Doug,
You really would rather spend a day with a Mamiya 645 than a Leica? OK, I guess you'd rather have a date with the Duck Dynasty wives than a double with Kate Moss and Kate Upton? (at least you wouldn't have to worry about getting their names mixed up).
I'd never pay 25 something thousand for a 645 Mamiya if it had three Rolex glued to the back of it. I know phase has improved it and I know that Leaf in that test was defective, but my two Aptus 22 did the same thing, even worse because they would centerfold and overheat. The aptus 33 I owned for a day had grey balances so off I packed it up 12 hours after I received it and believe it or not I really really really like the people at Leaf and before you start the defense of leaf and dalsa, I remember the quotes in the phase one kodak sensor only era.
And btw: Leaf was fixing al their issues and I wish Leaf could have stayed on their own because they really were a photographers camera company, and they had a roster of the world's best to prove it.
I think if they hadn't been bought and sold so many times they would have really produced some more inventive equipment than they are allowed to produce now.
Also I'm pretty much done with C-1. I have many multiple licenses and this upgrade your software - buy a computer, buy a camera - upgrade your software - buy a computer routine is as close to a bait and switch scheme as life can get and phase isn't alone with this as everyone does it, they just signed on.
At least the Leica use a dng format that of course won't run on C-1 but at this stage I consider that a plus.
C-1 use to be bullet proof and low power but now it's heavy and needs new graphics cards. I have those open cl computers but they're used for editing and a two generation old computer should run still software quickly. I mean still images aren't that big.
Older C-1 I think 5 or something is fine, runs my Contax and I'm not going any further with C-1. Plus C-1 really needs single channel corrections like Iridient or single color settings like lightroom.
Anyway we're talking cameras and look at the files from the Leica, forget about the other cameras just look at the leica files.
Oh and by the way on 1600 sync speed? Really? You need to try some different strobes. This was shot at 90th of a second with monoblocks and this guy was rocking so fast any shutter speed is not going to add the sharpness of quick flash duration.
All a fast shutter speed does is cut into the flash like it was a continuous source and you loose a lot of light and the file gets kind of muddy looking. BTW: Nudes need fast duration? Jeez what are you doing with these naked people, and out of curiosity are the naked people photographed during your wedding sessions, because that would be a hell of a marketing trick.
Edmund, (I always get your name mixed up. Would you change it to Bedumandandronald?)
I over think s__t.
In order of cameras. Love the Contax, love the olympus em-5, love the RED ones, love using the gh3 (don't love the camera but love the digital video from it).
Loathe the 1dx orange d3/d4 look, don't like Nikon g glass, it's too clinical. I want to change still cameras because this is how we now work.
We shoot motion, usually with dialog, or foley sound, either inside or outside. The stills are important but lately they're starting to become more a grab and shoot than something defined. With a larger camera I shoot different.
Other people will argue, but T left something off.
If you point a Leica, I promise you your brain works different. If it feels important in your hand it will look important in the viewfinder (you can quote me on that). I have about 15 minutes (at most) to relight, make the subject into a pretty still and then back to the next setup. I don't need a billion iso, just 800 and with the fast contax glass I can get there with a kino or a 500 to 800 watt hmi, or if I look a window light and a cutter will do it.
If I was smart (no chance of that), I'd just buy two 1ds3's and never mess with it again, but what I want, really want is a new contax.
They don't make it, never will, so the S2 is like a modern version of a contax given it uses the lenses and focus them faster.
What got me started thinking about the Leica (which btw: has one stop more a than pee30 and has better color) is that I looked at those little A7 things. They're actually ok, except the viewfinder looks like a Sony over saturated video cam, actually when I was at the Sony store, they looked exactly like those over saturated TV's that they have stuck on every wall. (btw; don't diss all evf because the OMD em-1 and 5 look like film in the viewfinder), but the thing about the Sony's are even though I own two A mount zeiss zooms, to buy primes, two bodies, adapters, blah blah blah I'm at 9 to 10 grand and it hit me . . . I'm at the price of an S2 and I'll keep an S2 way way way longer than I'll keep a mobile phone with a viewfinder.
And Sony has to sell you proprietary media AND a usb cable. That is so Sony. You can steal my car, but don't expect me to pay to wash it.
But bottom line, find me a medium format anything that has good autofocus, will accept zeiss glass and sell for under ten thousand.
Your on the clock.
IMO
BC
P.S. Take all of this with a grain of salt, because I can change my mind tomorrow.
P.S. 2. If you want to see a pretty still file look at a panasonic gh3. It's not that detailed (in stills) it doesn't do anything past 800 iso without getting painterly, but it's one thick pretty file.
If only Panasonic would tap onto leicas industrial design and make a camera that didn't look like somebody shrunk a 5d2, or if they would just marry olympus
they'd be a lot easier to take, but for video and some stills the gh3 is the deal of the century.
