What is so special about Leica?

I was never interested in Leica as it was way to expensive to think about it. To be honest, I did not even know why it was so expensive, but I never tried to understand. So...I just knew it is a legendary product and it is super expensive and must be good.

It happened that I saw a thread on Fred Miranda's forum about Leica M8/M9 pictures and so I though...let me see how good this thing is. I was surprised that images were really average, nothing good, not even as good as from say modern Canon or Nikon. I saw some images at ISO 1250 and it was as noisy as ISO 25000 on 5D MKIII.

What is the fuss about Leica?

Can of worms...

The glass.

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To elaborate bit more, Leica lenses are revered as some of the finest pieces of optical glass money can buy and many are know to exhibit fantasticly smoot out of focus rendering

axl_kollar wrote in post #14714488
The glass.

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To elaborate bit more, Leica lenses are revered as some of the finest pieces of optical glass money can buy and many are know to exhibit fantasticly smoot out of focus rendering

I am super ignorant, I just comments what I saw. What good is the glass if you have super noisy images at ISO 1250? Maybe I need to see some spectacular images produced by eica, but just comments on what I saw

I think that it's definitely a prestige thing on some level, but also Leica harkens back to an age of photography that has passed by. From what I gather, using a Leica is not about feature-packed modern DSLR photography, but rather about a bare-bones, no-nonsense--I suppose pure--experience

Albert Nam wrote in post #14714507
I think that it's definitely a prestige thing on some level, but also Leica harkens back to an age of photography that has passed by. From what I gather, using a Leica is not about feature-packed modern DSLR photography, but rather about a bare-bones, no-nonsense--I suppose pure--experience

+1
Some folks still enjoy the photography near it's basics and Leica provides...

light_pilgrim wrote in post #14714497
I am super ignorant....

Kind of sums it up doesn't it? If you don't care, why do you bother?

Not everyone desires ISO25000 with clean images, many people have many different priorities when it comes to photography...
What is average to you might be awesome to others...
Heck some folks get Leica because the can
And remember it's always the photographer that makes the difference, even the best equipment in monkey's hands wouldn't do great shot

Try shooting with a rangefinder (even the cheap one) and you will understand. It is very different from slr shooting, more work required, much more fun! And leica is a "tool", a pure camera without all the bells and whistles of modern DSLR. Believe it or not, sometimes you just get tired going through all the function that you never or barely ever use. Personally that is one of the reasons why i got 5D and an olympus OM1. When i shoot with them, i am relaxed and it is all about the final image, not about which freakin' functions to turn off so i could get my AF working properly

Have you ever saw a Canon or Nikon photo look as good/clean as the one in this review. LINK

I like to primarily shoot portraits, which means I am always in the lower iso settings. So a 1DX, 5D MIII or any other camera that calims ultra high iso performance really means nothing to me. Now give me a camera/lens combo that can deliver that type of image quality between iso 100-400 and I'll take that all day long.

Thorrulz wrote in post #14714701
Have you ever saw a Canon or Nikon photo look as good/clean as the one in this review. LINK

All my photographs are better than this, sorry
I can't understand what you see there....because my files are as clean as those at ISO 1000...super sharp and with great contrast.
Besides, it was taken at F/11 with a studio light.

I do not like studio light and that is why I do not have a lot of photos taken in studio anymore. But here we go....taken 3 years ago, with a 40D:

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Sorry to burst your bubble, but better is subjective and the images that come out of the Leica S2 with the appropriate glass and photoshopping when applied will always be of a better quality than those you posted or taken with your 5D MIII.

But I am happy you are satisfied with your equipment and it does the job you need it to do. Members such as myself have replied to your question and given you our responses as to what we think. I don't always agree with or heed the advice of others on here but am willing to listen with an open mind.

But I wish you would hunt done a full sized image of the one posted on that site I linked to. I came across it once when I was looking at images on the net. I downloaded it and opened it in photoshop and viewed at 100% and can quarantee any Canon or NIkon can not produce a shot compareable to that one.

Viewing at web sized resolution hides many flaws in images so I am always wary of claims or complaints about the next great dslr and it's images it produces.

Thorrulz wrote in post #14714762
Sorry to burst your bubble, but better is subjective and the images that come out of the Leica S2 with the appropriate glass and photoshopping when applied will always be of a better quality than those you posted or taken with your 5D MIII.

A contradiction all in one sentence. Good work!

I can understand the appeal of the form factor of the Leica cameras, perhaps even some of the simplicity. There is certainly an argument that the glass can provide a different rendition of an image. But don't go overlooking the fanboi factor.

light pilgrim - those are gorgeous!

Thorrulz - please, do not compare MF to 35mm.

palaima wrote in post #14714832
light pilgrim - those are gorgeous!

Thorrulz - please, do not compare MF to 35mm.

I thought someone else was compareing apples to oranges before I jumped in palaima. At web size those are very good images and lets leave it at that shall we?

Thorrulz wrote in post #14714855
I thought someone else was compareing apples to oranges before I jumped in palaima. At web size those are very good images and lets leave it at that shall we?

Must have missed that pun

Everything looks good until printed