Every time Leica releases a new model it becomes an instant classic.  This time it released a new model which was so unexpected that it created a class of its own.

The Leica S2 is a 37-megapixel camera in a body the size of a 35mm DSLR.  It has a 30x45mm CCD sensor, which is about 56% larger than a full-frame DSLR sensor.  It’s a weather-sealed body, with dual-shutter capability and saves to raw, JPEG and DNG.  It has a 3-inch LCD  at the back with a control display at the top of the camera.

And what’s more is that there are nine lenses designed specifically for the S2 which were also announced at the same time.  This indicates that Leica is intent to make this camera the start of a whole new series.

However, contrary to what this looks like, the S2 is not a regular DSLR, but what Leica calls a “middle-format” which is a new platform.  Leica noted that photographers who use medium format cameras also have a second camera, usually a Nikon or a Canon SLR for field work.  And the S2 was designed for that market of professional photographers (with the expected price tag to boot).  It has a sensor the size of medium-format film, in the body of an SLR.  A relatively medium-sized SLR.

Traditionally, large printing was done with transparencies shot with medium-format cameras.  The film size is larger than those for a 35mm SLR.  You can blow up both films, but the optimum blow up size for a 35mm film is considerably smaller than those for a medium-format camera. With the migration to digital format, the analogy is that of more megapixels for larger prints.  If you have a 3-megapixel picture, it’s optimum size would be that of half-A4 size.  When printing a 3MP picture to the size of an A4 page, the resulting print would be showing artifacts and blurs.  You would have been better off with a 5MP or an 8MP file for A4 size printing.

(Another way of looking at it is if you used an 800×600 jpeg file as a desktop background on your 1280×960 screen. Same thing happens, you’ll be getting blurs and artifacts.)

In terms of printing area, a 37MP would be more than enough for printing on a big poster, showing details even when you have your nose up close to it.

My take on it is that the S2′s only compromise is the use of CCD instead of CMOS.  Then again, it would have taken them a little bit more research and development, and a larger budget if they had used CMOS sensors.  On the other hand, the use of CCD means that the this is still slightly slower than DSLRs with CMOS sensors.  Come to think of it, at 37MP, it doesn’t make sense to have CMOS sensors because of the sheer size of the resulting file.  The bottle-neck would just move from the sensor translation to the file saving part of the software.

At a rumored price close to $30,000, the Leica S2 will be available Summer of 2009.

Official website:  Leica.com