Well I hope not, because that would make the leica sensless. It must have a very clean ISO 800 and should hvae a good usable 1600. Why ? because even the P65 can do a very good ISO 400, so as ISO performance goes I'm expecting a lot more from the S2, or leica can pack their stuff and go home. I don't know about the d3x at high ISOs, but my 5dmk2 shines not at ISO 800, that is something a 1DsMk2 or 5d could do very well, it shines from 1600 and upwardes taking images when it really is dark.
Perception and reality are way different, though in the world of take photos for clients perception makes a difference.
If anyone feels laying out two Leicas on a magliner will get them more props, then maybe it's a wise investment, but probably the only clients that will impressed with the brand of camera will probably be not the best type of client. In this business, two days later when the web gallaries are delivered it's about the image, not the camera, even for the easily impressed client.
Medium format has always kind of skirted the issue of high iso for a long time.
I assume because they are limited to buying their sensors off the shelf from Dalsaland or Kodakland.
This was ok, well almost ok, when the world was 300 dpi traditional print, dslrs were limited to filling a page without interpolation and the standard lighting source were thousands of watts of flash.
Now more and more projects require motion imagery in the same style of the stills and that means continuous light sources, the ability to pull focus and have a high shutter speed and with any larger sensor still camera that won't go to a clean
800 iso is going to put a strain on holding focus, depth of field and just the ability to do the job.
I do a lot of stills to motion, motion to stills, motion and still projects and I can tell you there is as of today no perfect camera, or no perfect combination system.
For the still photographer, a autofocus 15 to 20mpx camera that shoots 24 fps and each frame is good enough for a high quality still would be the answer and not really the photographer's answer but the client's answer.
God, clients would fall over backwards if such a camera existed and even if you shoot the motion in a separate session, before or after the stills, just having one lighting soultion, one camera would be perfect.
Today it's either a combo cam, or a RED along with some kind of still camera to accomplish this and even if you have to use two systems it makes a world of difference to use continuous light vs. flash.
I've done projects where we turn on the flash, shoot a session, turn on the hmi or tungsten and shoot the same or kind of the same session in motion, but hanging two sets of lights with the same look and style in the same place is a chore and though it's possible, it ain't easy.
In todays economy where we usually work at breakneck speed this becomes even more difficult.
Ok, now I know the response to this post will be "I'm a still photographer, I'll never shoot video or motion" and that may be true, though limited, but even if you as a "still" photographer will never own or operate a motion camera, soon if not already your clients will have a dedicated
crew for motion and if you can't complete both in the same setting your adding costs and adding costs does not go over big in 2009.
Also running two crews means somebody is going to get the short end of the stick. Either the still guy/girl or the motion crew is going to be fighting for territory and that rarely works out.
In the past it was not unheard of for the video crew to be the secondary behind the scenes guy and for that it kind of worked, but today, nobody cares as much about behind the scenes as having the same look in two mediums and we're now seeing the priorities change.
The stills are carrying less weight that the motion imagery so it's not hard to fathom that soon stills might be relegated to the B camera status, which is not a position any of us want to find ourselves in.
Nobody wants to be the still guy with a Nikon or Leica around their neck that is whistled in to shoot a few frames after the A crew with the RED or an Arriflex has completed their session.
Even if the term motion or video did not exist, working with continuous light sources is twice as fast as working with flash. Flash is math, continuous is wysiwyg, or pretty close to it.
Now I also know that somebody is going to say "my p30+ Phamiya does 800 iso very clean" and in some instances that's true, though your always one stop down due to format size. What pulls focus at F5.6 125th of second with a dslr requires twice the light volume with even a cropped
medium format camera to get the same effect.
Also digital is very scene/lighting specific. What has minimal noise with direct light and light to medium toned backgrounds can become a snowstorm with black low key subjects at the same iso.
I've shot my p30+ at 800 iso on high key soft light imagery that works fine and the noise is minimal, I've also shot the next day on black or low key lighting at the same iso and it was almost unusable without a lot of post work, masks, etc.
So for the S-2 to make any impact it has to have high iso, it has to have fast autofocus and it has to work in a variety of situations, because it's not a $3,000 dlsr, you use as a backup or some of the time, it's a $50,000 guess I can't buy the new Audi type of investment.
As every still photographer says, they would love to see the S2 succeed, me included, but when the rubber hits the road at the end of the day it's not about the camera, it's about getting the job done and not losing 75 hours in post produciton to make a usable image, or worse drop the 50k and find the camera sitting in a case for most of the day.
JR
