funny, but the camera I held and shot with seemed real to me..
Until it ships I don't think anyone knows what this camera will be like (which has been repeated about 400 times here) and experienced about 4 billion times by digital first adopters.
Still, regardless of all of that there is something magic in the Leica and it's not just the name or becoming blinded by the Leica dust.
It's the size, the feel, the use, the weight, the silence, the non in your face style that happens when you shoot such a small friendly camera. (yea that's it, the Leica is friendly) and there is a big difference between shooting a subject with a huge medium format camera, or dslr. People just react differently, you work differently. Sure a Canon G10 might make a superior file in the world of smooth as a babies butt digital images, but it just doesn't feel or work the same because I tried one and just can't get past the toyness of those small digital cameras.
The Leica may be friendly but their is no toyness to it.
View this video
http://tinyurl.com/nvusy8 (I saw it first on aphotoeditor.com) and if you watch this and don't want to go buy an M series then your a stronger willed person than I am.
Given all of this, I am surprised, that more effort wasn't first put into the M series, instead of the S-2. The M faithful is huge and would probably love a real full frame (and silent M8) maybe a few frames a second faster shooting, obviously a bigger buffer, most importantly a meter that worked and (ok I know this part is heresy) but maybe even a few autofocus M series lenses.
From everyone I know that has an M-8 everyone loves it, everyone knows it's problems and shortcomings and I doubt if anyone would sell theirs. I also doubt if many M-8 owners are breathing hard waiting for a dslr. That's gotta tell you something, though maybe I'm wrong. I kind of hope I'm wrong because the last thing I want to see is any of these traditional camera companies go away. We all lose a little piece of ourselves and our industry every time one closes.
I can see a new M8, but don't know about an S2 at least for doing walk the streets work, but maybe it's not intended for that.
Now the interesting thing to me is when I watch that video is how beautiful the still images are compared to the video images and though the stills obviously stand alone quite well, it's also obvious with the sound, the music, he dialog from the video and the photographers POV the still images resonate even stronger.
Imagine if the video camera had the Leicaness of the stills?
Just a thought.
JR