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Leica S2 delayed and possible price?

Dale Allyn

New member
Just to modify the tone a bit vis-a-vis Canon service: the service in the U.S., especially Irvine, CA has been excellent and fast. Same for Bangkok, Thailand, including items purchased in the U.S. where one pays a very small fee for non-Asian gear to get serviced, but I get it done same day.

I have heard that Canada and some part of Europe Canon service can be frustrating. Just wanted to temper the tone a bit. :)

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate.
 

jonoslack

Active member
In any event, the proof of the pudding is indeed in the eating. Acknowledging the very real problems leica had with the introduction of the M8's my two bodies function very well after over two and 1/2 years of constant use. The IQ of the files is still amazing at just 10Mpx
Quite right Woody, I quite agree about the M8, and my two bodies have also performed well over 2.1/2 years.

The S2 any one of each of the following:

Excellent
Troubled:
Poor

Late
On Time
Early

Well priced
Expensive
Exorbitant

whether it's a success or not depends on these things, and at the moment we don't really know about any of them.

personally I'm in the optimistic camp with David Farkas, but I think that Guy has it - this is a food fight, rather than a useful discussion.

(bit hard to keep out of though :ROTFL:)
 

fotografz

Well-known member
The DMR was developed and produced in collaboration with Imacon. Leica was not their top priority so development schedules were continually pushed back. As to why DMR production and firmware updates stopped... easy, Imacon was merged into Hasselblad. Hasselblad reigned in resources to work on in-house projects and Leica was left high and dry with no recourse. As others have mentioned, the DMR still produces phenomenal results. Perhaps some might recall a certain thread comparing the 10MP DMR to the 16.7MP 1dsII, where the DMR posted superior and more pleasing results consistently, despite the Canon having a 67% pixel advantage with a larger FF sensor.

The R lenses will be able to be used on the next R camera, which will come next year as Leica has already said. New AF R lenses will take the system forward. I don't see Leica abandoning R at all. They just decided they could have more market impact by getting the S2 out first. All the technology is shared between S and R, so it is pretty safe to assume that the next R camera will be a baby S2. If the S2 is as good as it promises to be (and as good as I've experienced personally in the prototypes), the R will be equally so, just in a smaller format.

The M8 and now M8.2 has been my daily camera for the last 2+ years. It travels with me wherever I go and I am continually surprised at the quality such a small camera produces. I don't mind the IR filters and haven't had a single camera problem myself. Out of the many, many M8s that I've sold, none had electrical/freezing issues and only a few (M8s, not any M8.2s so far) had misaligned rangefinders. Since I tested them with my customers before they left the store (or shipped them out), I was able to just swap these ones out with a new, perfect one, and send the one with bad rangefinder back to Leica. I guess this falls under working with a good dealer from the start, just like with MFD.

Would I like a FF M9 with lower noise beyond 640 ISO and a bit higher resolution? Of course, but I am not suffering today and I routinely make outstanding 20x30 prints from my photos. I use a WATE and am totally satisfied with the wide angle coverage at 16mm. I don't shoot sports and have no more need for additional fps.

And, just as Leica worked with Imacon on the DMR, they partnered with MFD company Jenoptik to design the hardware and firmware of the M8. Kodak sold them on the IR filtration on the CCD being adequate (I've seen the spectral sensitivity chart and the IR allowed to pass certainly looks minuscule and insignificant). I was a beta tester for the M8 back in August 2006. Shooting over 1000 shots in four days, from a professional location fashion shoot with strobes, to street shooting, night shooting, and whatever I could point a camera at, I never noticed the IR issue. Why not? The reason was simple - no one wears black synthetic fabrics in August in Miami! Once winter hit up north and the black fleece came out, all bets were off.

FWIW, I've tested a Nikon D70 and it has IR bleed that is far worse than the M8. Test one for yourself to see. The D70/D70s was one of the most successful DSLRs ever for Nikon, selling about 1 million cameras. No one noticed. No one cared. Yes, the Leica was 5 times the price, so it was held to a higher standard. Leica didn't have to provide two free IR filters, but it was the right thing to do once the problem was identified.

With the S2, Leica has learned their lessons of the past working with technology partners. The S2 was developed and designed 100% in-house with fresh new talent working side-by-side with experienced camera engineers. The S2 went from a drawing board idea to full-working prototypes with real lenses in less than six months (April 08 - Sept 08). We probably would have seen the S2 earlier (and possibly an M9 and/or R10 as well) if Steven Lee hadn't been at the reigns. He shelved the AFRIKa project indefinitely a few months before he was removed from power. He also rushed the M8 to market before it could be thoroughly tested and vetted. His philosophy was that it was better to be on time than to be 100% right. Luckily, Lee is no longer calling the shots. Since Christian Erhardt has taken over Service in the USA, turnaround time has been reduced to 50% of what it was. He successfully orchestrated over 1000 M8 upgrades in the US with an average turnaround of one week. Christian is currently putting an S2 support staff together and organizing the professional service necessary for a product like the S2.

A lot of money, thought, and planning has gone into the S2. It will be on time and it will be done right. The already stable platform in prototype stage will be that much more so in the production model. I understand the skepticism to some degree based on past misgivings, but I'm confident, based on what I've seen and what I know, that the S2 will be a reliable, dependable, robust, and truly professional system. Pricing, I'm assured by Leica, will be competitive. Not a fairy-tale at <$10K (let's be realistic, folks), but comparable to P45+/H3DII-39. And I don't see anyone complaining how much more the P65+ costs for what Jack has pointed out is incremental gains.

I apologize for the long-winded post, but I felt that some history needed to be clarified from an insider's perspective.

David
A good run down ... from your perspective.

I'd ask why there wasn't a better contract between Leica and Imacon so the DMR wasn't hung out to dry along with those who bought one?

Sorry, but the minute I had the M8 in my hands and shot in the house ... the IR filter issue was immediately apparent. My black camera bag was magenta. The strap on my other camera was magenta. All the softboxes were magenta. :wtf:

You may not mind the IR filters, but (stupid me) I once again tried to use the camera at a wedding ... every shot at the reception had green double reflections of the chandelier specular highlights across people's faces and what-not. Horrible and undeliverable. Sorry, can't remove the IR since the people are all wearing black.


I hope you are right concerning Leica having learned, and that they will apply that to the S2. But I'll trust them again around the time that the Good Humor man visits Hades ... because I don't owe them one damned thing, least of all entrusting my business to them ... and that's after using and trusting Ms for most of my adult life.
 

LJL

New member
I am siding with Marc on this. I got my M8 in the very first release...Nov 2006. I was really excited. Tested it out the evening I got it, and figured some of the things were attributable to it being new, my not being totally familiar, etc., etc. Things like the magenta camera bags Marc mentioned....right out of the box. Took it on shoot the very next evening....black tie event at Tiffany's to raise money for charities and launch the polo season in Houston that year. Did not have any filters, as they were pretty much unknowns (unreported is more like it). Horror of horrors. Only thing that saved my bacon on that shoot was a guy had built some workaround profiles for C1 that helped correct the magenta. I was still very leery of shooting it on gigs. Then came the issues with the green stripes from blown lights at the edge of the frame. Then I finally got some filters. Did a shoot at a pub and all the specular highlights issues Marc mentioned came up...they still exist, by the way, as filter surfaces are reflective surfaces....period. Sent the camera to Solms for "fixing" when Leica finally admitted there were issues. three months later I got it back. Still needed multiple firmware updates after that, and UV/IR filters were now in high demand and at prices that were frightening. Leica was not turning them out in time and B+W was "heavy-handed" for use on lenses shorter than say 35mm. We will not even get into the entire issue with the batteries, camera shutting down suddenly, etc.

Since then, the M8 has been tuned to very workable shape, and like others, I love the files I get from it, as long as I shoot below 640 ISO for the most part, even though Leica specs, and a reason I bought into it stated ISO 2500...not very close without a lot of heavy NR efforts that murder the great detail you just captured. Now, I still carry the M8 everywhere....for my personal and casual shooting.....and it only goes on paying gigs as the "creative extra", like using a Noctilux for some dreamy portrait type things. I just cannot rely on it to deliver. It is the only piece of kit that has not really paid for itself to this point. Today, I cannot afford to risk that type of scenario again. I still have a "passion" for Leica and the glass, since starting shooting with the M4 way back when, but those cameras were pretty amazing and could take the use. The M8, to me, is still too finicky at times to be totally trusted to deliver whenever I must get the shots. Just my experience with it so far. I do not plan to give it up, but no matter how great the S2 looks on paper, until it is proven to work....all the time, right from the box, I will not have much faith there. Still love the S2 design and everything else that has been described about it, but it is still untested, unproven, unavailable, and no idea on its costs....of purchase and ownership. (Downtime costs the professional user if that is their main tool.)

LJ
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
In the UK at least, with CPS membership (free here still) turnaround is 3 days. When you have a business that is worth much more than IQ differences that are totally unnoticeable to the people paying for the files. I have rentals everywhere should I need and friends who shoot canon. Heck it's not that expensive to have multiple backups either. The idea of an M8 as a business tool would scare the heck out of me, what would I do if I knackered it mid wedding with another wedding that week? That said I have a cornea condition that has screwed up my manual focus and rangefinder in particular so it's never actually even tempted me.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Quite right Woody, I quite agree about the M8, and my two bodies have also performed well over 2.1/2 years.

The S2 any one of each of the following:

Excellent
Troubled:
Poor

Late
On Time
Early

Well priced
Expensive
Exorbitant

whether it's a success or not depends on these things, and at the moment we don't really know about any of them.

personally I'm in the optimistic camp with David Farkas, but I think that Guy has it - this is a food fight, rather than a useful discussion.

(bit hard to keep out of though :ROTFL:)
:ROTFL:
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Just to say something positive about the S2: The idea, the design, the principle etc are very promising, I really like it. Would I not have the negative experience with Leica digital cameras over the past years I probably would be one of the first buyers.

But so I am careful and anxious to run into the same issues again. And this time it is not just for fun or hobby I am buying into a new camera or concept, it is for real business. So I need to see finally some money coming out of my MF investment. And thus - now suddenly like most of you who are real professionals - I also need to make money with my gear and the photos I produce. And traveling to remote locations to do landscape shots costs additional big money, so I have absolutely NO space to play around and need to take my equipment decision very serious. Nothing new for most of you, but for me of course.

And thus there are 2 solutions I can choose from over the next 2 years, which are Hasselblad and Phase/Mamiya. And unfortunately not Leica, as they first have to prove they are getting the System and the support right.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Frankly Peter everyone should be taken the same precautionary attitude the Pro's are taken when it comes to gear. It has to make sense, not that we are right or the hobbyist is wrong. It's real money now and whatever the hobbyist or Pro buys just needs to make some sense. I understand the joy issue very much but joy also comes with good sound basic decisions and I think sometimes we ALL lose sight of that.

I know i made a few dumb decisions along the way and they are not so easy to make up especially as the hobbyist that can't recoup there investment as well. For Pro's mistakes can be made up but still being a big dummy too often is deadly.
 

robmac

Well-known member
One must also bear in mind that it does not matter which partner, if any, was to blame to any issues with DMr or M8. Leica, as the vendor who signed those partners was ultimately responsible for the finished product and the risk to users if (as happened) issues with any given partnership/collaboration caused issues with their products. Your name on the product - you get the glory, you get the blame.

While Leica has pumped a lot of coin into the S2 and I HOPE it does well, Hassy et al are not treading water. One can not also make the point that Leica is pumping big $$$ into new MF product vs others. The others did their initial development years ago, they're now in the much lower risk and much lower cost mode of evolving existing product lines into an existing customer base and a market/potential customer base that KNOWS, to a good degree, based on history of their tech/service what to expect from them.

Has Leica, despite the management changes, exhibited any recent CONCRETE vs verbiage examples of having changed their cultural mode of behavior re: service/price/support re: the S2 vs older product intros? Changes that most of us would agree, regardless what side of the fence you're on, MUST happen to make the S2 take-off. Lets see;

- New M lenses priced at 'Is Their No Global Recession On Your Planet?' (ITNGROYP) levels.
- Modest tweaks to M8 called M8.2 with ITNGROYP price
- No overt changes to service support that have heard anyone chatter about as yet.

So as much as the S2 may handle sweet, hold gobs of IQ promise and look like sex on a stick, I think folks should allow many of us our "show me" skepticism - as much as we hope they do well.
 
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PeterA

Well-known member
I have alway siused the M8 for its IQ - ther eis no better travel kit around. I use it in FAT light - just like I use an MFD back in FAT light. When used in its 'narrow field' of capability - essentially 90% of what I shoot - it is superb. I am going to upgrade to an M8.2 and I am going to buy a FF M - if it ever comes out.

I really dont know what the S2 is trying to achieve. If it is pitched somewwhere between high end CaNikon and MF - that is a narrow sliver of positioning space - a space where quoted prices dont really fit...

strange.
 

woodyspedden

New member
Ah! Marc
It's the perfect answer to everything . . . 42 . . . the meaning of life . . . .
erm . . what was the question?

Thanks so much for the illuminating answer Deep Thought. See you next week with yet another conundrum

Woody
 

hcubell

Well-known member
Is there any reason why the Leica lenses for the S2 would not "work" if Leica dropped a full frame 645 chip with 60mp into the S2?
 

robmac

Well-known member
If the image circle and registration distance permitted - I would guess no reason why not. That said, I think the bigger problem would be lack of real estate inside the body itself, cooling, etc.
 

LJL

New member
The requirements for the mirror box for handling the bigger sensor alone might change the entire size/shape of the S2.

LJ
 

georgl

New member
"- New M lenses priced at 'Is Their No Global Recession On Your Planet?' (ITNGROYP) levels.
- Modest tweaks to M8 called M8.2 with ITNGROYP price"

The M8.2 is more pricey because of they sapphire glass - not everybody might need it, but it's not cheap. That's way the M8 stayed in program.

It's the same with the lenses, before they introduced the extremely expensive Summilux/Noctilux, that came up with the Summarits. Priced as Canon L-glass with better optics and mechanics. The new 21/24/50 are unique lenses - you propably don't need them, you propably won't pay for them (I don't) but they outperform every other photographic lens in their class - if there are any. And yes, they're also very expensive to manufacture.

Let's hope the S2 won't be cheap, but worth it's price - that's more important especially in this economic situation, I'm sick of cheap crap all over the place -like my 1400$ Macbook, made in China, full of manufacturing failures (still the best on the market), made with CNC-technology used in high-wage-countries 20 years ago, crashes twice a day - my twice as expensive 28mm Summicron was by far the better investment and I will still enjoy it when the Apple goes into the trash!
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
I had an interesting conversation today with another Pro photographer. I was like that:

"Yes the S2, just another fancy, sexy Leica camera which nobody really needs, but yes, it looks great and many will want to own one ..."

I think this reflects nicely what the S System is seen already today in will remain for the future - just another very exclusive system, which is nice to have, but less and less people will be able to afford or willing to pay for, as they can get enough good and great quality without that extra money.

But if one really looks for that red dot and the exclusiveness of the product, then the S System is the right way to go :D
 

jonoslack

Active member
The Hitchhiker's Guide was such a great book -- such a shame the movie sucked.
HI There - quite agree about the book and film . . . but it was a radio program in the UK first, and that's where it really shone. If you haven't heard it, you should really REALLY try to get hold of it.
 
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