Leica S2 User Review UPDATED December 2013

Leica S2
Setting The Standard in Portable Medium Format

There have been a number of Leica S2 reviews. I read lots of them and got plenty of good information from them. Some are very technical. Personally I tend to skip the really long paragraphs. Some of the investigations into pixel level imaging seem a little pedantic. 

At the end of the day image quality and how quickly you can get there are more important. In most cases the reviews were based on having and using an S2 for a week or two. A professional photographer can assess the usefulness of this type of tool very easily in that time. Probably the best one was written by Steve Huff. If you haven't seen his blogs then take a look; they are well worth reading. He is enthusiastic about Leica, and why not? They are dedicated to engineering excellence in imaging and I believe that they are on the right track.

Assessing a camera for a day or so doers provide some valuable lessons. Owning and using the S2P for longer however can give greater insights. The new feeling has gone and now it is being used as a tool. The limitations and possibilities are all on show. Having owned and used an S2P for the last 12 months I thought I would write a review that might assist anyone looking at this level of camera. These days you would be looking at a used S2 or the S system.Digital keeps changing. Whether everything is improving or just changing is debatable. Interestingly the new S system only tweaks the camera for the most part. Leica know that they got this camera right!

For reference you might want some background about me.



My go-to range of cameras have usually been Canon (I switched from Nikon due to the degree of colour correction required) and I have three Canon pro bodies that I use regularly including the 1DX which is amazing. (I also use a 1D Mk 4 and a 1DS mark 2 which I kept in preference against the mark 3 which I traded: but that's another story.) The other main camera that I use is a Pentax 645D with a raft of lenses including a number of Pentax classics as well as the new 55mm and 25mm from Pentax. So for reference my experience and cameras used are at the working level.

So why look at the S2? For me it began with an M9 which I used for over 12 months. I was intrigued by the 'hype' about Leica. Could it be that good? It seems to attract a lot of comment. Some cannot see what the fuss is about whereas others just sing the praises of the lenses and the body design. So I decided on an M9 as a small walk-about camera. 

When I took shots with the M9 using a Summicron 50mm lens and later a Summicron wide angle I saw qualities in the images that blew me away. With over 20 years taking photos I had not seen this image quality except on very few occasions previously. I was taking nature shots and the colour and clarity was superb. I also loved the fact that you could get such outstanding quality in images from something that looks so old fashioned and hence attract little attention.

Soon I ordered a Noctulux and loaded that onto the M9 and began walking around with this combination and getting shots that previously had not been possible. Low light? Not an issue. The M9 and Noctulux made it all possible. The only drawback is that this combination is very unbalanced. The M9 sits better with Summicron than with a Noctilux. What a weight to have upfront!

More important though is the image quality. It is without parallel in the 35mm world. There was only one niggle and that was the question of focusing quickly with a viewfinder that's ok but not big and bright. I mastered it to the point that I was able to focus on moving helicopters and get a lot more hits than misses.

Then came the wedding....

A friend of mine was getting married and had arranged for a family friend to do the photos. I wandered along with the M9 ( I would normally have taken a Canon body) and took some shots in this real life setting but having in mind a possible pro application. Having done a number of weddings before the composition was second nature. But using an M9 in that situation is very difficult. I took about 100 shots of which over 50 were in the very good class but I had to work very hard to get the focus right. Thinking from a commercial point of view I realised that the M9 was not the tool to take into a wedding. It's good and you will get a lot of winners but there are moments when you don't want to be worrying about focus. You just need the image.I know! I Know! There are photographers who use the M9 at weddings. But with so much to think about at the wedding you really want to focus on composition. At least I do.

The question became: how to retain Leica image quality and get auto focus. The only step in existence was the S2. But was it worth it?

The only thing to do was try out the S2. I already had the 645D but its size and at times, hunting focus, don't make it ideal for commercial work as an all rounder. From a pro photographer point of view I see all round usability as a key. I took an S2 bush and did a direct comparison of 4 systems. The same shots were taken with 4 cameras.

• M9 with Noctilux
• Canon 1DS mark 3 with 50mm 1.2
• Pentax 645D with 55mm F2
• Leica S2 with 70mm Summarit

Then image quality was compared. Straight from the camera as well as fully post processed.

Image quality results were very different. More than you might imagine.

The tests covered a range of lighting conditions. The Canon came back a way in image quality and colour accuracy. It was very good of course but at this level we are looking closely at every area of image comparison. Not splitting hairs because the differences were obvious but still looking at things from a higher level or expectation.  Then came the M9. The M9 clarity being amazing but the colour as always slightly off. As expected the 645D was outstanding. The 645D is an amazing camera. In almost every respect it takes cleaner and better images than the Canon or the M9. The 645D is a camera that allows you to take files in both raw and Jpeg with good results but I will leave that debate to another post.If only it was a little faster to find focus.

But the S2 is in a class of its own. The files were even cleaner and smoother than the 645D files and had the almost 3D quality that Leica lenses produce. They are much better than scaled up M9 files. They have a quality that just has to be seen. What is it about them? It's hard to define. But it is recognisable. So my decision was made there and then. The Canon body went along with a couple of lenses and the S2P became my portable medium format camera. 

With the easiest no frills menu system built into any camera, I was using the camera competantly on the first day. This is classic Leica thinking! Very good! 

I have read a lot of comments about Leica lenses. Many of the positives come from users and many of the negatives come from people who have never tried them or just given them a quick look. Seriously, do yourselves a favour. Try them seriously. You will be shocked if you really give them a go.

Is that it then? No. A working pro needs a range of equipment and Canon do make fine 35mm based systems. The 1DX referred to earlier joined the stable. The 1DX is for speed and naturally because there are a lot of situations where frankly 18 megapixels is plenty. The 1DX has cleaner files than any previous canon camera but that's another post. I have a feeling that the 1DX would have done very well in the photo trial mentioned earlier. In a few weeks it will have its chance. This time it will just be three camera shoot out. The M9 has gone. The S2P is so light and easy to use that I reach for it all the time. In fact I am planning a trip overseas and without thinking I selected the 1DX and the S2P with a couple of lenses apiece as my travel kit.

For updates on that trip see the blog entry on the 30-90 Vario Elmar lens. I picked it up a day before I was due to fly to the UK and took it as the Leica lens. It has great contrast and clarity and a true Leica look to the images.

I did a magazine shoot a month ago and I used the 1DX and the 645D as well as the S2P. Then after processing I put the shots up on the cc screen and let them play through. All of the images selected by others as being of the very highest quality were taken with the S2 yet none of the selectors had any idea which camera had been used for what. There were lots of comments on the whole set of images taken. Time and again the Leica images were said to be 'real.' Again, a Leica user will understand what this means. Looking through the shoot we took over 400 images. They were all composed well and evenly lit. But that extra oomph came from the S2 files. It's always reassuring when you get lots of unsolicited comments.

So was the investment wise? I have to say at was well worth it. I now use it with both a 70mm and the 35mm lens. They give Noctilux like smooth quality images that are sharp and even at all apertures. The 35 mm is the sharpest lens I have ever used. Think Summicron 50mm and you are in the ball park.The 70mm isn't far behind.

There is no such thing as a perfect camera. But the S2P is as close as I have used.




So the S2 has pros and a few cons.

Pros
Image quality is amazing
Ultraportable
Excellent battery life
Accurate focus
Access to Leica lenses of superb optical performance
Reliable images that require very little adjustments out of camera
Very easy menu system
The shortest learning curve of any camera on the market in the pro field. It has almost no bells and whistles: it just works.
Huge dynamic range to the images.
Very good metering.
Amazing back review screen

Cons
Limited ISO performance. Good to ISO 640 but a bit noisy after that point. I use Topaz noise reduction - Slow but retains bucket loads of detail so not really an issue.
Limited ISO selectivity.
Top information screen invisible in daylight.This really needs to be improved but not really an issue to a working pro.
Viewfinder info hard to see in bright conditions though the field of view is spot on.


I am still amazed at the image quality this camera can produce. Colours are superb and image quality straight from the camera is excellent. This is a good job as you need a lot of computer power if you are working these images. Every raw processing program I use from Photoshop to silky pix pro and beyond has to work hard with this file size. The files daunt even my huge Mac Pro tower and that has a scratch drive to call on!

Leica S2

For the technical

Sensor 
Kodak-made 16-bit 30x45mm CCD chip with 37.5-megapixel effective resolution.

Lens I Use
35mm & 70mm f/2.5 Standard Lenses

Memory
No built-in memory. Takes CF and SD (up to SDXC) memory cards

Viewfinder
Direct TTL-type with 96 per cent coverage and 0.86x magnification. Built-indiopter adjustment

LCD Screen
3-inch TFT LCD screen with 460,000 pixels

ISO range
ISO160–1250 (expandable to ISO80–1250)

Focus modes
Single and continuous

Max burst rate
1.5fps

Shutter speeds
8–1/4000sec timed speeds, with flash sync at 1/125sec or up to 1/500sec withcentral-shutter lenses

Weight
1.4kg body only

Dimensions
160x120x81mm

Power supply
7.4V, 2150mAh lithium ion battery