Leica S2 Notes
Announced to most people's surprise in September 2008, the Leica S2 is a "medium format" DSLR system using new auto-focus "S-System" Leica lenses.
Details are very sketchy at the moment, but the following will get Leicaphiles started.
BTW wasn't there already a "Leica S" digital camera a few years ago? Indeed there was, but it was a tethered scanning digital back. See this Sept 2008 discussion post by Eric Chan. Hence the designation "S2" for the new camera.
S2 Features
- 30mm x 45mm Kodak CCD sensor, 37.5 MPixels
- DNG RAW and JPEG
- Weather-sealed metal camera body
- Single-point auto-focus with manual override
- Dual-shutter system, using either a focal plane or lens-leaf-shutter for "CS" lenses
- New line of 9x Leica-S lenses, from 24mm to 350mm
- Depending on the LFT distance, there may be a R-lens to S-body adapter
- Has a shutter-speed dial (8s - 1/4000), but lenses don't have aperture rings
- Leica in-house designed with input from "top professional photographers"
- ETA, "summer" 2009
- Price? (CEO Kaufmann hopes for less than € 15K Euro for the body…)
Lens Equivalence
Because the S2 has a 30mm x 45mm sensor, use the following table to estimate the 35mm focal length equivalence for S-System lenses:
| S-System focal length |
Diagonal Field of View |
35mm Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| 24 mm | 96.8 ° | 19 mm |
| 30 mm | 84.0 ° | 24 mm |
| 35 mm | 75.3 ° | 28 mm |
| 70 mm | 42.2 ° | 56 mm |
| 90 mm | 33.4 ° | 72 mm |
| 100 mm | 30.2 ° | 80 mm |
| 120 mm | 25.3 ° | 96 mm |
| 180 mm | 17.0 ° | 144 mm |
| 350 mm | 8.83 ° | 280 mm |
Links
- Leica Website "S-System" link (see also their dedicated S-System website)
- S2 Fashion shoot sample photos (by Robert Grischek, Dec 2008)
- S2 VIP launch event (report, details and photos of the event and camera, courtesy of David Farkas)
- DP Review (details, camera photos and Leica press release)
- Photography Blog (details, camera photos and a side-by-side comparison with the Canon 5D)
- Wired Magazine Gadgets Blog ("More Pixels, More Money")
A note about possible broken links
This FAQ has over 900 external links. Over time it is inevitable some of them will break. If you are bothered by this, see this detailed topic elsewhere in the FAQ.