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The S2 PMA with David Farkas

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I just copied the whole deal here from Davids blog for easier reading. But here is Davids link. I will get to see this myself Thursday and will add my thoughts. http://dfarkas.blogspot.com/

I headed over to the PMA show this morning and went straight to the Leica booth to find out if there was anything new and exciting that wasn't in the pre-PMA announcements. No such luck. No M9, R10, digital CM, or <insert other oft-rumored product here>. All the new lenses, SF 58 flash, and Safari Edition M8.2 were on demo, and even better, I was offered use of some of the lenses to go shoot the Las Vegas Strip tomorrow night. So, after the show on Wednesday I'll head out for the blue hour and beyond with my M8.2, the new 18mm Super-Elmar-M ASPH and the just-starting-to-ship 24mm Summilux-M ASPH. Sweet. And, because these are full production lenses, I can post all the pictures I want. Whoo-hoo.

My day was pretty much filled with various meetings inside the Leica booth. I got even more time than I had anticipated with Stephan Shulz and Andreas Wahlich. Stephan is the S2 product manager and Andreas is the S2 sales manager. Both are extremely knowledgeable on the S2 and were great about answering all my (many) questions. They caught me up on the developments since Photokina and we discussed some of the S2's strengths.



Let's start with some basics. The Leica S2 is still on target for shipment in summer 2009. Contrary to what you may read online, the S2 was always scheduled to be launched in summer and is not delayed. The camera will probably be available in two versions, with and without a sapphire glass LCD screen. This may seem like an odd differentiator at first, but does actually make sense. Making a 3 inch piece of sapphire glass is extremely expensive. As it is, the sapphire glass on the M8.2 is already one of largest manufactured at 2.5 inches. The extra 1/2 inch adds greatly to the cost. So, the model without sapphire glass will cost a decent amount less for those that don't require it. But, this camera is aimed squarely at the professional market. Rental houses and commercial studios can really benefit from the stronger, scratch-resistant screen. So, if the camera is destined for rigorous use and not-so-careful handling, sapphire is the way to go.

The S2 will ship with three lenses at the outset: The 70mm, 120mm Macro, and 180mm. The 35mm will come very shortly after in early fall 2009. Then, by the end of 2009 the 24mm and 30-90mm zooms will ship. The fast 100mm, 30mm T/S, and 350mm will follow on in the first half of 2010. The other interesting twist to the story is that the four CS lenses with leaf shutters will also be offered without leaf shutters as well. The reasons behind this are very simple. Not everyone needs a leaf shutter for their photography and the non-leaf-shuttered lenses will cost less. I happen to think this is a very customer-friendly approach. Rental houses and serious fashion shooters will opt for leaf-shuttered lenses, but a landscape photographer will only use the focal plane shutter. Those that don't need it have the option of paying less. The CS lenses were designed with this modularity in mind. The optical and mechanical design is identical, but the shutter module can be omitted.

Okay, now some cool techie-geeky stuff. Because the S2 is designed completely from the ground up for digital, it has some real tech advantages over existing MF systems. For example, in a typical MF digital back there are two pieces of glass over the CCD. The first is a protection filter, the second an IR absorption filter. In the S2, the IR filter is fused directly to the sensor. So, there is one 1mm piece of glass in front of the CCD. Now the really cool part is that Leica, being the perfection-obsessed (but in a good way) optics company they are, designed the S lenses with the IR filter as part of the optical path. The optical formulation carries through to the sensor cover glass, which does impart a shift in light rays. Current MF backs create spherical aberrations when used with lenses designed for film. Stephan explained how Leica was able to realize certain advantages because they didn't need to cater to film and digital. You might wonder how other manufactures deal with the introduction of spherical aberrations. They correct it partially in software by sharpening. The aberrations and subsequent software correction serve to create rougher transitions from in-focus to out-of-focus areas. The S lenses promise to deliver exceptional bokeh and buttery smooth focus transitions.

I did manage to get a few more details on the Kodak KAF-37500 CCD sensor used in the S2. It does, in fact, use offset microlenses, just like the M8 and DMR. So, this will be the first medium format sensor to utilize this technology to dramatically reduce sensor vignetting. It works extremely well and is proven tech. Why no one else uses offset microlenses is beyond me. The A/D converter is 14-bit. There has been a lot of discussion and confusion on this point. I inquired, "why not 16-bit?" The sensor has a native 12 f-stop dynamic range. 12 bits is sufficient to contain this information, meaning that there is an extra 2-bits of headroom. A 14-bit A/D can contain 14 f-stops, so 16-bit would be overkill and unnecessary. Stephan explained that earlier in his career he worked for Phillips in CCD development. So, I'm going to take his word on this. I asked about sensor cooling. The CCD is mounted on an aluminum plate, which is then attached to the magnesium alloy chassis. So, essentially the camera body acts as a giant heat sync. Not active cooling, but well thought out, nonetheless.

Many want to know the ISO range of the S2. This is not written in stone yet, but 800 ISO is a certainty with 1600 (or more) a definite target. Much of this depends on the sensor readout board and getting the cleanest signal off of the CCD. These signals are analog and are subject to noise. So, the more efficient the readout, the less noise is present heading into the A/D converter. This means that less high-frequency clipping is required to reduce noise. If you clip this data, you are essentially discarding resolution. And nobody likes that, do they? On that note, though, the S2 will implement optional pixel-binning. You have the option in the current firmware to select DNG output resolution of either 37.5 MP or 9.3 MP. The 9.3 MP is the result of combining four pixels (2x2) into one. Theoretically, this should allow one to two stops extra ISO with the same noise characteristics. If the S2 can turn in good 1600 ISO performance at full res, then by pixel binning it should be able to deliver good 3200 or 6400 ISO shots at 9.3 MP. Not too shabby for a medium format camera and 9.3 MP is fine for prints up to 20x30 inches.

To answer another frequent question, Live View functionality will not be implemented on the S2. While this is unfortunate, Leica is well-aware that this is a feature they need to offer in the future. I was led to believe that this will be included in future cameras. Apparently, given the sensor architecture it was just not technically possible with the S2. The heat generated would be extremely high and lead to unacceptable noise in the final image. Leica is also exploring the possibility of using CMOS sensors in the future, as it would allow Live View and some other features. Frankly, I was surprised to hear this, but I'm sure I'll eventually get over my CCD-loving ways when the time comes. The current sensor does allow for long exposures, though. When posed with the question whether the camera would shoot an exposure longer than 30 seconds, Stephan switched the shutter dial to Bulb and clicked. We watched the top deck OLED as it counted up in seconds (another nice touch I think). It went past 30, then past 60, then past 100, then Stephan got tired of holding the shutter. He told me that there is no limit in Bulb mode. In Program mode, the maximum exposure time is limited by the light meter's minimum EV sensitivity. Of course, if you shoot a really long exposure, be prepared for a really long dark-frame subtraction. After that, the internal processing on the S2 will look for any hot pixels that the dark frame missed and correct them. In other words, you can use the S2 for night shooting. And, don't worry about holding the shutter in for your long night shots. There will be a dedicated electronic cable release as one of the earliest accessories.

Let's talk a bit about Auto Focus on the S2. The big news first. Several people have asked me about programming the top right button to be AF-on. Well, Leica has provided an even better option. There will be a separate AF-on/lock button for your right thumb to enjoy. This is a new button that is not on the current prototype but will absolutely be on the final product. Good news, huh? There is also more to the lenses than meets the eye. I wanted to know if there would be user fine adjust from the camera. No….but, the lenses actually will be programmed at the factory with some interesting data. Each and every lens will be tested for focus accuracy. Any fine-tune adjustment will be dialed in so that this correction follows the lens on any S2 body. Also, each lens has extremely precise info on actual aperture information. f/8 on one lens might really be f/7.96 or f/8.02 on another due to the physical aperture having minute variation. Because the S2 compensates for aperture-based focus shift (yes, you read that right) the camera needs to know the exact aperture to calculate the adjustment. If you are into manual focus, you will feel right at home with the tactile feel of these lenses. Also, you'll have the option of several interchangeable focusing screens: standard uniform ground glass, microprism field, split-image, and grid. There is also a very good chance that there will be a screen with 4:3 frame markings for those that want to shoot page-safe for magazines.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Continued

Next, I'd like to address some lingering speed specs. The frame rate seems to be set at 1.5 fps, which is still faster than just about any MF system right now. It won't win any speed contests with a D3 or 1DIII, but it's pretty fast for close to 40 MP. We already knew that the S2's buffer is 1GB, holding about twelve 75 MB DNG files. Some simple math says that we'll hit the buffer in about eight seconds, but life is never simple. The S2 is already optimized to take advantage of the new UDMA 6 specification, which allows up to 96 MB/sec. According to Leica, with one of those yet-to-be-released 600X UDMA 6 cards, you can shoot continuously until your card fills up. The Maestro and internal bus are not the limiting factor as they are pushing through about 120 MB/sec. This is one camera where you do not want to skimp on the card. Get the fastest, biggest card you can. As I mentioned in my Photokina report, the S2 is crazy fast. Startup time from off to shooting is less than 0.3 seconds. Image review is instantaneous, as is zooming and scrolling.

Another speed question, and one that I'm particularly interested in myself, is the sync speed on the leaf shutter. The answer is "at least 1/500th of a sec, hopefully more." I asked about meeting or beating certain market competitors. Apparently, the team at Leica benchmarked their competitors and what is claimed on spec sheets is not always reality. The Sinar Hy6 with PQS lenses actually syncs at 1/750th not 1/1000th. The H3DII was clocked at 1/650th not 1/800th. Stephan gave me a brief education on leaf shutters. Leaf shutters do not work in a vacuum. Their speed is dictated by the aperture setting as well. The exposure time will actually double from wide-open to fully stopped-down. In other words, a leaf shutter that can sync at 1/500th wide open can only sync to 1/250th when stopped down. Most manufacturers rate their shutters for wide-open performance. Leica finds this method inaccurate. So, they will actually rate the shutter for stopped-down speed and slow it down as the aperture is opened up. This way, there is no exposure shift at varying f-stops. This means that Leica's 1/500th spec applies to all apertures.

I know this is getting to be a lot of information, but here are a few more neat things I learned today. The S2 offers the largest exposure bracketing range I've ever seen on any camera. You can set it up to go from -6 EV to +6EV in either half or whole stops. This would result in a 25-shot exposure sequence if you use the entire range in half stops. HDR lovers rejoice. This led my mind to focus bracketing so I made the suggestion. While a feature like that won't be shipping with the camera, it is something that Leica would consider adding. We discussed about a half-dozen possible future features, like a hyperfocal distance aid on the OLED. Another really cool feature is the ability to back up all your menu and profile settings onto an SD card. That profile can then be loaded onto any S2 to clone the camera quickly. Rental houses will love this for getting a camera back to "house defaults." Photographers who rent can store their own personal settings on a spare card and load it into any camera from any rental house quickly and easily. With a camera as advanced as the S2, this is a great pro feature.

The S2 is incredibly well thought out from both a user and an engineering perspective. The interface is simple. The quality is uncompromising on so many different levels. Leica has managed to make tremendous improvements in the short time from Photokina until now. Stephan and Andreas assured me that this was because all development and manufacture is now in-house. Such an undertaking would not have worked if Leica needed to depend on technology partners. All-in-all, the S2 is shaping up to be a truly professional tool. Is it summer yet?!!
 

KeithL

Well-known member
Servicing locations and turn-around, loan back-up arrangements, rental outlets, pricing...?
 
Because the S2 compensates for aperture-based focus shift (yes, you read that right) the camera needs to know the exact aperture to calculate the adjustment...
Thanks for taking the time to write the lengthy report, Guy. Sounds like a really interesting camera and well thought out from conception.

I took the above statement in quotes as that is a feature already available on the H3D... Just thought I would sneak that in. ;)

David
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Thanks David but I see a few holes in this that need plugging. One is 3 lenses on release , no Pro can go with only three lenses so this takes us out much longer than the summer. I see a couple other nits that I need to see tomorrow and address with Leica.

BTW that is from David Farkas at PMA right now that wrote that . I will add my thoughts later after i get to play with it. David is a good guy and good friend a little bit of a Leica fanboy . LOL But i love him anyway. Guess now i have to buy him some drinks. LOL

But it is exciting and his enthusiasm is great.
 
Yes, we know from experience a large lens line is important to make the potential market comfortable that it will fit their needs.

It would be also be interested to know what they plan for tethered capture? Leica software or C1 or something else!

David
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Leica is working with C1 for raw processing and i certainly hope tethering as well. These systems need tethering as you know. This is a big part of MF is tethering and I have seen Phocus in action and obviously I use c1 and both great tethering programs. I don't know of Leaf and Sinar since I never played with them tethered
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
The 70mm, 120mm Macro, and 180mm. The 35mm will come very shortly after in early fall 2009


This is what bugs me . They need to all be out on release . One MUST have some type of wide angle
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Servicing locations and turn-around, loan back-up arrangements, rental outlets, pricing...?
Can't tell you how important this part of the puzzle is. As a MF shooter myself service and support are huge key factors. This needs to be on a level that MF shooters are accustomed too today with the systems already in place.
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member
The 70mm, 120mm Macro, and 180mm. The 35mm will come very shortly after in early fall 2009


This is what bugs me . They need to all be out on release . One MUST have some type of wide angle
And that is a pretty big gap from, 35 to 70.
For that sensor, 35 is not all that wide.
I think two more on the wide end would be appreciated by the landscape types.
-bob
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I can't do it Bob until most of the lenses are out so this would put me personally out of the mix until Christmas
 

LJL

New member
Still sounding like a very interesting camera system to me. Interesting to hear that Leica is looking to offer the CS lenses as FPS lenses also. Guess the modularity thing permits that part, and it could help the overall cost issue.

Several key things that other folks have mentioned are still important: price, service network plans, and a wider angle. Guess the 24 will help a lot, but not shipping till end of 2009 makes the wait longer. Are there any prints from even the prototype cameras being shown? Is there any hands-on to see how the descriptions fit the actual? No offense to David's excellent report, but it would be nice to hear a bit more about how the camera actually works.....take some snaps with it!! Surely they would have some provision to do that, even protecting that none of the images got away on a card. Shoot it tethered if possible. Would like to hear what the images actually look like at this point, even if the firmware is not locked down. The posts on their site by the one fashion shooter were nice, but not of great practical value due to their size.

LJ

P.S. The changeable screens seems like a nice add to things also, as does the separate AF-lock button. I know summer seems so far away, but it starts in about 3.5 months, so locking things down has to start soon, one would think.
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
I agree that it is important to have all the lenses available, but it is one of those things where do you want them to hold back the camera from release until all the lenses are ready or do you want them to release things as they are ready? Personally I would rather have things released as they are ready, rather than push everything back just to wait for a lens that not everyone might need. If you need it, then you can wait. Ideally, of course, it would be better to speed up the production of the lenses, but it is what it is -- Leica is a small company and they cannot do everything at once.
 

LJL

New member
Stuart,
I agree that for Leica to start getting some traction, they need to start getting things out the door. The 70, 120 macro and 180 is a nice start. Hope the 35 follows very quickly, and the others just as fast. It is also probably good to dribble things out to help with the shakedown of camera, lenses and service network. If they were able to dump everything into the marketplace at once, it could create quite a problem until things start to iron out. While launching this new system is important, and some of us would like it all to be available at once, facing another service fiasco/nightmare would not be a good thing for anybody, so staging deliveries of new pieces might be prudent. If they have the basics and some of the other accessories mentioned (screens, remote release, batteries!!, and stuff like that), it will hold most folks for a few months as new lenses get dropped into the mix. Also, with the present economy, things are not going to fly off the shelf (unless really priced competitively), so "inventory is evil" starts to kick in....nobody want to carry inventory, unless Leica is going to bankroll that part.

LJ
 

Dale Allyn

New member
The 70mm, 120mm Macro, and 180mm. The 35mm will come very shortly after in early fall 2009


This is what bugs me . They need to all be out on release . One MUST have some type of wide angle
This was a stand-out issue to me too. The future lens lineup looks pretty good, but if one started the kit planning to add wide a bit later, but later met delays on getting the wide lenses, it would be a disaster in my opinion.

No problem, gives me more time to save (or talk myself out of it). ;)

Some cool specs overall.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Yea if i wanted to jump than it obviously would have to wait until i can get all the glass i need since there is nothing used it makes this even more important
 

robertwright

New member
Is it only me or does the idea of a dedicated body/sensor with fixed resolution sound like a non-starter?

Just playing devils' advocate

40mp is currently offering just about whatever anyone needs for print (and we'll see how long print lasts:eek:) and the next gen of digital backs are up around 60mp. So do you think given the state of technology, the financial meltdown, and possible slowdown in development and consumption, etc, that 60mp might be the top end for a while?

In three years, will 40mp be half of what everyone else is offering?

and there you are stuck with the body, not just a back.

meaning, the upgrade path needs to be addressed. I guess if this 'camera' is priced like a digital 'back' then the point is moot. for all intents the camera part is not an issue cost wise.

it is nice to see Leica concerned with price for once, vis a vis the CS/nonCS shutter option, crystal/non crystal.

I hope this bodes well for the overall price. They have an uphill battle considering that phamiya had an installed base of glass, the cf line helped hassy get over introducing a new mount in the H series, etc, and all of this took place against the backdrop of easy loans and financing, which will probably not exist in the future. The credit bubble imo leveraged mf digital big time. And is no more...
 
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