My bet is that Leica can simply ignore the pro market and sell these things to wealthy amateurs. THAT is their market for this camera; not pros. There are way more wealthy amateurs out there than pros shooting tethered in a commercial studio. (Wouldn't you just love to see the market share demographics, just out of curiosity?) I'd bet it might be as high as 10:1.
Their target market will never tether, and will never come close to hitting the buffer. They'll shoot low-volume landscapes, or whatever, and probably be incredibly happy with the camera. I am dead serious.
I'm betting that, if we could ever get our paws on those top-secret demographic break-out sheets, we'd find that professional photographers that are owning and using MF gear, and tethering, are but a tiny blip on anybody's radar. My bet is, most pros that are tethering with paying jobs are renting the whole rig either from the studio, or from a Tech. They shoot the job, hand the camera to the Tech, and wave goodbye.
This S2 is a camera to go into an Eddie Bauer Expedition, or a Range Rover. Not a Grip Truck.
Having said that, can you imagine that some Leica engineer sat there with his stopwatch, and timed Twenty Seconds before the RAW came in at a full rez, and said, "Yes, that is perfect. Much faster than 669 Polaroid! Ship it!"
To be serious for a second, you watch that video after reading Michael Reichmann's review, and it almost makes you embarrassed to be in the advertising business. So my apologies to Yair, from one Liar to Another -- we're both questionable in our ethics. We both ought to be sent to the Principal's Office.
Secondly, it underscores the value of an objective, thorough honest review, rather than relying on hype and "reviews" by the people selling the products, especially when you're talking fifty or sixty thousand dollars of investment. (Not that I was, but maybe somewhere, in some country, someone was).
I think for me, what made that Leica video even worse is, when you see one of those Behind The Scenes videos, there is a part of your brain that tells you that you're seeing the truth -- an unvarnished look under the hood of a photo session. When in fact, when you really look at that video, it's about as Hollywood as you can get. Could just as well have been Bruce Willis behind the camera, shooting while the strobes are going off, yet without any type of pocket wizard or sync cord in some of the scenes.
What's also sobering is how a thorough review separates the hype from the truth. In some lab in Germany right now, there's some engineer looking through the camera manual, trying frantically, in vain, to make sure that that USB port can somehow be upgraded to USB 3.0.
So when you think about it, no wonder that the Christian Poulsen guy might not have had any love for Mr. Reichmann -- think of how many dollars were on the line. But the only stroke of luck for Leica is -- no potential customer of the Leica S2 is reading Luminous Landscape, so they won't be presented with the truth. All those Leica customers are reading The Robb Report, Cigar Aficionado, and The Financial Times.
The lesson to Leica, in all this, should be to keep your cards close to your chest. Here they are, already late in shipping, supposedly due to "production issues", and they're still working out gaping holes in the system? But the key thing is: They're doing it publicly, in full view of the buying public.
There is a reason that a retail store puts up that brown kraft paper over the windows as they're prepping their stores -- they don't want the public to see the making of the sausage, until Grand Opening Day. Maybe they've learned a lesson in this; it certainly has blown up in their face.
And the ironic thing is: They fly to Havana, produce an expensive video, showing a fake fashion shoot, probably with a non-working camera, and they show the guy shooting to the computer, and yet, the most glaring shortcoming of the system is the very thing they feature in the video.
They'd have been much better off flying to Africa, on some Range Rover safari, and shown a bunch of handsome men and women shooting to card, with a bunch of lions and tigers in the background, at sunset, with a computer nowhere in sight.
Leica does extensive Market Research, to determine the most discriminating clients. The S2 was based on this man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2SSZA0CjdQ
I appreciated tashley taking the time to post his observations of the Leica S2 after his 6 weeks of ownership. Although he has only made one post in this thread so far, I hope to read more of his experience in the future. I hope that it's positive, but want to read more of his experience either way.
gwhitf,
You have written several opinions of the Leica S2 in this thread and I'm wondering what experience you've had with the camera so far. Are you basing what you've written on what you've read about it or some hands on experience?
To quote a few samples from your above posts:
"My bet is that Leica can simply ignore the pro market and sell these things to wealthy amateurs. THAT is their market for this camera; not pros."
"Secondly, it underscores the value of an objective, thorough honest review, rather than relying on hype and "reviews" by the people selling the products, especially when you're talking fifty or sixty thousand dollars of investment. (Not that I was, but maybe somewhere, in some country, someone was)."
"What's also sobering is how a thorough review separates the hype from the truth."
"But the only stroke of luck for Leica is -- no potential customer of the Leica S2 is reading Luminous Landscape, so they won't be presented with the truth. All those Leica customers are reading The Robb Report, Cigar Aficionado, and The Financial Times."
"They fly to Havana, produce an expensive video, showing a fake fashion shoot, probably with a non-working camera,"
Fake shoot? Non-working camera? That seems like a pretty strong assertion. Have you not yet seen a working camera?
Are your several opinions "an objective, thorough honest review, rather than relying on hype"? Hype as we know can be negative as well as positive.
I'm asking because a movie review written by a critic based on what he's
read about the movie has less value to me than one from a critic that has actually
seen the movie. Know what I mean?
tashley... how does gwhitf know that you are reading "Cigar Aficionado"? Might want to close the curtains.