Future of the S2

This is a question covering a lot of aspects. Maybe I can cover a few of them.

First there will be always at one point a system that is better then the one you have. Waiting for this system will lead to never ever have a system.

Second what is your expectation of a system? What are your requirements? Do you need a weather sealed system, would you like to have the DSLR form factor? How important is it for you to have an easy to handle system wherever you are and whatever you do? If these aspects are not important there are other Medium Format cameras worth to take a look.

Rearding the future of the S System it is like with every system hard to tell. Take a look at the R system owners, they were not amused that Leica did not continued the system and instead released the S2. But this is part of the digital revolution and it will continue to whatever extend. And of course there will be a S3 at some point.

BUT take a look at the current S System. The camera is super easy to handle and to use. It is a pleasure being with the camera. I love the system because of the limited amount of functions it offers, because these functions are all you need. I had a Canon 1D Mark IV and I really do not want to have a camera with so many options and buttons anymore. I love to concentrate on the essential stuff and this is making great pictures instead of running through menus and navigating hundreds of buttons on your camera. (Btw the 1D is a great camera but not for me anymore.)

Coming back to the S2. The size of the sensor in combination with maybe the best lenses available out there giving you striking image quality and size for your prints. You could print huge and this is the point where the camera really shows his strength.

My personal opinion is, that the S2 is the best system for my needs I ever had and the best system which is available out there. (And I really spent a lot of thoughts in deciding between the S system and a Phase One.) I could imagine that the S system is the system I could stay with for the rest of my life as I do not need more convinient features, the image size is big enough, the quality of images, the camera and the lenses are breathtaking.

AND it is such a cool Gadget 😎

There are of course even more aspects but now it is time for me to go to my Gaggia and making my wife and myself the usual Latte Macchiato.

Cheers.

There’s no other MF back on the market that I would rather have. But I wouldn’t mind having one of these too 🙂 If there’s anything out there that can render MF obsolete it will likely come from this company. Obviously an apples to oranges comparison…but wow on the image quality.

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?65362-Peter-Lik…

Kipper, I now admit I have the RED in a “partnership” with a movie maker and I would only use it for video as the body is not waterproof and not easy to handhold with your models. But no question about the image quality. From a balcony in Las Vegas I works. Of course I would want the Leica cine lenses but they go for over $100,000.

A comment on rationalizing an S2.
I bought it for the lenses and have not been disappointed. I can’t imaging them ever going out of date. The S2 has had enough firmware updates that I can already call it an S2.5. The real question when moving to an S system is do you have any legacy issues from other MF cameras? Can you wait for the system to develop the other lenses you may need. In my case I needed a wide and didn’t buy into the S system until the 35mm was available. Now enough lenses are available except for a really long telephoto, assuming you don’t need the CS lenses this month.
Regarding the cost. Do your really need this much resolution? I do huge prints. That’s way I justified MF. But it still is a lot of money. If you are not shooting for money, but photography is a passion, I would argue that $30,000 to get you into this system is less than a really nice boat or car and some people use their camera more than they would use a car or boat for fun. As Kipper and I will tell you, the crazy part of the S2 world is that once you can rationalize a $7000 lens, you start being able to see your need for $1,200 tripods and $300 filters and $3,000 computers. There is no way to rationalize cutting corners on any other part of your system under the “weakest link” concern. BTW I can rationalize a $7000 lens by saying Leica lenses never seem to depreciate as much as other gear.

Happy Thanksgiving David

I’d be interested in what you folks, who spend much more time thinking of these matters, have to say about the longevity of the S2 system and if it will still be a force to reckon with 5 years from now. Is anyone concerned that it will be an irrelevant tool 5 years from now?

2-5 years, wow, who will know if we are still here then? And in 2-5 years, you can make a lot of good pictures with any actual available system. And definitively, in 2-5 years we will probably have a S3 and the value of your S2 will drop to, let’s guess, 8 grands? But if the S2 fits you well, you can probably continue about 10 years to make pictures with it.

Also your question implies so many unknown factors, what can we say? The picture quality is amazing, but I would not say it is that far better to justify it’s premium for the picture quality itself. But if the ergnomics pleases you, and you feel you can make better pictures out of this system than with any other system, then this is much more important than pixel counting. I bought the S2 for the viewfinder only, I cannot see that much improvement over my other system.

Also, we don’t know how you will feel about the money. A camera system that is so expensive for you that it stays all the time in the safe, is almost useless. Better buy something else then.

I think the S2-system is pretty future proof because you buy lenses which are top level.
For me the S2 body user interface is near perfect so for me its worth the money.

For sure there will be an S3 one day and the S2 value will drop that day.

However Leica is one of the brands who have prodcuts with long lifecycles and do not bring every year a new model (like m4/3 for example)

I really do not expect that DSLR IQ will come close in IQ of the S2/MF any time soon, and I do think that a Leica S70mm will allways deliver better IQ than a Nikon 50/1.4, even if Nikon developped a 16bit color sensor without AA filter.

I do not expect the revolutionary innovations you are describing, I dont expect wonders.
Yes, sensors get better year for year but very often lenses are the bottle neck.
And sensor improvements are often focused on high ISO/ noise and resolution and not so much regarding color and tonality (which is much more important for my taste)

Its still a crazy amount of money for a camera for an amateur (like me), but on the other side you get rewarded. If I browse through my images I can see which are from the S2, even on screen size.

I really would recommend to test the camera and make sure you feel fine with the minimalistic user interface and the size though.

The question all of us must answer is …

Will our talent, skill and ability be up to this or any other high-end camera available now, and will more/better/best make any difference in the future?

There is a threshold where the addiction to highly heralded, but actually incremental, technological advancements begins reaching the point of diminishing returns or no real returns at all.

Because everything is getting so good, I believe the marketers will resort to alternative technologies that replace current ones, but will not necessarily improve what it replaces. These new things will be made to seem indispensable, and the tech junkies will rush to it with open wallets … and nothing will improve as far as talent, skill, or ability.

A photo taken now will always be better than one taken with vaporware : -)

My 2¢

-Marc

fotografz;1402 wrote: The question all of us must answer is …

Will our talent, skill and ability be up to this or any other high-end camera available now, and will more/better/best make any difference in the future?
…
A photo taken now will always be better than one taken with vaporware : -)

My 2¢

-Marc

Hi Marc,
now you made me think if I need to sell my S2 and buy a Nikon D3100 instead?

I really don’t think that the S2 is about digital gadgets, it is just a splendid camera concept, a very well thought tool.

It doesn’t make you good photos, but I can tell you about more than 100 photos I wish I made with the S2 during the last 5 or even ten years.

Imagine tomorrow (and it’s never to late) you make the picture of your life, then I bet you will regret at least a little you didn’t made it with the best posible camera system available.

The S2 and associated lenses are very expensive no doubt about it. I fully expect the S2 to be replaced with an S3 (or whatever they call it) and at that time the S2 will be worth considerably less. However, the S2 will still function the same and be capable of the same exceptional IQ. If or when I decide to replace the S2 it will be voluntary. That was part of my rationalization when I bought the S2 and lenses over a year ago.

Mark Gowin;1409 wrote: The S2 and associated lenses are very expensive no doubt about it. I fully expect the S2 to be replaced with an S3 (or whatever they call it) and at that time the S2 will be worth considerably less. However, the S2 will still function the same and be capable of the same exceptional IQ. If or when I decide to replace the S2 it will be voluntary. That was part of my rationalization when I bought the S2 and lenses over a year ago.

Personally, I think that is the right approach, and basically what I meant in my post above.

Digital has introduced a new mental illness where we try to think ahead so much we don’t think about now. That was probably warranted when digital was first introduced and was wanting in many areas … but now it is so good on so many fronts that worrying about what could be can be a fool’s errand.

I also think that nothing has changed from the days of film where a photographer usually had 2 or 3 systems that specialized in certain types of work: 35mm, Medium Format, and maybe a rangefinder or some small camera. What has changed is the attempt to do everything with one camera system … be it a S2, or some high performance 35mm DSLR …. which is understandable given the price tag. However, that price tag isn’t that bad if one kept the tools rather than changing them over and over and over. Loss in value of anything is predicated on selling it. If you hold onto it you lose nothing.

I feel the same way as Mark about all of my current cameras, especially the Leica M9 and S2 … if I move to a M10 or a S3 it will strictly be a voluntary move, and not one I feel overly compelled to do, especially at those price points. If I move from my current Sony A900 kit, it will be strictly out of boredom, since no 35mm DSLR has even come close to producing IQ like these Leicas.

Currently, I am way more into lighting, since that seems to make a much larger difference in the work than incrementally adding more of this or that to some digital box, especially a box like the S2 which is a light vampire just like most other MFD cameras. … not to mention that lighting is very challenging creatively.

-Marc

fotografz;1416 wrote:
Currently, I am way more into lighting, since that seems to make a much larger difference in the work than incrementally adding more of this or that to some digital box, especially a box like the S2 which is a light vampire just like most other MFD cameras. … not to mention that lighting is very challenging creatively.

-Marc

I’ve come to the same conclusion regarding the impact of good lighting (which includes the proper selection of modifiers, gels, etc.). I’m fortunate to have a friend who’s top notch in this regard and has helped me along the way. It’s not an easy thing to learn on your own. And lighting can get pretty expensive pretty quickly…

David K;1418 wrote: I’ve come to the same conclusion regarding the impact of good lighting (which includes the proper selection of modifiers, gels, etc.). I’m fortunate to have a friend who’s top notch in this regard and has helped me along the way. It’s not an easy thing to learn on your own. And lighting can get pretty expensive pretty quickly…

Ain’t that the truth. This whole subject is a pet peeve of mine.

I have spend many months now tutoring a fellow S2 shooter about studio and location lighting. At first he was going the all speed-light route so popular today … which I quickly corrected when I found out what he was going to be shooting … the 5 or 6 SF58s he was going to buy would have been a monumental waste of money. Even if possible to do, all 6 together in a soft box would not have over-come the sun, nor equalled the output of a single 600 w/s light, let alone a 1200 w/s one

Basically, why spend $50K+ on a sophisticated camera like the S2, and the get miserly on the lighting? Makes absolutely zero sense to me. Lighting vastly expands the applications of a camera like the S2 well beyond available light work … but most people associate it with over-flashed, poor speed-light work and think it isn’t for them … or they are afraid of it … which is a shame.

The trick is to have someone that knows what they are doing guide you, even if you have to pay them … and I don’t necessarily mean a sales person … I mean an accomplished photographer like David mentions above.

Lighting is a black hole that you can pour money into forever, and mis-steps can be very costly and frustrating. Get it right, and it is a lifetime tool you can use with all your cameras and any you’ll get later. Over-come any fear or ignorance, and a whole new world of photography opens up for you … and doesn’t matter if it’s nice outside or not … LOL!

-Marc

Lighting vastly expands the applications of a camera like the S2 well beyond available light work …

so true!

I’m courious to hear what you suggest as solution for an available-light-look-alike lighting for the S2

stephan;1435 wrote: so true!

I’m courious to hear what you suggest as solution for an available-light-look-alike lighting for the S2

Knowledge is the solution.

True understanding of the qualities of available light before you try to mimic it. For a simple example: if you want to mimic a portrait taken near a large north light picture window, the strobe’s light modifier has to be big like the widow is. I have a 5′ X 7′ Plume Wafer soft box that is almost the same size as the picture window in my studio. It has an internal graduated baffle diffuser that evens the light spread … and an optional outer diffuser that produces more of the North light look (indirect/wrap-around light quality).

A firm grasp on what subjects you intend photographing using artificial lighting. Lighting a food still life requires different tools than lighting an extreme motorcycle stunt, shot against the sun, and frozen during mid-jump … and a portrait or character study require yet a different set of lighting tools. Sounds remedial, but many people actually don’t understand this and buy the wrong tools for the wrong reasons.

Probably the most important aspect of artificial lighting is the directional quality. On-camera lighting is flat and generally ugly unless used as minor fill, (where the ambient light is still the key light and provides the directional quality that creates the illusion of dimensionally on a 2D surface.) When lighting is employed as the key light, you control the directionality and don’t depend on the time-of-day or whether there is any quality ambient available at all. I live in Michigan, and I won’t see any quality ambient for the next 5 months … LOL! So the lighting tools come out and the S2 keeps going.

Lack of Knowledge has led to some very odd ways of trying to use artificial lighting. chief among these is the attempt to use speed-lights like studio strobes. IMO, this is like bringing a pea-shooter to a gun fight. Not to mention that it punishes the crap out of people’s very expensive speed-lights. Various reports place a speed-light’s maximum out-put at 70 to 90 w/s, so as I mentioned earlier, to equal a typical 500 w/s mono-light’s full output, you’d need 6 SF58 speed-lights clustered in one light modifier at a cost of $650 ea. or $3,900 total … not counting the radio triggers needed (and certainly not counting that you can’t even put 6 speed-lights in a typical soft-box anyway).

Obviously an exaggeration since you can buy cheaper speed-lights. However, in comparison, a Profoto D1 air kit with two 500 w/s monos (1,000 w/s total, equal to 12 SF58s!), including Air remote trigger that lets you increase/decrease the level of light right from the camera position is $2,380 … you do the math.

Even I was surprised when shooting some tethered table top with the S120. I pulled the ISO to 80 and had to stop down quite a bit to gain DOF … in the process, I maxed out my Profoto D4 2400 w/s generator with modified light. Some things take more light than you can possible imagine until you try it.

Modifiers for speed-lights are very limited where those for Strobes are vast and diverse … which is why it is important to have a knowledgable guide when first starting out … so you don’t over-buy, or buy the wrong tools.

None of this is meant to trump available light … when it is there, and the quality is good, it is hard to beat Mother Nature at her best. Instead, it is meant to expand the utility of such an expensive tool as the S2 … a specific tool that really sings when coupled with strobes … even Leica professionally positions this camera as a Fashion/Glamor tool even though we all use it for much more than that. Most fashion/Glamor shooters utilize strobes.

To me, lighting has future proofed my S2 far better than what a S3 may bring to the party … at least for the subjects I tend to shoot.

-Marc

linusm;1439 wrote: [quote=fotografz]Currently, I am way more into lighting, since that seems to make a much larger difference in the work than incrementally adding more of this or that to some digital box, especially a box like the S2 which is a light vampire just like most other MFD cameras. … not to mention that lighting is very challenging creatively.

-Marc

That to me is a very telling comment and one I had not given much thought to. It makes total sense to me. The bottom line is it is time to stop focusing on the gadget (the S2 is more gadget than I will ever make full use of) and focus on the items that make for a better photograph. Thanks for that.

I think that Marc’s point is that an S2 owner would be better served with improving technique and adding things like lighting tools, rather than be concerned with what an S3 or S4, S5, etc. might offer in the future. The S2 already offers amazing image quality, an incredibly responsive interface, excellent battery performance, a great viewfinder, etc. And, Leica keeps enhancing the functionality with continued firmware updates.

To answer your original question of relevancy of the S2 in 5 years we can take a look at few factors:[INDENT][INDENT] Looking back 5 years (when digital capture was far from mature), you have the Leica M8. The camera is still relevant and tens of thousands are still being used every day to capture great images. On the used market, it has held the same value for the last 3 years and allows many new users to get into Leica in an affordable way.

The S2 will produce exactly the same image quality (maybe better through new firmware and/or new LR algorithms – already have seen this) in 5 years as it does today. 40×60 inch prints from the S2 are mind-blowingly good. How much larger do you need or want to print?

Leica spent in excess of 40 Million Euro on developing the S System. It is actually the first medium format system to be designed with only digital capture in mind. All other systems trace their roots back to a legacy of film and building systems to adapt analog components to a digital world.

As digital technology has matured in the last few years, the product life cycle of high-end gear is getting longer. Look to Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, etc. for evidence of this.

[/INDENT][/INDENT]

To add to what David said … we all choke at the price of S lenses … but they were also made from the ground up to perform on a high resolution digital camera and will remain so for a very long time.

In comparison, the lenses for both the Hasselblad H and Phase One cameras have had to be upgraded to keep pace with improved digital sensors. So the older lenses become outdated and you have to buy the same lens all over again. I just did that with the HC50-II and HC150N and probably should do the same with the HC120-II macro … and many are re-buying lenses for their newer Phase One systems by moving to the new Schneider M mount lenses and Mamiya D optics.

I also think that the more we use the S2 the better the results will get. There is more in this box than most of us can pull out of it … yet.

-Marc

Marc and others- how often do you use artificial light and are you more talking more about indoor/studio or also outdoor? For what kind of photography?

Knowledge is the solution.

well, yes

but let it put into another perspective: One of the S2 selling arguments is the ease of use and weather sealing.

Unluckily, I work in the norther hemisphère, where light is going off qulickly in the evening. Also, I love to shoot in dark places, just yesterday in a cosy Café, where you cannot bring big flashes and other stuff. Also, I’m not that kind of fan of ultra thin sharpnes aeras, which I consider to be a special effect that wears out quickly. This said, an eventual High iso S3 would be highly apreciated.

Regarding the strobes, of course buying a lot of SF58 will be a waste of money, but in my opinion strobes can be very effective if used correctly. With the use of radios, combined with a seconik 758 DR, some older powerfull flashes in manual mode, eventually combined with some portable lightformers, can do wonders and are light and easy to transport. And this is a relatively inexpensive solution. Which can be combined with some other, more powerfull studio flashes.

Obsolescence is a variable event. As some have alluded, at times “new and improved” simply is not anything more than new. And even “improvements” are not necessarily better, especially in the artistic realm.

While I don’t doubt that ultimately an S3 will appear, it won’t obsolete the divine images that the S2 is currently producing. And the Germans are very savvy at wringing the most out of a design both in the Marketplace as well as in the utilization of the tool. The S2’s relatively open architecture ensures that many upgrades are still possible. But don’t expect an S3 body to be cheap, and don’t expect an S2’s value to tank the moment the S3 arrives. Just doesn’t work that way with Leica, Nikon or Canon yes, but Leica… not so fast. The main stumbling block to S2 ownership is price, not desire. Count on the demand for S2 bodies to continue when the S3 rears its head. M4’s didn’t tank when M6’s came out.

Great images… 3D with beautiful bokeh (strange word, very strange word) is the hallmark of this camera. I have not dealt with other MF’s since my 503 and trappings in the 80’s but have dabbled in several formats and a couple digital systems. They cannot touch the S2’s striking abilities. I can pick out S2 images in LR thumbnails most of the time! Even from my M9’s. So, I won’t worry about S3’s just yet.

Stephan; if you can use the S2 as an available light, discrete device you are one heck of a photographer! I’d love to employ mine as such, but handhold at less than 1/60 is tough for me with anything but the 70mm and even then, shake is apparent when going 100%. I find the M9 far better suited in my hands. Better high ISO performance would be very nice indeed. But I’ll bet you can push an S2 image pretty far in PP and get a very acceptable result. The M9 is quite surprising in this regard and I suspect the S2 will push well too. High ISO with good S/N is the current Holy Grail of digital. I expect Leica to take a run at it, but not until they can eclipse the current crop of manufacturers. It will take some technology breakthroughs to get there I’d imagine.

FWIW, I bought a Sony A77 with a few lenses as a “snapshot” kind of thing, where the S2 is just a bit large to lug but I wanted the SLR’s capabilities. The whole thing is going eBay this weekend. The M9 and ESPECIALLY the S2 just make the Sony images seem flat and lifeless. Ahhh well…

Yes lighting is true magic. In pictures, food, in home/office building, anywhere, lighting makes a huge difference in what we see and how we regard it. I don’t think Leica will stop at the S2 but lighting experience will definitely raise my game, though it’s a lot of work! But a well-lit S2 image will no doubt trump an S3 (or Red, or any other) image with uninspired lighting.

May we all be alive and well when an S3 rolls around!

The view from the rural south…
Most important is the indisputable fact that the S2 is simply the very best point and shoot that has ever been built. It is also the heaviest point and shoot ever built. The weight of the S2 means the the next upgrade has to be to the significant other (SO) who carries the rest of the kit. Most SOs will carry an m9 grudgingly but my experience has been that they will have no part of an S2. “I told you what you could do with that Nikon D whatever and I could care less who this thing was hand built by.”

It is possible that Leica and a couple of others have built systems that out resolve the human eye. Since I was born with human eyes not red tail hawk eyes, I suspect that the S2 sensor and the S lenses will be sufficient until my species eyes evolve to a higher level with better eyes.

I think that Leica really fouled up the opportunity to grow the system by building the S2 so well that there is really not a whole lot to upgrade. They should have started out wih the S1, sort of half assed like the M8, and, surprise, now here is the S2. We would be grateful to the gnomes and there would be little pressure on them to produce anything but lenses.

My only gripe with the S2 is the inability to write raw simultaneously to both cards. Keep in mind that I am strictly a P&S guy. I own a flash that I don’t understand and don’t really want to use.

For me the future of the S2 is with a few more lenses and perhaps a long term service contract. Oh yea, and an intermediate sized flash that articulates (bends), that fits in the hot shoe and just works automatically by pressing a big button marked A.

I think that digital photography may have reached its pinnacle with the S2 and there may not be much left to make for the P&S guy who likes walking about with a machine that works wonderfully.

stephan;1450 wrote: well, yes

but let it put into another perspective: One of the S2 selling arguments is the ease of use and weather sealing.

Unluckily, I work in the norther hemisphère, where light is going off qulickly in the evening. Also, I love to shoot in dark places, just yesterday in a cosy Café, where you cannot bring big flashes and other stuff. Also, I’m not that kind of fan of ultra thin sharpnes aeras, which I consider to be a special effect that wears out quickly. This said, an eventual High iso S3 would be highly apreciated.

Regarding the strobes, of course buying a lot of SF58 will be a waste of money, but in my opinion strobes can be very effective if used correctly. With the use of radios, combined with a seconik 758 DR, some older powerfull flashes in manual mode, eventually combined with some portable lightformers, can do wonders and are light and easy to transport. And this is a relatively inexpensive solution. Which can be combined with some other, more powerfull studio flashes.

All those attributes make the S2 more versatile and usable for different shooting conditions. The lighting notion only serves to expand those capabilities so you can wring even more value out of this big a$$ed purchase.

However, as I mentioned in a previous post, people seem compelled to collapse all situations into one camera which IMO has not successfully happened to date.

I also live in an area that promises Moscow grey skies for 5 months straight and sundown at 4:30PM (thanks to daylight savings time). When I trek out to my “Cozy Cafe” it’s generally with a different tool in hand. I’d also welcome a higher ISO performance from the S2 just as long as the other end of the chart isn’t effected in any way at all. Personally, I’d rather a stop more ISO from my “Cosy Cafe” M9 camera : -)

No disagreement on the use of speed-lights, they most certainly can be used effectively in limited situations … and for the most part are pretty easy to transport. My compromise to expand the possibilities a bit more has been a Elinchrom Quadra which is pretty tiny, needs no separate radio system units except the sender, and has heads that are smaller than a speed-light … but puts out more light into a softbox than 5 SF58s, or 3 potato mashers could. So, it depends on applications and expectations. To me, it’s like fast aperture lenses verse slow ones … You can dial less from one, but not dial more from the other when you need it.

My 2¢

-Marc