The focal plane shutter is in the body while the leaf shutter is in the lenses. One can choose to use either one with the S2. The leaf shutter is probably limited up to 1/500 sec., though it could go higher as in some Rollei lenses.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
The focal plane shutter is in the body while the leaf shutter is in the lenses. One can choose to use either one with the S2. The leaf shutter is probably limited up to 1/500 sec., though it could go higher as in some Rollei lenses.
According to a German article I read, the leaf shutters go up to 1/500.
joeisayo wrote:
Is this camera/lenses made in house or outsourced?
Designed from the ground up by Leica and produced in Germany is what the product manager said. Don't know if that means that some of it could be outsourced to other companies in Germany or not.
Nothing new about the variety of reflex viewing and shutter options - think classic Hassy. The 500 series had a moving mirror and leaf shutter in the lens. The 200 (nee 2000) had a focal-plane shutter at the, uh, focal plane for the shutterless F lenses, but could also use the leaf-shutter lenses.
If I started a new bank, then collect all of people's deposit and buy this new Leica S2, can I request the gov. to bail me out?
Darn! not sure if I can afford the D Lux- either!!!
I think this camera will only be bought by [very] rich hobbyists and only the vainest, most egotistical "rock star" commercial/fashion photogs out there. Names need not be mentioned.
The Canon 1Ds3 is proven, has a lens lineup that is unmatched and will certainly cost only a FRACTION of the new Leica glass and let's be honest - does the job pretty damn well. I will certainly concede that some of the Canon glass leaves something to be desired... but Canon is slowly rolling out Mark II revisions for many of their lenses.
I simply can't see the utility in purchasing this over an H3D-II or the new Sinar Hy6 system. The concept itself is great, but I think they've priced themselves so far out of the market that it will flop. Standard lenses at $8K to $15K?
For Leica's sake, I really hope some sheiks from Dubai put in a big order....
The Leica S2 prices don't seem to be out of line for the category. A Leaf AFi7 with waist level finder is $35,995.00 plus $1,349.99 for a prism finder. The Schneider 180 2.8, a leaf shutter AF lens, is $5,869.99.
Jonathan H wrote:
I think this camera will only be bought by [very] rich hobbyists and only the vainest, most egotistical "rock star" commercial/fashion photogs out there. Names need not be mentioned.
The Canon 1Ds3 is proven, has a lens lineup that is unmatched and will certainly cost only a FRACTION of the new Leica glass and let's be honest - does the job pretty damn well. I will certainly concede that some of the Canon glass leaves something to be desired... but Canon is slowly rolling out Mark II revisions for many of their lenses.
I simply can't see the utility in purchasing this over an H3D-II or the new Sinar Hy6 system. The concept itself is great, but I think they've priced themselves so far out of the market that it will flop. Standard lenses at $8K to $15K?
For Leica's sake, I really hope some sheiks from Dubai put in a big order.......Show more →
Have you looked at Hasselblad prices lately? Buy an S2 and put the 10.000$ you save on the body towards a few lenses...
Has Leica done its market research properly? I mean, full frame is gaining traction, crop SLR's are going crazy too, but medium format seems pretty moribund, partly because full frame has turned out to be so good. Is there really a big enough market for developing a whole new larger format system today? These fora are full of people saying that 12 megapixels is good enough for them, and they are at least keen photographers, if not always professionals. Are medium format producers doing well? And what about the current economic climate? The article linked on another thread had some pretty scary information about Leica's finances. Is this Leica's N-Digital, i.e. great, ground-breaking, but not enough for the money and nobody bought it? It seems to me that they would be much better off working on a full-frame R10, and producing it at a more bearable price point.
So what's the motivation? As has been said, they need to satisfy their enthusiasts that they are still producing superior image quality to other brands. There are two ways to do that:
(1) catch up with Canon and Nikon at CMOS fabrication. They have clearly tried this, and failed. They probably can't find the funds to do this as their market is already too small, and there's a lot of catching up to do.
(2) get around their serious disadvantage in sensor quality by improving the only possible other parameter: sensor size. This has two problematic implications. First, it is very difficult to get reasonable yields for larger sensors, and therefore they are exponentially more expensive, and secondly, given CaNikon's ongoing economies of scale, the larger sensor might once again only allow them to more or less draw even, for a breathtaking price. In other words, they may just about succeed in matching image quality, but at a spiralling cost, while CaNikon's fulll frame offerings just go on getting cheaper and better.
Graham is right that release date is important. I suspect that this project, like the M8 and DMR before it, is in danger of being too little too late.
The other thing I find odd about Leica's announcement page, and to some extent Zeiss is guilty of this as well, is the poor translation. You would think a company this size would somehow be able to find a native English speaker on their staff, or amongst its enthusiast base to proof read this page for free. It shouldn't matter, but English is such a lingua Franca for web announcements like this, that not being able to avoid poor English does make them seem truly incompetent in this age. Sometimes the Japanese companies do this too. Someone needs to tell them that it doesn't inspire confidence when they use Google translate to prepare major announcements.
Thanks for that link Jaap. The following paragraph sheds some light on my musings above about Leica's motivation: "The R10 has already been green-lit, fast-tracked, whatever. Technology from the S2 will find its way into a smaller body with a 24x36mm CCD chip that takes all current R lenses (no adapter). New AF R lenses will be introduced as well. The S2 will launch in Summer 2009, with the R10 coming (most likely early 2010). Why did Leica go with the S-System at this point, instead of the R-System? They didn’t want to launch a me-too product. If the full frame R10 came out now, everyone would compare it to the FF Canons and Nikons. Does it shoot as fast? Does it have low noise at 6400 ISO? Does it slice bread? Etc. Instead, the S2 creates a new, unique flagship product for Leica. It is a true professional tool, not just a fascination. All the R&D and tech that went into the S can be carried into the R system. Think Nikon’s approach with the D3/D700/D300 and this may be where Leica is headed."...Show more →
Another interesting tidbit from the blog is that the S2 has a single AF point. Still no information about how or whether they managed to squeeze a bright 30x45mm prism into a camera the size of a D700. Is this going to be an AF-only camera? If not, what will manual focus ring action be like? It gets more and more intriguing.
It is amazing isn't it? A MF camera in the size and resposiveness of a D700 or 5D.
I can quite see a number of professionals selling their mother-in-law to get their hands on something like that. And Leica claims image quality as yet unheard of. Even Leica-sceptics will allow that such a claim is to be taken seriously. A mass order from National Geographic maybe? They downside of course is that it is not for the aspiring amateur...
How can they expect to sell a single camera without a print button 