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Official USA Pricing for Leica S2

Terry

New member
Maybe I missed something along the way but when Leica said there wasn't going to be an R10 I thought they said there would be something else. They just didn't want to play the SLR game against Canon and Nikon. Has anybody thought about the possibility that Leica will do the "R10" as a mirrorless system (not rangefinder). A full frame version of micro 4/3 (obviously not called m4/3)???????
 

jonoslack

Active member
O.K., time to get things back to some sort of normalcy......maybe, I hope.
Hrumph - well, I'm not going to go through all that, but it seems to me like the rewriting of history with respect to the M8, and deliberately conjuring up scares without the slightest justification with respect to the S2 and lens correction.

I'm posting a message in the Sunset bar, and I'll see you guys in late September - have a great summer!
 

carstenw

Active member
So, folks were asking Leica for some relief, and at one point were even asking if Leica could make this an "upgrade option"....meaning they were even willing to pay for that sort of help. Leica looked for any way to shut that down, while still appearing to "appease" the masses who were really growing restless.
LJ, I don't want to go through your entire post, and in general I absolutely don't want to pick on you, since your posts are well balanced in general, but the last sentence in the above statement is an example of pure conjecture (not to say fiction), and quite inflammatory at that. My take on that situation is *very* different.

This is what I meant earlier with getting back to facts and leaving the imagination alone. If we can't stick to facts, we can't have reasonable discussions, so let's make an effort not to make things worse than they are, and just keep that kind of statement out of it.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
How true. Let me add though with regards to the M8 and some comments that may look like conjecture to some degree are not really far off from reality. Issue is most people never heard of certain things either even though some of it never came to bear, the discussions on some stuff is there and I will just leave it alone right there. That stuff is history and shall remain there. But many people feel slighted by Leica to a certain degree and given some of the M8 issues this is understandable. The bottom line is the S2 needs to separate itself from what history has shown. I think we all can agree that it needs to come out of the gate with no issues or limitations stuck on it's backside.

What we all need to realize is everyone on this thread was a leica fan at some point in time including myself and still am but as you see the history of Leica or how things have changed over a course of time has changed peoples thoughts on them and there products. This folks is NORMAL and happens with every different camera brand. Just go on any Canon or Nikon forum. LOL
 

robmac

Well-known member
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ptomsu

Workshop Member
It is really interesting how this company - Leica - can still heat up most photographers minds :cool:

As many others I was burned badly by Leica and their digital products. I wish them the best for their S System, although I personally do not have hope for it's success even if it is technically perfect and working from the very beginning. Times are just history where one can ask this amount of money for this amount of product - just my 5c.

But it will anyway be interesting to wait and see how they do, especially how their IQ and handling can be compared to Phamiya and Hasselblad.

Let's wait and see ;)
 

Bob

Administrator
Staff member

I was (am?) a Leica fan as far as the M8 and prior Ms are concerned, but My eyes aged me out and now I am hoping for two things:
1) All the best to Leica and the S2, hope it is absolutely fabulous and I will wait to see what happens.
2) If the S2 does come up to snuff, I hope that I can justify getting one.
-bob
 
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carstenw

Active member
A nice summary, and probably a good time to call a truce. Various things have happened in the past, some not so great, but I guess we all hope that the S2 will work out well. It will certainly make the landscape more interesting. The main difference between many of us is how likely we think it is, not what we hope for.

How true. Let me add though with regards to the M8 and some comments that may look like conjecture to some degree are not really far off from reality. Issue is most people never heard of certain things either even though some of it never came to bear, the discussions on some stuff is there and I will just leave it alone right there. That stuff is history and shall remain there. But many people feel slighted by Leica to a certain degree and given some of the M8 issues this is understandable. The bottom line is the S2 needs to separate itself from what history has shown. I think we all can agree that it needs to come out of the gate with no issues or limitations stuck on it's backside.

What we all need to realize is everyone on this thread was a leica fan at some point in time including myself and still am but as you see the history of Leica or how things have changed over a course of time has changed peoples thoughts on them and there products. This folks is NORMAL and happens with every different camera brand. Just go on any Canon or Nikon forum. LOL
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Thanks Carsten . Maybe we should look at Leica as a new chapter on this product and let's see how this one writes itself in time. They have a road to climb here and get even the Leica fans back in the fold with confidence and such. I think the end of the day even the more vocal folks against Leica hope they pull the rabbit out of the hat. The industry and especially the MF industry could use them to keep the balance. Many things have happened recently that lost a lot of faith in MF. That market segment needs a boast and i think we can all agree on that alone and adding Leica here is a good thing.
 

woodyspedden

New member
LJL

Just a clarification from your last post.

Filters were required to get accurate colors on "ALL" lenses, not just wide angles. The issue with the wide angles was that the filter caused cyan vignetting due to the wide angles of incidence. So the 6 bit coding was required for Leica correction algorithms to properly get rid of this cyan vignetting to a larger degree.

Woody
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
True Woody but Leica did design or tune there firmware for there Leica filters which are a little less aggressive than the B+W. In the very wides it turned out to be mandatory to use the Leica filters because of the correction and cyan vignetting. You could get by with the B+W ones on the longer lenses but you are still off slightly by color. I did a lot of testing on this and bottom line conclusion . I used Leica filters on all lenses to be consistent. I think what LJ is saying is Leica could have tuned the firmware for the B+W ones but maybe costs to them may have been high to pass 2 to each customer and they actually went with Hoya to produce the Leica filters. Something we both saw in the factory for at least the 60mm which I needed at the time. LOL
 

LJL

New member
LJL

Just a clarification from your last post.

Filters were required to get accurate colors on "ALL" lenses, not just wide angles. The issue with the wide angles was that the filter caused cyan vignetting due to the wide angles of incidence. So the 6 bit coding was required for Leica correction algorithms to properly get rid of this cyan vignetting to a larger degree.

Woody
Woody,
that is correct....filters are needed on ALL lenses. What many folks had discovered was that they could use the stronger B+W filters on the longer focal length lenses, since there was no vignetting correction needed. The color balances were still a bit off compared to the Leica filters, but did not seem as objectionable or noticeable as on the wider angle lenses (generally around 35mm and wider), where there was both vignetting and color shift that was made worse because of the vignetting. So when one used a filter, as needed, that showed vignetting, there as a color shift in the vignetted area (green to pink) also. Hence, the vignetting correction, which was built into the in-camera processor and accessed through a table of correction values in the firmware, did require coding of the lenses to accomplish this. Folks could apply their own coding to non-coded lenses, which many did (and Carsten even posts a link to the various code patterns to be applied). Those codes are for Leica lenses with Leica filters only, though they seem to work for other lenses as well. There are cases where mounting screws or other features do not permit the application of the code correctly, and that became a problem. (For example, I use the coding for the Leica 24/2.8 on my Zeiss 25/2.8 and get very good, but not perfect results. I must use a Leica UV/IR filter however, as the B+W version still imparts a color shift in the vignetted area that is objectionable. That was why folks were asking Leica to enlarge the code table a bit to accommodate some of these other lenses and filter options, as well as to cover non-coded lenses with a software correction override of sorts. At least that is how I recall the many, long discussions.)

As Guy said, that is a chapter from the past, and involves the M8. Some of us may just find it hard to shake off all of those issues when looking at the coming S2, which may have no issues, or new ones of its own. That is not trashing the S2, as I have welcomed the concept and design from the start. My issues are with cost and promises that remain to be executed. Lots we do not know beyond marketing releases at this point, yet the cost is quite steep, and there is no getting around that. Will the S2 live up to claims? We just to not yet know. I am sure it will be very good, but that much better than the other MF stuff with which it is now competing will be a tougher call for folks to make somehow.

LJ

P.S. The issue with the M8 was only asking Leica to make available a firmware adjustment that would permit the use of other options from those that were scarce at the time. The further issue that was raised with regard to the S2 and making adapters for using other lenses is far more involved than that. This entire discussion was to put that request/concept into perspective. With the S2, one has only Leica lenses as the option, and hoping that will change is an even steeper uphill battle for folks to consider in light of what went down with the M8. That is all I was trying to say from the start.
 
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Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
There's another thread on this forum about some new, fantastic back for the H3D2. Here's a quote from that thread:

"The only restriction is that a marginal crop is introduced with the HCD28 and the HCD35-90 in 35 mm setting. On a full frame 60 Mpix camera, the crop will result in an effective pixel count of 55 Mpix and a focal length factor of about 1.1."

Like the S2, the H3D is a closed system, with no alternative suppliers. Still, within this system, Hasselblad has managed to introduce a sensor that isn't fully compatible with all their lenses. This is exactly the kind of blunders that I hope Leica will be avoiding for the S2. If I pay umpteen thousand dollars for a camera system, I don't want to concentrate on any crop factor for some of my lenses.

Price is a worry, but getting things right, for every component within the system is even more important. Hopefully, Leica has learned that from the M8 experience.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Well this is a point we have to see what Leica did as far as image circle. Okay it is designed for the S sensor but is it designed for a FF 645 sensor down the road if they choose to go in that direction. I will assume it is bigger than the S2 size today and most likely would handle even bigger but how much bigger if it went into say like a S5 or 6 camera with a 60mpx FF sensor like a P65+ size. Or Leica decided to separate the body and back at some point, will the lenses handle it. Questions to think about and see what they have done and what restrictions may attached to them if any of course. Obviously some lenses on the P65+ FF sensor today have some softness in the corners like the 28mm today. Now there is somewhat some control in the software to sharpen up those corners and actually does a nice job. But again we are back to software to do it and control it which is okay with me. But Leica also says everything is done in the design and no need for this. Well when you jump to a bigger sensor than all bets are off on that one.

Now back to Hassy obviously they built there lenses or older ones to the 39 sensor size and some of there newer ones they built to accommodate the new bigger sensors. So being around this long in digital it seems they have somewhat a mixed bag with regards to lenses and sensor sizes. Now again that is my assumption and maybe someone with more knowledge of Hassy can chime in on it but this seems to be the case. There image circle on there older H lenses isjust not big enough to handle the larger sensors of the 50 and 60. But there newer lenses are

Obviously this could happen to Leica as well as they possible increase the sensor size down the road. We have to see the real specs on this to figure it out
 

Christopher

Active member
I really hope the S2 lens line will cover the current P65 size. If not the S2 is a short lived project. They can't shrink the pixel size further and further, perhaos a S3 would be possible with the same sensor size, but after that they need a larger one. So as Guy said we all hope Leica thought about the future of the S2 before making the lens design.
 

thomas

New member
The 35mm format has been existing for ages. So other formats have. I think the S2 is not aimed at photgraphers that need the highest resolution (artists, high end product ...). I rather think a S3 or S4 (as long as we will ever see those) will focus on other features than resolution.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Well this is a point we have to see what Leica did as far as image circle. Okay it is designed for the S sensor but is it designed for a FF 645 sensor down the road if they choose to go in that direction. I will assume it is bigger than the S2 size today and most likely would handle even bigger but how much bigger if it went into say like a S5 or 6 camera with a 60mpx FF sensor like a P65+ size. Or Leica decided to separate the body and back at some point, will the lenses handle it. Questions to think about and see what they have done and what restrictions may attached to them if any of course. Obviously some lenses on the P65+ FF sensor today have some softness in the corners like the 28mm today. Now there is somewhat some control in the software to sharpen up those corners and actually does a nice job. But again we are back to software to do it and control it which is okay with me. But Leica also says everything is done in the design and no need for this. Well when you jump to a bigger sensor than all bets are off on that one.

Now back to Hassy obviously they built there lenses or older ones to the 39 sensor size and some of there newer ones they built to accommodate the new bigger sensors. So being around this long in digital it seems they have somewhat a mixed bag with regards to lenses and sensor sizes. Now again that is my assumption and maybe someone with more knowledge of Hassy can chime in on it but this seems to be the case. There image circle on there older H lenses isjust not big enough to handle the larger sensors of the 50 and 60. But there newer lenses are

Obviously this could happen to Leica as well as they possible increase the sensor size down the road. We have to see the real specs on this to figure it out
FYI, that's not quite correct Guy. The HC lens line up was developed for film 645s, just like most Mamiya lenses. No one makes a full 645 sized digital sensor. I can use all of my H/C lenses full 645 coverage on the H2F film camera except the more recent 28mm.

The only two lenses that will NOT cover a film 645 are the 28mm and new short zoom. Those lenses will cover the 31/39/50 meg sensors and just a smidge under the the new 60mm sensor (which @ 94% of a true 645 will produce a slight crop using something like 55 meg of the 60 meg sensor).

IMO, the 28 was developed back when the 31 meg camera needed a wider lens due to the 1.3X crop factor which made the widest effective focal length using the HC/35mm @ 45.5mm. The only reason I got the 28mm was for use on the 31 meg camera so I would have an effective 35mm field of view.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
FYI, that's not quite correct Guy. The HC lens line up was developed for film 645s, just like most Mamiya lenses. No one makes a full 645 sized digital sensor. I can use all of my H/C lenses full 645 coverage on the H2F film camera except the more recent 28mm.

The only two lenses that will NOT cover a film 645 are the 28mm and new short zoom. Those lenses will cover the 31/39/50 meg sensors and just a smidge under the the new 60mm sensor (which @ 94% of a true 645 will produce a slight crop using something like 55 meg of the 60 meg sensor).

IMO, the 28 was developed back when the 31 meg camera needed a wider lens due to the 1.3X crop factor which made the widest effective focal length using the HC/35mm @ 45.5mm. The only reason I got the 28mm was for use on the 31 meg camera so I would have an effective 35mm field of view.
Thanks bud i was counting on you to correct me if I was off. Reason i usually qualify the Hassy talk to I believe or something like check to make sure. LOL

BTW main reason I shoot the 28mm also is the crop factor
 
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