Member PebblePlace

Phase One's announcements were underwhelming and the Hasselblad H5D fell short of the hype generated by Hass' pre Photokina announcement. So if Leica surprises us with a bold upgrade to the S, they could steal the show in terms of medium format. I think the M10 will be the high point as well.

I have some focused just short of infinity at F5.6 and F8, I'm not seeing signs of curvature or anything that would lead me to think there is an issue. There could be curvature, but in my pictures there is nothing suspect. I know that doesn't help you… sorry. The next time I'm shooting landscapes with the 70mm, I do some test shots to…[Read more]

I'm not so worried about the Leica S3 price. I think it is more important that there is an S3 because that will affirm Leica's commitment to the platform. And S2 users will know, if the time comes, they do have upgrade options. As for the “S3”, or maybe a S2.2, my guesses –

1) Still CCD, same sensor, same pixel count
2) Expanded upper…[Read more]

Thank you for the info. Any word on price and general availability yet?

Thank you for the feedback Martin. I saw a tripod mount on the grip and thought maybe the RRS L-Bracket could be re-used.

I'm probably going to wait on the grip until Photokina (since it's only about a month away). I want to make sure the grip is forward compatible.

Probably a “good” ISO 2500 would suffice for most people's needs. Leica said they could do this with the existing S2 by changing the read-out configuration (do-able via firmware) and the result would be around a 2-stop improvement. If they would take it a step further and add a binning option (i.e. – like Sensor+ on the Phase gear), then we're…[Read more]

All the images from our Carmel trip of geo data added in the DNGs. You can root around in the EXIF and see what data was added:

For Firefox I love the FXiF Viewer Plug-in. With it, you can right click on any web image and see the embedded EXIF. The geo data shows up in my pix. I tried a similar plug-in for Safari, but it caused a…[Read more]

I use a Sony GPS CS3. It's totally independent of the S2 (or any camera) and just rides shotgun in my bag or pocket. Then I use Photolinker to end the data in the Leica S2 DNGs. I wrote a review a year or two ago using freeware to do the geotagging / embedding – Geotagging Leica M9 files.

Today, things are easier because the purchased…[Read more]

I want to see Leica stop boosting the base ISO. The TrueSense (formerly Kodak) and Dalsa sensors typically have a base ISO of 50 or 100, so when Leica starts the ISO at 160, the sensor is already amplified 1 to 2 stops. The S2's quality at ISO 160 does not come close to the file quality of my Phase One P65 at its base ISO (50). If I shot the…[Read more]

Marc – I thought about the firmware too. Going off topic here – the firmware could cut both ways. There is probably a golden version which Leica used during testing. And then there could be a future version where Hasselblad could “break” the adapter…

I'm curious to see how the 100/2.2 does the S2. We'll know better in a couple months…[Read more]

Do you have any other HC lenses, such as maybe the 100/2.2? I suspect the 100/2.2 is the lens most people are interested in – at least me 🙂

Count me in too… the original battery would never move off 100%. I had actually totally depleted the battery and the S2 had similar symptoms. Leica should be exchanging the battery, and I had second battery.

So, I guess a battery can “go bad” at some point all on its own?

I would like to see Leica add an info screen like they have…[Read more]

Hi Mark –

Glad this one was easily duplicated, and that it's also easy to around the issue. I received the S2 set to parallel mode and had been using a CF card. I decided to pick a fast SDHC card this week, so when the card arrived – popped out the CF card, put in the SDHC and took some test shots. It was just happenstance that I stumbled…[Read more]

Hi Mark –

I'm running the latest firmware, so I doubt update will help. You experience indicates this is not new bug in just the latest firmware. I'm surprised nobody bumped into this before; i was just trying out SDHC before a trip because the Macbook has SDHC slot and a SDHC card is more convenient.

Reformatted the 32 GB card and had the computer overwrite the card with 0's just to be sure. Put the card in and let the S2 reformat it. Left the S2 on “sequential” and now the card works fine.

So, the problem is:

1) S2 set-up in parallel mode (this is key)
2) Only a SD card inserted
3) S2 records images fine
4) Change…[Read more]

Just tested the S2 with a Sandisk 8 GB Extreme 30 MB/sec and was able to repeat the fault. The only card in the was SDHC card. The S2 was set-up for parallel. The S2 will record the images fun, up until the ISO is changed. After ISO is changed, none of the subsequent images are recorded. If the S2 is turned off & on, the card will record…[Read more]

Of course, I only find these things AFTER something runs amuck – diglloyd 32 GB card issues.

Marc, I look forward to your test results. It'll be interesting to see how the HC lenses are treated in LightRoom and how the lens corrections fair on the Leica system. Likewise, I'm assuming all the EXIF info will be there as well.

For my needs, it's mostly the 100/2.2 that i'm curious about. Though, I'm hoping Leica rethinks the 100/3.5…[Read more]

Marc – I agree with you in premise, but in practice, I'm not so sure. My first reaction was “hell yeah!”, then I started doing the math and to get a single HC lens up & running on the S2 is ~$4500 assuming ~$2500 for the typical used HC lens. Using Ebay as guide and my price shopping with a couple Leica stores here in the US, a used S lens is…[Read more]

I've taken around 250 pix with S2 since the firmware update and haven't had the camera lock up.