Leica S2 DSLR hitting UK scene in October for eye-opening $26,165 without lens
By Ross Miller 
posted Jul 29th 2009 11:55PM
posted Jul 29th 2009 11:55PM
posted Jul 29th 2009 11:55PM
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first?
Ouch...........
seriously?
hmmmm..... this is tough..... new car or camera......?
Does your car earn your living? If your camera did, you might consider this...
yea my car earns me a living... i wouldn't be able to get to work without it
Pete
My point exactly. Some people need a car to get to work, some people need a camera to earn their living. Just because an item is expensive, doesn't mean it's a waste of money.
If your camera earns your living the question is, will people pay you 5x-10x for your photoshoot?
I can't wait to see the cat and flower macro test pictures once everyone finally gets their hands on this baby.
hehehe
only John Mayer would buy this.
waste of money
If you were a movie star you could make the paparazzi jealous. Then go take pictures of your cat.
It would be interesting to know who buys one and how many sell.
Does this come with a complimentary 2TB external hard drive package? How big of a file is a 37mega pixel photo? Two photos and I'm out a year salary and a laptop hard drive.
This is why pros never trust Leica and Panasonic. They make overpriced garbage.
Canon on the other hand, and their award winning (affordable) L-series lenses (which stands for Luxury) are tested and proven for many years. My uncle who is a pro wedding and sports photographer loves his Canon system and his 300mm F/2.8 prime was so sharp that he impressed the folks at Sports Illustrated when he submitted his portfolio. For thousands of dollars less, you can get a 5D Mark II (like I did) and a 70-200 IS USM lens and it would still beat this Leica in quality. Plus, you'll have money to spare to buy a couple of more L lenses and the total cost would equal one stupid Leica S body shown here.
Leica should get their head up their ass, they are not leaders in photography.
It's a medium-format DSLR for professionals. Compare prices with a Hasselblad or something, and you'll realize that this price isn't completely outrageous.
High end or not I have my doubts that the lenses are actually capable of resolving 37.5 megapixels of detail. And I'm not even quite sure which professional has to have 37.5 megapixels anyway.
Yeah, I had a chance to play with this at the pdn show last year. It's built like a tank, but the Leica people are very.. well elitist if I can appropriate the word. The pitch the guy at the booth was giving was "Well you show up at a corporate event, but photography is getting more affordable these days, the CEO, he might have a Canon 1Ds III hanging around his neck, he looks at you, and thinks 'Why are we paying this guy, I could do it?', but you have something like this, and its a completely different situation"
I can't say the price surprises me, but I hope they've got a faster auto-focus going then what they had in that prototype. And better ISO. Needless to say I won't be dropping my dimes on this. If I have that much cash burning a hole in my pocket, there are several L lenses that keep calling my name. And maybe another 5D mk II and a couple of 1 series bodies.
You mean "out of their asses", I think (hope).
We heard you the first time you posted this comment. You like Canon because your uncle is a photographer. So what? Go on with your life.
hahahahahaha funny stuff
This is engineering at the finest level. Once one uses a camera (a car or anything) of this caliber, Jap-Crap will never look the same The differences are startling. Why do you think it costs so much? It is not designer. It is a performer. Leica Microscopes, cameras, optics, and nanotechnology implements make Nikon, Canon, Olympus, et al seem like fisher price. But if one never knows what they are missing than I guess it is moot.
"Why do you think it costs so much?"- Maybe because you're buying the name somewhere in that near $30,000 price tag. And "Jap crap?" Last time I checked, the majority of people will not be able to distinguish between this and a 5D Mark II.
Stop being a pretentious douche
Yeah, I can't really see this as being 10x better than a $2600 body.
People take award-winning photographs on $5 Russian cold-war-era junk. That said, I can see the need for something above the 6 MP DSLR I'm currently quite happy with, but really? Sixteen thousand pounds? I wonder how much markup there is on that thing just because of the name.
There is a big difference noticable between APS (What most prosumer DSLR's have) and Full frame sensor sizes. Granted you can get a used full framed 5D mark I for a grand these days ....
For that price I better be able to take off that lens and let the friggen thing blow me! And I'd still have to think about it!
slr history... http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/SLR_History_1950_e.html
I just have to say too that Leica has always been an innovator. They have been making optics for over 110 years. They invented the 35mm camera, the bayonet lens system, and the SLR. Nikon, Olympus, Cannon, and others are like 40 years in the business with little to no innovation.
Nikon and Canon with no innovation? Are you crazy? They created the Consumer SLR space, high megapixel sensors, affordable high quality glass, and video recording on your SLR. Seriously? no innovation. I admit Leica had it's day, but that day is gone. Would I still like an M8 with a noctilux attached? Sure I would. Am I going to spend $5,000 on it? Not a snowballs chance in hell.
I own a Leica but unfortunately none of this is true.
The first 35mm camera was made ten years before the Leica was sold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/135_film#History
The first SLR was made in 1861, more than fifty years before Barnack made the first Leica prototype (which wasn't a SLR). Leica didn't sell a SLR until 1964, almost 30 years after the first 35mm SLR and after Nikon, Pentax, etc. etc. had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_single-lens_reflex_camera
The Leica M bayonet was introduced in 1954 with the M3. Alpa had a bayonet fitting from 1942 onwards, and Contax had one in 1932. Not sure who was the first, but it certainly wasn't Leica.
Leica haven't really made a truly innovative camera since the M3, they make very good cameras and lenses, but leaders of innovation they are not.
@mmaudsley
lol... that's some nice fictional history that you conjured up
sorry posted under wrong thread...
however here is the history of slr http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/SLR_History_1950_e.html and leica sure wasn't one of the first in slr innovation because they were in rangefinder type cameras not slr...
also see wiki history on slrs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_single-lens_reflex_camera
I bet these are hand-made: ultra-precision, ultra-detailed (like the thought behind using sapphire on the LCD glass. It'll be ages before even a pro gets to discover the lil' mechanical/optical design nuances Leica might've [hopefully] incorporated). They can't make too many of them so they price it higher. On the software front, I am curious if Leica precision can make something really that outstanding to match their mechanical/optical engineering prowess. Even on the optics front, I suspect they might've borrowed Panasonic's image stabilization technology (think ZS3/TZ7). On its own, it'd be incredibly tough for Leica to beat Nikon and Canon at optical image stabilization, given their pedigree in semiconductor lithography optics.
@ the i
"Paul @ Jul 30th 2009 12:48AM
We heard you the first time you posted this comment. You like Canon because your uncle is a photographer. So what? Go on with your life."
Ditto.
Yeah, that was supposed to be a reply to him. I guess something went wrong...
Something is definitely wrong. In three straight posts, lots of people are replying to the "i" calling him out on being an idiot/shill/fanboy/moron, and not a single one of them is placed as a direct reply to his posts. Engadget must have his login flagged or something. I think we need to just ignore him from here on out.
I am the "voice".
can it take photos of microbes?
You guys don't seem to understand - this is NOT a consumer DSLR like the 5D Mark II, 1D series or anything as such. It's a MEDIUM FORMAT camera, which functions as a professional camera with absolute quality and no mobility. It's for use in studios, not for anyone like us to walk around with it...
What Leica wanted to do was to combine the mobility of DSLRs and the quality of Medium Formats. And you people start regarding it as a bloody consumer DSLR.
I'd suggest sticking some diamonds on it, top up another 20 grand, then it could be collector's item.
The hell of it is, you can just as good of quality out of a properly tuned Nikon D3 or D3x. No one *needs* 37 megapixels, 12 lets you print 300dpi 20x30s, and 24 (actually 21.4 or so) from the D3x will let you print a billboard, and it'll look absolutely flawless as long as no one is standing two feet from it...
The ridiculously overpriced cameras based on megapixels alone make me ashamed, because so many fall for that big number, thinking it to be the be all and end all of quality, when in fact it measures only size before editing.
I hope that, someday soon, the megapixel wars will end and cameras will be judged based upon real factors determining quality, the things that no one knows about but really matter, such as Bayer interpretation or the lack thereof.
-Collin
I guarantee you that a 37MP medium format camera will look better than a D3. If it was 37MP packed into a 35mm sensor, then I might agree with you.
So people who get paid tens of thousands to do flawless studio product shots (eg of cars) that need to be enlarged to billboard size should be satisfied with with 12Mpx on a 35mm sensor? Also the fact that it's mathematically impossible for the smaller sensor to record as much information as the larger sensor (read up on Information Theory), does sort of make you sounds like an...
I agree. Honestly, I'm a person who doesn't do this for a living. However, I work in a CVS photo lab, and even 60 year old women who come in with their 35mm's looking for a digital upgrade can realize when the megapixels surpass their need. Just get over it. I'm sure there are better things you can do with your money.
I would buy one if it had an Apple logo on it.
+1 haha.
Maybe pros don't I'm not sure, but I love my Panasonic DMC-G1. I know it's not an "actual" DSLR but I don't think it's an overpriced piece of garbage either
A salary? Maybe you meant to say 2 years worth of salaries.
Wow, your uncle is a wedding photographer. I can see how you can speak authoritatively about photography. Shame neither you or nor your uncle have no idea about the rich and illustrious history of Leica. Pro's who I've known (admittedly no wedding photographers) always nominate their Leicas as their best cameras, and usually also buy Nikons and Hassleblads. I've never met a serious photographer who uses Canons.