Leica S2 review

One of the most expensive digital cameras you are every likely to see aims to blend the quality of medium format with the handling of a digital SLR, but does it deliver?

The medium-format camera market doesn’t get as much attention as it should. The drama in this sector of the industry over the last two years is worthy of a soap opera. New cameras and technical developments have come along, with resolutions hitting the 60 megapixel mark. Established brands have gone bust, or been taken over, and new players have emerged, one of which has never before produced a medium-format camera in its long and distinguished history: Leica.

When Leica announced it was going to build a medium-format camera, a lot of people sat up and took interest. They may have essentially invented the 35mm camera, and be known for making the world’s best lenses, but a company like Leica competing with the likes of Hasselblad, Mamiya and Leaf? Surely this was a case of biting off more than you can chew. Two years later, and the Leica S2 is finally here – and it is certainly different to anything else in the digital medium-format world.

To the eye, the S2 is a sleek, black lump of minimalism – devoid of excessive labeling. It’s the kind of camera that looks like it should be invisible to radar. It is smaller than something like a Nikon D3 or Canon EOS-1 series DSLR, however, which is impressive seeing as how it contains a 37.5-megapixel Kodak-made sensor that is 56 per cent larger than a 35mm full-frame chip (45x30mm). With the 70mm standard lens attached, the whole package balances well, despite weighing 2150g.

The S2’s top plate sports a traditional shutter speed dial (1/4000-8sec, plus B) and a less traditional coloured OLED screen showing the camera’s settings at a glance.  Apertures are controlled by a thumbwheel on the back of the camera, which is also home to a large, colour LCD screen that is surrounded by four label-free ‘soft-keys’. Pressing the top-right of these buttons plays back images from a memory card; any of the others access the camera’s menu system.

The S2’s menu system works differently to that which you might find on a conventional DSLR. Sub menus are accessed by pressing the appropriate soft-key and you move through options by rotating the thumbwheel, pushing it in to select, as you might with an OK button. Different, but intuitive. You can also program each soft button with a shortcut.

The S2 yields Raw files of around 73 MB that open up to 110MB in Adobe Photoshop. Interestingly Leica have chosen to use the open-standard DNG Raw format (as they have with their M-series cameras), which means any general-purpose Raw processing software can read images. Leica even give away a copy of Adobe Lightroom with the camera. We also tried CaptureOne, Aperture, Photoshop, and SilkyPix, and found each to accept the S2’s files without so much as a grumble. Full marks to Leica for this approach.

Uniquely in medium-format, the S2 also produces JPEG files in-camera, so if a set of proofs is required you can shoot them as you go along. An SD memory card slot sits alongside the main CF card slot expressly for this purpose.

When it comes to the S2’s autofocus, those expecting a Canon or Nikon-like performance may be disappointed, while those used to Hasselblad or Mamiya will be pleasantly surprised. In normal use, the camera locks-on quickly and accurately, even in low light, although tracking moving objects in AF-C mode is not as good. Also disappointing is the provision of only one focus point. We don’t know of any other medium-format camera that has multiple focus points, but it would have been nice to have broken this particular barrier with the S2.

The S2’s lenses are big but very well-made. Currently available is a 70mm f/2.5 standard lens (giving the same field of view as a 56mm lens on a 35mm camera), a 180mm f/3.5 telephoto (144mm equivalent) and a 35mm f/2.5 wide angle (28mm equivalent). A 120mm f/2.8 macro is expected soon. Each of these lenses will eventually be available in two variations: one with a central (or leaf) shutter, and one without. Using the camera’s built-in focal plane shutter it’s possible shoot at speeds up to 1/4000sec, although flash sync is a pedestrian 1/125sec. However, if you have a central-shutter lens you can flash sync at any speed up to 1/500sec. The CS/FPS settings on the camera’s power switch let you choose the right shutter for the job at hand.

The camera’s ISO range begins at ISO160 – higher than other medium-format cameras, which usually start at around ISO 50 or 100. Sensitivity goes up in whole stops (half stops would be nicer) with noise not being a problem until ISO640. The maximum ISO1250 setting is really for emergencies only.

As with other medium format platforms, it is possible to shoot either onto memory card or ‘tethered’ directly onto a Mac or PC. Leica take a different approach to tethering, using a USB connection rather than the industry-standard FireWire. Of the two connections, FireWire is much faster for sustained data transfer, so it is a mystery why Leica have made this choice. An application called Image Shuttle takes images from the camera and puts them into a specified directory on your PC or Mac. Any application that can watch this directory as a ‘hot folder’ will show files as they are shot, Adobe Lightroom or Capture One for instance.

This is a slow process though. DNG files are large relative to the proprietary Raw formats used by other manufacturers. Combined with the slow USB connection, this results in a sluggish performance. If you have experienced the 5–7sec transfer speed of a tethered Hasselblad or Phase One camera, you will be disappointed by the 10-12sec it takes to see an image captured on the Leica S2. Futhermore, the slow transfer speed means the camera will fill it’s buffer after about eight frames of continuous 1.5fps shooting. Annoying in a fast-paced shoot. The Image Shuttle application is not the most stable in the world either, and the installer declares it is still a beta version, and ‘not for use in production workflow’. Not very impressive for a camera of this ilk.

When it comes to performance, these tethered shooting issues are really the only serious blot in the S2’s copy book, and are quickly forgiven when images are inspected on screen. The quality of the S2’s results is nothing short of amazing. Sharpness and detail is astonishing, even for a medium format camera. The 70mm is sharp at virtually all apertures, delivering its best between f/4 and f/16. Skin is rendered well, and an astonishing amount of detail in shadow areas is preserved. This is a true 16-bit sensor, meaning more information is captured than would be the case with a top-end DSLR, using a 14-bit chip. At the time of writing, the Leica S2 lacks a specific colour profile, meaning reds and oranges are a little over saturated. Nothing a quick Photoshop fix can’t solve, but we hope Leica produce an ICC profile in the near future.

When summing up the S2, it’s important to keep a sense of perspective. This may look like a DSLR, but it isn’t going to replace anyone’s Canon or Nikon just yet. Although if Leica’s aim was to bring elements of 35mm handling to the medium-format market, then the S2 is a roaring success. Pentax did the same thing with their legendary 67 in the 1980s and it was received with great glee by fashion photographers, although if Leica are going to get a similar reception they need to sort out the tethering speed and buffering issues, which can slow down the pace of a shoot.

What you can’t argue with, though, is the quality of the S2’s images. They are just stunning. At sizes up to A0, prints just sparkle with life and detail and the 16-bit files are so full of information that you can do all manner of things to them in post production without them ‘breaking’.

Something we haven’t mentioned yet is price. The Leica S2 is not a cheap camera: a body and 70mm f/2.5 standard lens will set you back just short of £20,000 including VAT with the 180mm f/3.5 telephoto lens costing £4752 and the 35mm f/2.5 optic costing £3780. This seems expensive compared to 39-megapixel products from Hasselblad and Phase One, which are substantially cheaper, however the S2’s lens and build quality is far superior – areas where Leica have always done well.

All in all, this is an impressive start by a company who have never had a presence in the medium format market before. Leica tells us more optics are in the pipeline, with a wide-angle shift lens and a standard zoom both rumoured for the future. We can’t wait to see what else this intriguing system brings along.