[Leica] Leica s2 spec on dpreview

[hlritter at bex.net (Howard Ritter)]

Not so mysterious. I'll tell you and not even threaten you. The MF  
backs and the S2 have CCD
sensors with photosites of approximately 6 microns in size, like the  
fingernail sensors on P&S
cameras. The best high-ISO performance I believe is achieved with  
cameras like the Nikon D700,

(see http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/f1point4+and+be+there/)

which in addition to the inherently lower-noise CMOS sensor, has  
approximately 8.5-micron
photosites. This is enough to make a big difference in low-light noise  
level. (The high-zoot
Canons have 6-micron pixels and twice as many of them. Twice the  
noise! ;-) )

Overall sensor size has nothing to do with noise. Sensor architecture  
and photosite size are
everything. Well, almost. The S2 should have undistinguished high-ISO  
performance.

As far as the How-2008-is-THAT? display size of 460K pixels goes, the  
S2 uses an OLED
(organic LED) display, which is said to be the state of the art in  
color rendition and contrast,
and a big advancement over backlit LCD displays. Prolly prohibitively  
expensive in higher
density, if available at all. Sony's little (desk-size, $2000!) OLED  
TV is said to blow away
anything else yet seen. Can't testify to that myself. Oh, wait,  
"prohibitively expensive" a
reason for Leica not to use it? Hah. Sorry. Must not be available.  
Whole threads remain to
be written on the subject of the engineering tradeoffs between  
optimizing color rendition
and contrast of the display on the one hand and resolution on the  
other. If they can offer
each lens with or without a central shutter, why not offer the body  
with the choice of OLED
for critical color or LCD for critical resolution?

?howard


On Aug 16, 2009, at 9:11 PM, Mark Rabiner wrote:
>
> We're at day one with digital we're all learning it from scratch  
> together.
> For some reason when you go from pinky fingernail to 24x36 you get  
> better
> and better high ISO performance but when you start hitting the  
> medium format
> area something very strange happens and no one knows what it is.
> So you can't use iso 400,000 with a medium format camrea.
> You're lucky if they let you go above 400.
> No know knows why. If they told you they'd have to kill you.
>
> I'm not sure if we know yet if the S2 will have a high iso advantage.