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Author Topic: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)  (Read 50960 times)

Manoli

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #160 on: September 26, 2014, 09:02:12 pm »

Now, Leica has been in economic troubles for a long, long time. But, now they are moving forwards, designing a great system with a new format and developing their own sensors. I am impressed and I really wish them well.

Some perspective on this type of comment.

  • Leica was rescued from insolvency in 2004/5 by Andreas Kaufman who paid approximately $80 mill for the privilege.
  • 44% of the company was later sold to Blackstone in 2011 for $179 mill,  that valued the company at about $400 mill
  • In 2011 Leica had gross sales in excess of $330 mill v (PhaseOne $46 mill)
  • Last year (2013) turnover amounted to over $450 mill v (PhaseOne $65 mill)
  • In 2014 60% of PhaseOne was sold for $100 mill -  valuing the whole company at about $180 mill – how much is Leica AG worth today ?

*edit: Figures are approximate ..


« Last Edit: September 26, 2014, 09:08:39 pm by Manoli »
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Gigi

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #161 on: September 26, 2014, 10:41:55 pm »

"Will I ever buy their products? No, I cannot afford them. Would I buy if I could afford them? I would check against my perceived needs, quite possibly I would. Or, I would buy a Panasonic GH4, or stay with Sony or something else."

There's something a bit odd about this statement.
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Geoff

ErikKaffehr

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #162 on: September 27, 2014, 01:00:48 am »

Hi,

What is odd about it? I obviously don't buy products I don't feel I can afford.

On the other hand, let's look at some considerations:

- I need a reasonable set of equipment, including long lenses and ultrawides.
- I print at A2 size normally and I feel that 16 MP is good enough for that size with careful work
- Nikon, Sony, Leica can give me around 36 MP, an obvious advantage for prints larger than A2
- I can use Zeiss Otuses on the Nikon, they may be as good as the Leica
- I can put any lens on the Sony, with adapters, but adapters also have tolerances
- Long lenses dominate the weight of the kit, so small cameras are not a great advantage
- If I can build a reasonable equipment with small packing size it is a good thing
- Can I transport the essential equipment within weight and size limits on international flights?

Some examples:

- I considered switching from Sony to Nikon, but decided to stay with Sony.
- I did consider getting a Pentax 645D, but cost was a bit to high and I was skeptical about the lenses.
- I did buy a Hasselblad 555ELD/P45+ and five lenses, all used. The Hasselblad and the lenses can be had dirt cheap. Not the wisest buy I ever did, but I like it.
- I have some interest in the new Sony A7-s but I won't buy any present model. If they have a 50M (or so) model, with phase detection on sensor and electronic first curtain on shutter I would have a serious look. It fits into my present system and adds some benefits. I would probably buy a standard zoom and a few Loxia lenses.
- I really wouldn't mind to have a technical camera with a digital back, but I don't know if the work flow suits me.
- I had a Hartblei HCam on my buying plan to be used with the P45+ and the Zeiss lenses but now I don't feel like I would put more money into the Hasselblad system.
- I am going to retire in some years. I probably want an equipment that is complete and which I can carry. I will be able to spend less money on equipment and I will have time for travel.

This kind of reasoning always goes on. When I bought the Hasselblad, my original idea was to buy lenses from 50 to 150 mm and add a Hartblei HCam and a Canon 24 TS something like 18 months later. But I was lacking a real wide angle so I got a 40/4, that works well for me. I also bought a flexbody, and now I am not sure that tilts are as useful as I expected, so the Hartblei is not any longer on the buying list.

I can carry the Hasselblad kit and the Sony Alpha 99 with say four lenses in my Gura Gear Kiboko, and it fits carry on size limits on almost any flight but it doesn't fit most weight limits (around 14 kg).

Best regards
Erik


"Will I ever buy their products? No, I cannot afford them. Would I buy if I could afford them? I would check against my perceived needs, quite possibly I would. Or, I would buy a Panasonic GH4, or stay with Sony or something else."

There's something a bit odd about this statement.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

stefan marquardt

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #163 on: September 27, 2014, 11:16:11 am »

A place I would recommend to anybody interessted in Leica is their new beautifull headquater in Wetzlar (40 Minutes drive from Frankfurt (Germany)). I have been working there last week to shoot the new building inside and outside. It´s got a gallery, an area where they show all the present and older/historic leicas, you can look into the production and you can even buy yourself a freshly produced Leica!




QUOTE:
"The Leica store in London was very nice to us, even though I was clear I would buy in the U.S.  Over the top or not, it's nice to walk into a camera store that only sells cameras.  No big screen TV's, not phones, no plastic gizmos, just beautiful cameras for making photographs.

I personally enjoy that.

The Leica gallery on broadway is very different than a camera boutique  and I've been there two dozen times, nearly alway lifts my spirits and suggest anyone visiting NY go.  It's a very old school, very low key gallery with interesting to historic work."
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 11:18:03 am by stefan marquardt »
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stefan marquardt
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peterv

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #164 on: October 05, 2014, 08:49:01 am »

I cross-posted this on a few Leica S related forums hoping to read how other Leica S users feel about the new camera.


Now that Photokina-storm is behind us and we’ve all had a little more time to let everything sink in, here are some of my thoughts and questions (to Leica) on the new S. The more I think about it, the more I like the new camera, but I have some questions/suggestions. The final version is still at least 6 months away, so I guess there’s enough time for the design team to sit down and evaluate some of the feedback from potential customers.

This write up by David Farkas is quite interesting:

http://www.reddotforum.com/content/2014/09/photokina-2014-day-2-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-leica-s-typ-007/

The pictures on this website (in Dutch) made me think about the video implementation as it was presented at PK’14.

http://leicainnederland.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/leica-introduceert-leica-s-e-en-leica-s-met-4k-video-photokina2014/

Video/motion:

- Why not CinemaDNG instead of Motion JPEG? This should give considerably more headroom in post. Of course there’s a lot of data to be chewed on, but Motion JPEG seems too limited.

- Why not HDMI 1.4(a) out for external 4K recording? HDMI v1.3 cannot carry 4K signals and will be quite out of date in 2015 and beyond. Lots of consumer electronics come with the new HDMI standard already.

- 4K recording from the whole sensor would make the camera much more interesting, even if this means pixel binning/line skipping. The look from the complete 30x45mm sensor would make it quite unique and wide angle lenses would stay wide angle.

- Looking at the picture of the video camera rig I can’t understand why they’d have designed it like this; looking through the optical viewfinder makes no sense since the mirror has to be up for video-shooting. Why not make the flash-shoe take an EVF so that is an option for more ergonomically handling in video-mode?

- As for sound, I don’t think the use of 3.5 mm jack connections is going to be enough for professional sound. Balanced XLR is what will be necessary if sound is recorded directly on the camera.

- I think Leica still has a lot of work to do concerning video in the new S. I suggest they take a long, hard look at the video specs of for example the €1500 Samsung NX1. Again, to really be of interest to the motion/video crowd in 2015-2019 (2-4 years for the next completely new S to arrive) the video specs need to be much better implemented and certainly be more modern than the newly announced S.


I’ll leave it at that for now, with one more minor remark about the hyperfocal distance read-out on the top-display, I think the order should be reversed so that it reads back/focus/front instead of front/focus/back. To me, this seems much more logical from the POV of the camera operator. Maybe Leica can make the order of appearance a menu option.
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Theodoros

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Re: The New Leica S (Typ 007) and Leica S-E (Typ 006)
« Reply #165 on: October 07, 2014, 08:46:44 am »

I cross-posted this on a few Leica S related forums hoping to read how other Leica S users feel about the new camera.


Now that Photokina-storm is behind us and we’ve all had a little more time to let everything sink in, here are some of my thoughts and questions (to Leica) on the new S. The more I think about it, the more I like the new camera, but I have some questions/suggestions. The final version is still at least 6 months away, so I guess there’s enough time for the design team to sit down and evaluate some of the feedback from potential customers.

This write up by David Farkas is quite interesting:

http://www.reddotforum.com/content/2014/09/photokina-2014-day-2-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-leica-s-typ-007/

The pictures on this website (in Dutch) made me think about the video implementation as it was presented at PK’14.

http://leicainnederland.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/leica-introduceert-leica-s-e-en-leica-s-met-4k-video-photokina2014/

Video/motion:

- Why not CinemaDNG instead of Motion JPEG? This should give considerably more headroom in post. Of course there’s a lot of data to be chewed on, but Motion JPEG seems too limited.

- Why not HDMI 1.4(a) out for external 4K recording? HDMI v1.3 cannot carry 4K signals and will be quite out of date in 2015 and beyond. Lots of consumer electronics come with the new HDMI standard already.

- 4K recording from the whole sensor would make the camera much more interesting, even if this means pixel binning/line skipping. The look from the complete 30x45mm sensor would make it quite unique and wide angle lenses would stay wide angle.

- Looking at the picture of the video camera rig I can’t understand why they’d have designed it like this; looking through the optical viewfinder makes no sense since the mirror has to be up for video-shooting. Why not make the flash-shoe take an EVF so that is an option for more ergonomically handling in video-mode?

- As for sound, I don’t think the use of 3.5 mm jack connections is going to be enough for professional sound. Balanced XLR is what will be necessary if sound is recorded directly on the camera.

- I think Leica still has a lot of work to do concerning video in the new S. I suggest they take a long, hard look at the video specs of for example the €1500 Samsung NX1. Again, to really be of interest to the motion/video crowd in 2015-2019 (2-4 years for the next completely new S to arrive) the video specs need to be much better implemented and certainly be more modern than the newly announced S.


I’ll leave it at that for now, with one more minor remark about the hyperfocal distance read-out on the top-display, I think the order should be reversed so that it reads back/focus/front instead of front/focus/back. To me, this seems much more logical from the POV of the camera operator. Maybe Leica can make the order of appearance a menu option.
  This is Leica's first attempt for 4k video... My impression is that they don't aim (in this first attempt) to have it as a pro functionality of the camera, but rather to declare that they will be part of the video market in the future... Never the less, the hundreds of Wedding photographers that will be replacing their Cannikons for a Leica S (007) ...will find the video specs very handy and up to their requirements.
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