Adapters - Pentax, Hassy and Mamiya on S2

Misguided. What makes the S2 special, if anything, is the glass not the sensor. And now with the 645D being weatherproof, having better high iso results and selling at less than half the price (with a lot more available lenses)... what's the point unless you're looking to make the fashion statement that a red dot somehow sets you apart?
R.I.P Leica
 

Terry

New member
Misguided. What makes the S2 special, if anything, is the glass not the sensor. And now with the 645D being weatherproof, having better high iso results and selling at less than half the price (with a lot more available lenses)... what's the point unless you're looking to make the fashion statement that a red dot somehow sets you apart?
R.I.P Leica
Or, if like me you like the body and user interface, it could make the whole package more affordable.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Or it could make the S2 actually viable for a pro that needs more than two lenses!!! (Okay, maybe four now, but still the point remains.) It's a smart move for a company that has limited lens offerings.
 

KurtKamka

Subscriber Member
I'm with Terry. The red dot fashion statement argument is frankly silly. I guess the Pentax will naturally be the best because it is the cheapest? Having recently tried the Phase, Hasselblad and S2 cameras, with a goal of getting back into medium format, there are things that I really like about all three offerings. My point of view is that anything that is an obvious step forward by any of the manufacturers gets a thumbs up in my book as it moves the category forward.
 

tjv

Active member
Man, why are there so many S2 bashers?

I tried the camera for a few days and it was a beautiful piece of kit. It's a new system and Leica are a small company.

How about we all start bashing Alpa, Sinar, Arca-Swiss, Linhof et al because they are more expensive than Fotoman? The whole "Leica must be crap / in trouble because they dare sell an adaptor for other peoples lenses" argument is stupid.
 

stephengilbert

Active member
"Man, why are there so many S2 bashers?" I suspect there are many reasons, but not least of them is the attitude of the company and of some of its fans.
 

Mike M

New member
This is great news for people that want to upgrade to the Leica but don't have the funds switch over their entire system at once. Lens adapters afford them the opportunity to use their current lenses on the S2 body while waiting to get the funds together to upgrade to Leica lenses at a later date.


Man, why are there so many S2 bashers?

I tried the camera for a few days and it was a beautiful piece of kit. It's a new system and Leica are a small company.

How about we all start bashing Alpa, Sinar, Arca-Swiss, Linhof et al because they are more expensive than Fotoman? The whole "Leica must be crap / in trouble because they dare sell an adaptor for other peoples lenses" argument is stupid.
Most of the bashing has to do with a lack of understanding of the S2 in terms of use-value. When people don't understand how it can be used as a tool within certain professional contexts then the only thing they have to measure it by is it's associated cost, which of course makes little sense since they don't understand it's use-value in the first place.

The S2 is marketed as a camera made for professionals. Many of the features that a lower or mid-level shooter might consider to be professional might not be the same as what a higher-end shooter might consider professional quality and this leads to huge misunderstandings. A photographer's status or his ambition to achieve a certain status will often color his definition of a word and his opinion of camera features. That might be elitist, but it's also the reality and truth of the photo industry.

For example, a low-end shooter might consider high ISO a professional feature since he's forced to work with available light. But a photographer working with large budgets might consider high ISO a low quality feature since he has the capacity to light every scene with a crew. In this example, the low-end shooter might think that the S2 (in it's current form) isn't up to his definition of professional standards since the high ISO isn't useful for his work. Meanwhile, the higher-end photographer considers high ISO to be a feature that only lower-end photographers worry about. In fact, the high end shooter might actually consider reliance on high ISO to be a sign of low quality work that doesn't match his professional standard. I'm just using ISO as an example because it's one of the common criticisms encountered online in discussions about the S2. But the point of the example isn't really about ISO as much as it is about how the definition of what is a professional standard can be vastly different depending on context and status of the photographer (or his aspiration to status) within the industry.
 
is there any adapters that let you use Leica Lenses with the H4D or Phase bodies? you think they would make more Lens sales if there was!
 

Christopher

Active member
"Man, why are there so many S2 bashers?"

I don't know about you but for me this camera still failes in to many aspects. I tried one and it felt ok, but it is right there between a real MF-camera with a removable back and a DSLR.

I don't have any need for such a camera, especially not for that price point. I would love to have more res, for a lot of stuff than a 5DII or d3x, however not for that premium price. For me the Pentax would be the smarter choice. Even a S3 wouldn't be of interest, I only hope Leica does well enough to produce a CMOS M10 and so on.
 

yaya

Active member
is there any adapters that let you use Leica Lenses with the H4D or Phase bodies? you think they would make more Lens sales if there was!
Not sure they'll have enough image circle to cover the bigger backs' sensors...and probably won't reach infinity focus either...
 
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xpixel

New member
is there any adapters that let you use Leica Lenses with the H4D or Phase bodies?
The lens and the lens mount of the S2 are patented. And all actually existing adapters are not legal ones... so any manufactures have to pay to Leica if they want to make a legal adapter...
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
The key word here is usefulness.

As one of the grandfathers of bolting 3rd party lenses ( Leica/Zeiss) on Canons along with Son, Kurt, Jan and a few others here none of us are doing this today. Interesting

Now I have not even read the article yet but it does bring some interesting ideas here but the one main issue if these adapters are manual stop down it yes does bring something to the party but only to certain types of shooters. Landscape folks this maybe useful but anyone shooting people using stop down is almost impossible. Lets look at this also if any Hassy/Phase / Leaf shooter switched to a S2 what are they really getting out of the deal. Think about this, the S2 in terms of sensor is no better than any 40MPX Hassy, Phase or Leaf back. Sure you are getting a different form factor in the S2 but you your not buying any better quality by bringing over you Hassy 28 to it or any other lens.
You already have a useful system and this does not make it more useful really to the existing MF owner.

Now for the new buyer of the s2 sure it may increase the S2 usefulness but this is not a easy way to work also. So you take what the S2 is supposed to be a a more DSLR type style and slow it down. Have to wonder if that makes actually sense. But it does buy you time until Leica gets more lenses out which asks the other big question. Why in all this time is there no more lenses than 3. This is NOT a technical /Production issue in my book but a financial/sales issue. To me simple logic is not enough sales to keep throwing money at new lenses. Its a balance for leica. Personally I'm not after balance I'm after a system. If you have to work in stop down sure it buys some time but it also buys limitations. Now to make this effective the adapters to really help will have to be all auto coupled so you don't have to work in stop down mode than this could make some sense as the S2 owner or buyer can fill the gaps of the current three lenses out today. Now if that sounds negative it really is not. I look at things when it comes to a system from a POV that I shoot a lot of different gigs or styles of Photography so as much versatility is very important. Now if your just a landscape shooter hell this maybe great news but a lot of landscape folks shoot with a Tech cam so a S2 type cam is not going to work.

As a current MF owner, S2 owner or S2 consideration to buy you have to think how this will all work for what you shoot. Yes i think it is a nice idea but it also needs to be useful and if it is stop down , let me repeat my first comment many grandfathers of this have moved on. But back than nothing was auto coupled and hopefully this is what they will do if they go down this path and another question is why would Hassy/Phase/Mamiya give up there mount patent. Okay maybe I will go read the article. LOL
 
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