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Leica 006 VS Fuji GFX 50

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rollsman44

Well-known member
I am speculating on these 2 systems. I see the cost of the 006 has come down close to a used GFX. I know the lenses are much higher on the leica. Any suggestions are appreciated.
I am aware of the Leica lenses motor problems. Thanks
 
B

Bernard

Member
Can try them out locally? It's best if you play around with your own files, at your own pace, before making a decision.

I dislike the handling of the Fuji (bulky, slow, buttons everywhere, poor VF), but other people love it.

My feeling is that the Fuji is designed more for still life and landscape photography, while the Leica is better for event and portrait.
 
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rollsman44

Well-known member
That's pretty much what I do. Portraits and social functions. My only concern is the Leica Lens motors failing and the lenses do a lot of searching in not so low light. I appreciate the responses.
 
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Paratom

Well-known member
Leica S:
+ all kinds of focal length available and proven
+ used equipment available
+ proven system not first generation model
- if you buy used lenses AF motot problems can occur (I didnt experience any)
+ solid nice camera with intuitive user interface
+ all the advantages and disadvantages of OVF and phase AF

advantage of Fuji:
+ lower price if you buy new
+ all the advantages and disadvantages of EVF and contrast AF

also 2:3 vs 3:4

Is the x1d out of the game?

For me the Fuji sounds good on paper but for my taste both the S or the Hassy feel much better and solid in the hand.

I think used prices for S equipment are so low you cant loose much money of you buy used.
I would really handle the camera and see how you like the UI and the viewfinder. I am sure one can take great images with each system
 
D

DB5

Member
There are many threads that talk about the Leica issues. They extend more than just the lenses. Sensors, focus and electronics issues too with hefty repair bills. It's worth reading up and making your own mind up.

The Fuji is not only the safer buy but the better performer. The Fuji will be 100MP soon enough, the Leica will likely be around 60MP. You get a full warranty with a new camera too if you go the way of the GFX. To some all this makes an easy decision.

If you want the S go for the S-E 006 new at least so you are covered with a warranty.

If you can hold off you will be better for it. You will see what Leica launches in the 008 and what Fuji does with the 100MP which will help you make an decision, and if you decide to go for the older model option used or new it will be much cheaper in a few months.
 
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Paratom

Well-known member
Besides reading threads I strongly recommend talking to people who have used the system for a longer time and to take the camera and lenses and shoot some images and see how you like the camera, handling and the results.
There are many photographers who do not spend as much time as some of us in the internet forums.
 
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rollsman44

Well-known member
I feel confident that the GFX is a better move now especially with all the problems that the Leica has. I don't need to spend extra money on repairs and loss of time to wait for the repair. I thought the SL was better than the 006 and 007 . Thank you all for your input.
 
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Paratom

Well-known member
rollsman44 said:
I feel confident that the GFX is a better move now especially with all the problems that the Leica has. I don't need to spend extra money on repairs and loss of time to wait for the repair. I thought the SL was better than the 006 and 007 . Thank you all for your input.
Click to expand...
In my experience the SL is faster and more flexible than the S but I wouldnt say better. The S has the better IQ and more lenses available than the SL.

If you feel confident with a system (in your case the Fuji) than thats a good starting point and important factor IMO.
 
drevil

drevil

Well-known member
Staff member
I have my gfx for a few weeks now and love it, gonna sell my iq180 soon i guess, with a bleeding heart though!

yes the gfx isn't a beauty but it does the job and it does it well.

i have no native lenses yet, just use a ts-e 17mm and my c645 lenses with it.

only one bad thing, that friggn q button! please fuji give us a fw update to be able to deactivate it!

i wouldnt consider the leica s, if you love the look of the leica glass, get a S to G mount adapter.

the gfx is new, its not buggy and is the future, slightly bigger sensor and more MP
 
C

chrismuc

Member
I tried the Leica S (007) once at the Photokina but focus accuracy with the S 100f2 was mediocre and they told me that the S system does not have auto focus micro adjustment, so this already reduced my interest in the system. Another reason is my experience with reliability of Leica products: All my Leica M components had to see Leica service (Leica M9 for sensor exchange and focus adjustment, M50f1.4 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and focus ring too tight, M75f2 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and didn't reach infinity). Then if you read the nightmare reports in the Leica S forums (sensor cracks, sensor corrosion, af failure, electronics issues ...) plus no S camera or lens announcements since several years and considering the Leica boutique prices you are wondering what kind of policy Leica is following.

Since the arrival of the Fuji GFX and Hasselbald 1XD systems, Leica is no longer alone in the crop MF universe. I use the Fuji GFX since day one of market release, now with the 23/ 45/ 63/ 110 lenses, plus I have extended experience with the Fuji X series using X-E1/ X-E2/ X-T1/ X-T2 cams and a variety of X series prime and zoom lenses over the years and all I can say is: Fuji products are extremely reliable (plus very frequent firmware updates that remove bugs and add functions or improve af speed and accuracy), I didn't have a single failure with any Fuji product and the GFX and the four primes surpass image quality any system I ever had: the Fuji version of the Sony sensor - even released 2014 - is visibly better (color accuracy, skin tones, 'pop', dynamic range/shadow recovery, sharpness due to small micro lenses) than the sensors of the Sony A7RII and the IQ180 and the GF primes are all on Otus level. I love the manual operation of the camera, the tiltable screen is very useful for candid shots (camera at waist level with screen tilted upwards) as well as for architecture shots by hand (camera position above head level with screen tilted downwards to reduce keystone), the many outside-center focus points and the face/eye detection AF function are such a help for portrait shots, all these features the Leica S does not provide.

100 MP, quicker phase-detect AF with even more focus points, an EVF with possibly higher resolution or at least reduced black-out time and higher refresh rate can be expected to come on the market within 2019 in the next camera body generation, the GF 250f4 plus 1.4x extender soon will add a tele lens, with the Steel Canon EF and Contax 645 AF adapters I can use my TSE lenses and Sigma Art lenses for very shallow DOF and the C645 lenses with auto-focus, this package and the perspective makes the investment into the GFX ecosystem very reasonable, also considering the rather moderate price level of the GFX components compared to the comparable Leica and Hasselblad offers.

IMO other than the absolute preference of an OVF camera and the 'look' of the S 006 Kodak CCD sensor I see little reason to invest in the S system.
 
D

daf

Member
chrismuc said:
I tried the Leica S (007) once at the Photokina but focus accuracy with the S 100f2 was mediocre and they told me that the S system does not have auto focus micro adjustment, so this already reduced my interest in the system. Another reason is my experience with reliability of Leica products: All my Leica M components had to see Leica service (Leica M9 for sensor exchange and focus adjustment, M50f1.4 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and focus ring too tight, M75f2 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and didn't reach infinity). Then if you read the nightmare reports in the Leica S forums (sensor cracks, sensor corrosion, af failure, electronics issues ...) plus no S camera or lens announcements since several years and considering the Leica boutique prices you are wondering what kind of policy Leica is following.

Since the arrival of the Fuji GFX and Hasselbald 1XD systems, Leica is no longer alone in the crop MF universe. I use the Fuji GFX since day one of market release, now with the 23/ 45/ 63/ 110 lenses, plus I have extended experience with the Fuji X series using X-E1/ X-E2/ X-T1/ X-T2 cams and a variety of X series prime and zoom lenses over the years and all I can say is: Fuji products are extremely reliable (plus very frequent firmware updates that remove bugs and add functions or improve af speed and accuracy), I didn't have a single failure with any Fuji product and the GFX and the four primes surpass image quality any system I ever had: the Fuji version of the Sony sensor - even released 2014 - is visibly better (color accuracy, skin tones, 'pop', dynamic range/shadow recovery, sharpness due to small micro lenses) than the sensors of the Sony A7RII and the IQ180 and the GF primes are all on Otus level. I love the manual operation of the camera, the tiltable screen is very useful for candid shots (camera at waist level with screen tilted upwards) as well as for architecture shots by hand (camera position above head level with screen tilted downwards to reduce keystone), the many outside-center focus points and the face/eye detection AF function are such a help for portrait shots, all these features the Leica S does not provide.

100 MP, quicker phase-detect AF with even more focus points, an EVF with possibly higher resolution or at least reduced black-out time and higher refresh rate can be expected to come on the market within 2019 in the next camera body generation, the GF 250f4 plus 1.4x extender soon will add a tele lens, with the Steel Canon EF and Contax 645 AF adapters I can use my TSE lenses and Sigma Art lenses for very shallow DOF and the C645 lenses with auto-focus, this package and the perspective makes the investment into the GFX ecosystem very reasonable, also considering the rather moderate price level of the GFX components compared to the comparable Leica and Hasselblad offers.

IMO other than the absolute preference of an OVF camera and the 'look' of the S 006 Kodak CCD sensor I see little reason to invest in the S system.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris,
I followed your post regarding shift lens option for quite long now, and it had always been very helpful.
I have a question regarding shift lenses on the gfx... as an architectural photographe i'm working on sony FF +shift lenses option since the first a7r... i'm very interested on your feed back on sony a7riii vs gfx for architectural shot.
I see more and more people using this cam on architcture, and don't really get the benefice vs the last sony ff.
Doing architecture, i'm most often need to correct for distorsion even with shift lenses, and find the C1 correction tool very important, how do you work on this with the gfx?
How are the lenses working on the gfx ? Smearing ? What fstop is needed?
Did you made any comparaison, say: 17tse on the sony // 24 tse on the gfx? Or 24 on the ff //35 on the gfx?
You talked about keystone correction, does this mean that you are now working with straigh lenses and then keytsone correcting? I'm fine with that(that what i do when working with my leicas), but if so, why ? due to poor compatibility with shift system?
Last, what do you feel this sytem bring you for architectural shot?
Thanks
David
 
ErikKaffehr

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Thanks for the posting!

Seems to be an excellent system. Jim Kasson has run a lot of tests on the GFX and his findings are really that the lenses are as good as it gets. Otus class is not an overword.

Still, Jim's research indicates that focus shift when stopping down is still an issue. My understanding is that GFX autofocusing handles this better than say Sony A7rII or Nikon D850.

Lloyd Chambers has reported focusing issues on several samples of the Leica S-models, sometimes really bad sometimes not so obvious.

Just to say, Lloyd also found lot of issues with the GFX, but it seems that things are pretty OK now as he seems extremely happy with lens performance these days.

I won't buy the GFX, the Sony A7rII I own is good enough for my needs and fits within my budget, but it seems Fuji has created a very attractive system in the GFX and done it at a reasonable cost.

Best regards
Erik

chrismuc said:
I tried the Leica S (007) once at the Photokina but focus accuracy with the S 100f2 was mediocre and they told me that the S system does not have auto focus micro adjustment, so this already reduced my interest in the system. Another reason is my experience with reliability of Leica products: All my Leica M components had to see Leica service (Leica M9 for sensor exchange and focus adjustment, M50f1.4 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and focus ring too tight, M75f2 asph. FLE for focus precision adjustment and didn't reach infinity). Then if you read the nightmare reports in the Leica S forums (sensor cracks, sensor corrosion, af failure, electronics issues ...) plus no S camera or lens announcements since several years and considering the Leica boutique prices you are wondering what kind of policy Leica is following.

Since the arrival of the Fuji GFX and Hasselbald 1XD systems, Leica is no longer alone in the crop MF universe. I use the Fuji GFX since day one of market release, now with the 23/ 45/ 63/ 110 lenses, plus I have extended experience with the Fuji X series using X-E1/ X-E2/ X-T1/ X-T2 cams and a variety of X series prime and zoom lenses over the years and all I can say is: Fuji products are extremely reliable (plus very frequent firmware updates that remove bugs and add functions or improve af speed and accuracy), I didn't have a single failure with any Fuji product and the GFX and the four primes surpass image quality any system I ever had: the Fuji version of the Sony sensor - even released 2014 - is visibly better (color accuracy, skin tones, 'pop', dynamic range/shadow recovery, sharpness due to small micro lenses) than the sensors of the Sony A7RII and the IQ180 and the GF primes are all on Otus level. I love the manual operation of the camera, the tiltable screen is very useful for candid shots (camera at waist level with screen tilted upwards) as well as for architecture shots by hand (camera position above head level with screen tilted downwards to reduce keystone), the many outside-center focus points and the face/eye detection AF function are such a help for portrait shots, all these features the Leica S does not provide.

100 MP, quicker phase-detect AF with even more focus points, an EVF with possibly higher resolution or at least reduced black-out time and higher refresh rate can be expected to come on the market within 2019 in the next camera body generation, the GF 250f4 plus 1.4x extender soon will add a tele lens, with the Steel Canon EF and Contax 645 AF adapters I can use my TSE lenses and Sigma Art lenses for very shallow DOF and the C645 lenses with auto-focus, this package and the perspective makes the investment into the GFX ecosystem very reasonable, also considering the rather moderate price level of the GFX components compared to the comparable Leica and Hasselblad offers.

IMO other than the absolute preference of an OVF camera and the 'look' of the S 006 Kodak CCD sensor I see little reason to invest in the S system.
Click to expand...
 
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