Why no Leica S talk?

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rattymouse

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Doesnt anyone like medium format Leica?

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DISCLAIMER: The text written herein is meant to provide the opinions and/or suggestions of the author. No statement herein is meant to be considered law of the land, representative of any party or group, and or a quote from any party or group. Neither is any statement in the contained text meant to be taken as scripture, doctrine, or all encompassing of an entire populous or any groups or individuals therein.
 
Because the S is outdated tech and should not be released. MF format gear doesn't need to have rocket fast AF, better to have precise one (i.e. CDAF will be better). MF format rather needs ability to check the focus precisely than to have fancy OVF (EVF or LV is better for this than OVF). MF format gear needs to achieve high IQ, and in theory for WA it's better with the lack of mirror. Theory once will be practice, so you see: the S series should not be produced.
 
The people who can afford the S have much better things to do with their time than hang out here... and as others have said.. the S owners universe is a very small one.

More than likely.. anyone who owns an S knows what they are doing and requires little "help" from forums such as this.

I tried one last year and loved it but I will never be able to afford one.
--
Jim Radcliffe
http://www.boxedlight.com
Blog: http://boxedlight.com/blog

The ability to 'see' the shot is more important than the gear used to capture it.
 
It's always interesting to talk about Leica S.

Even though I will never, ever be able to afford one, not even in 100 years, it's always a pleasure to know what such gear is capable of, in capable hands.

I found myself amazed at these images in getdpi.com

If you guys allow me, I will say something now that can be considered offensive and "elitist", but hey, that's my honest opinion.

I'm not the guy that stands on top of the fence.

Sometimes I'm glad that these medium format cameras are so expensive, and they will be out of reach for the majority of shooters.

It's easy to imagine these cameras getting to the hands of talented folks, and always performing on large scale productions or situations.

If it's a fashion shoot, we're talking about the cover of Vogue.

If it's landscape photography, we're talking about breath taking valleys in Iceland, or stunning cliffs in Scotland, or expeditions to Antarctica.

If it's nature photography, Galapagos and chasing gorillas in Uganda.

No matter if the shooter is a pro or the most passionate enthusiast, it's usually expected that these cameras will reach the hands of those that know what they're doing.

And that is in part related to the price you gotta pay to join the club.

Save some rare exceptions, you won't see uncle Bob shooting a birthday party with a Phase One IQ180.

You know what I mean?

Making it affordable means it will get to the masses, ans thus will dilute the perceived quality of DMF photography.

That may sound full of #@, but has some truth in it.

--
Marcio Napoli
http://www.marcionapoli.com
 
Hi Marcio,

I am sure you expected people to comment on your view, so here it is! :)
If you guys allow me, I will say something now that can be considered offensive and "elitist", but hey, that's my honest opinion.

Sometimes I'm glad that these medium format cameras are so expensive, and they will be out of reach for the majority of shooters.
OK that is your view, let's see how you support it...
It's easy to imagine these cameras getting to the hands of talented folks, and always performing on large scale productions or situations.
....
Making it affordable means it will get to the masses, ans thus will dilute the perceived quality of DMF photography.
So, ok, you say that a product that is expensive will be used mainly by the people that have the right talent for it, and the rest of the people would not (should not) really use it as it will cheapen its perceived quality... I find this a strange comment... You can apply your logic to many other products and you will see that it fails, e.g. full frame sensors, expensive cars etc. For example I do not see expensive cars driven only by people with racing credentials! :)

The reality is that technology advances all the time and what used to be available to the few becomes available to many. That is progress and that is why we (most of us anyway) enjoy better standard of living today than we did many years ago...

If I understand you correctly you seem to have a "romantic" view of what is high level photography.. That I can accept, but it has nothing to do with the tools used...

D
 
Simple! The reason you will not get much if any S talk is because 95% of the people on here who use the forum cannot afford to buy an S Leica, so because of that and Leica generally they put them down and moan about Leica's crazy prices and that they are no better than a D800 etc etc etc.........

Then they will go on about "you can buy 4 D4's for the price of an S and I can't even afford to buy a D4" blah blah blah........

Lastly you get the group who say "the S is already out of date" It does not have 62 focus points or 12 frames per second so it must be a waste of money!

Try the Red Dot forum as DP review is mainly for Canon and Nikon users and "advanced" amateurs who occasionally stray off the P setting and onto A.

Good luck fellow S user!
 
.....last time I checked you didnt have to own something to talk about it. I've seen countless discussions about Ferrari cars amongst people who dont own them. So please do not restrain yourself from talking about the Leica S camera. It is OK if you dont own it.

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DISCLAIMER: The text written herein is meant to provide the opinions and/or suggestions of the author. No statement herein is meant to be considered law of the land, representative of any party or group, and or a quote from any party or group. Neither is any statement in the contained text meant to be taken as scripture, doctrine, or all encompassing of an entire populous or any groups or individuals therein.
 
Hi Daedalus

I'm really surprised no one trashed me to death! ;) as I was sure my comment would be at least questionable and somewhat polemic...

That's maybe because Leica forum is made of gentlemen, but if I said it on the Nikon forums, that would be another story... ;)

Well, my previous comment was not actually elitist in its true form.

Allow me to explain it better, so maybe I'm not seen as an a$$ ;)

I come from fashion photography background.

In my particular niche, it's usually very true that every cent you put on production value, you increase the final quality of the images exponentially.

I normally have a very, very polemic opinion that many high end fashion photographers are not that great as they seem to be.

In fact, when you reach such a high level, it becomes easier to produce stunning world class shots, as these photographers are aided by the very best talents in industry, all the time.

For example: you do not need to direct the model's pose like Uncle Bob would have while shooting his niece.

High profile models will readily pose, even if you do not say a word. And besides that, there's another person there just to direct the model, if it's ever needeed.

And as production value increases, you have elephants, tigers, Ferraris, and the most stunning models and locations to work with.

So every cent you throw into production, will make it the easiest job to bring back home some stunning captures.

I've rarely ever had any assignment that remotely resembles to this level of production, but the closer you get to this level, the easier is your job as a photographer.

And that's exactly the kind of environment where we'll be seeing cameras like the S2.

The DMF marvels only (well, mostly) inhabit such high end productions. And as a consequence, we will never see a bad shot produced with a Leica S2, or a Phase One IQ180.

These are high end, ultra expensive tools, and pretty much out of reach of Uncle Bob.

We'll get to see Chase Jarvis using it, but not Uncle Bob.

And that's part of the DMF mythology: we only get to see stunning work done with this class of cameras.

Now take my POV, and extrapolate to all other types of photography.

The landscape DMF shooter will be on some exotic location around the World, like Greenland, not shooting his neighborhood park.

The nature DMF shooter will be on assignment for National Geographic, also on exotic trips.

All these situations, all this "production value" helps bringing home the most stunning portfolio.

Are there high end shooters with 35mm cameras, taking the same exotic trips? Sure there are, I'm not saying otherwise.

I'm just saying that DMF photography is almost exclusively performed on a higher level, high profile assignments, and that helps with the MF mythology.

To illustrate my POV, here's a wonderful video featuring Joey Lawrence and a Phase One camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M6Txh-maKM

His extremely talented, and can allow himself to bring crew and flashes into the jungle! :D

But the results speaks for themselves, no matter how you slice it.

I don't wanna sound elitist. :)

It's great that we have the D800 for the masses, so we can all have this level of image quality too!

But as long as MF gear is expensive, it will only be seen in action in awe inspiring shots, and that's part of the beauty of it.

Well, maybe it all sounds a little arrogant... But it's just 2 cents. :D

--
Marcio Napoli
http://www.marcionapoli.com
 
The people who can afford the S have much better things to do with their time than hang out here... and as others have said.. the S owners universe is a very small one.

More than likely.. anyone who owns an S knows what they are doing and requires little "help" from forums such as this.
I've never met a group of people who need help more than the typical medium format digital shooters. Focus all over the place. Shoot after shoot at one aperture, and that aperture small enough that they lose all that $30,000 resolution to diffraction.

You don't see a lot of MF shooters on forums because, simply, their work does not hold up to inspection.

And yes, someone is going to pop in and rattle off a list of some respected pros who do great work with medium format. But that's swapping cause and effect. Those folks do the great work because they're the most talented photographers in the world, and they get the goods "in spite of" the cameras, not "because of" them.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
I've never met a group of people who need help more than the typical medium format digital shooters. Focus all over the place. Shoot after shoot at one aperture, and that aperture small enough that they lose all that $30,000 resolution to diffraction.
Always enjoy your input Joseph... I have no real experience with MF shooters but having handled/used the S2 (ever so briefly) I found it to be a very interesting camera.. and that viewfinder is awesome. Big? yeah but MF is what we're talking about. I don't know how they could screw up the use of the S2 but I guess there's always a way. Come to think of it, I've screwed up my share of shots with gear I should know like the back of my hand.

--
Jim Radcliffe
http://www.boxedlight.com
Blog: http://boxedlight.com/blog

The ability to 'see' the shot is more important than the gear used to capture it.
 
Well I use manual focus without any problems, in fact using a Canon 5Dmk3 with its 62 focus points was more of a problem, the camera does not know exactly where to focus! Its always not quite in focus that's its problem!

Using the Leica S lenses at full aperture is fine as that is where they are at their best f/2.5 wonderful bokeh too.

The problem with DP Review is that with Leica lots are willing to give their opinions but have never used Leica before, very quick to criticise them though!

This forum is really for canon/nikon users who shoot a gazillion pictures and a couple are good!
 
nikos theodosiou wrote:

This forum is really for canon/nikon users who shoot a gazillion pictures and a couple are good!
Yeah, this forum should be for Leica users, who shoot a few dozen pictures and a couple are good.
--

DISCLAIMER: The text written herein is meant to provide the opinions and/or suggestions of the author. No statement herein is meant to be considered law of the land, representative of any party or group, and or a quote from any party or group. Neither is any statement in the contained text meant to be taken as scripture, doctrine, or all encompassing of an entire populous or any groups or individuals therein.
 
Yes, we live in an age of commercialism where a single photo shoot might cost a king's ransom to set up, but what does all this lavish expenditure produce? Page upon page of perfectly exposed, heavily processed, samey, boring, glossy, predictable, shallow, yawn-inducing cr@p. Oh look - an impossibly-perfect super-model, driving a Ferrari, with a tiger, in a jungle... it's really only a matter of time before Moore's Law makes it cost effective to have this stuff churned out by some super-computer, as the creative human input is already hovering close to zero. I'd rather look at "Uncle Bob's" snapshots. At least they were taken with honest intent!

I enjoy much more to go and visit some exhibitions of student photography where I find fresh ideas and passion, and photographs that inspire thoughts other than "turn the page..."

Joe
 
Hi Joe!

I understood your point (ok, I believe I did), and agree!

Your rant is because fashion is shallow, isn't it? Can't argue with that... in fact, I'll join the rant! ;)

People that "make" fashion are a peculiar society within society, with trully shallow laws and broken concepts, I can garantee it, 500% sure.

Most of the time, you see things that sicks you to death.

I've seen so bizarre and shallow behaviours in the fashion world, that I'd rather flee away as if running from leper! :O

The one single point I'll defend is that people forget that we're photographers too.

We endure this bizarre world, for the love of photography we carry in our hearts.

We're also true and passionte to our photography, the same way a folk would wake up at 4 a.m. to catch the first lights of sun rising, after a 1 hour trip to the top of the mountain.

As long as I keep my mind focused in the lighting, and extracting a heart melting look from a model, or a nice composition, I'm focused on photography and nothing else.

It's all about love for photography.

I mentioned tigers and Ferraris, because it's pretty cool to have this stuff to play. It's funny!

And any kind of gadgets adds to the wow factor.

It's like adding extra bacon on your burger. :)

As for the hypocrisy in the fashion world, hmmm, I guess they can happily sick themselves to death, as I will back away and focus on shooting!

It just happens that this is the niche I gathered experience, but it's the same love for shooting landscapes, or nature, or weddings.

But in fact, for the most part, I understand your feelings and totally agree!

Most people in this business have a terrible attitude towards life. :(

Have a nice week!

--
Marcio Napoli
http://www.marcionapoli.com
 

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