Introduction

This article is dedicated to the Leica S-E (Typ 006) this is the blue grayish version of the Leica S (Typ 006), the prior and the latter are are exactly the same apart from the colour of the top plate.

I bought my Leica S-E last year in 2015 and felt I had to use it for a while before sharing my experience. It certainly has taken my experience with the Leica brand to the next level.

I have now used the camera for all sorts of photo subjects and will add more photo samples to this article in time. There will also be some .DNG files available for download.

The Leica S cameras are digital medium format single lens reflex cameras. In the digital medium format world it fits but at the same time it is different than all the others. The Leica S has a rather small sensor compared to other digital medium format cameras. It also has the odd small-format 3:2 aspect ratio rather than 1:1 (6×6) or 4:3 (6×4.5) like most medium format cameras or digital backs.

At first it might seem as a full-frame DSLR on steroids.

Leica calls this sensor format the ‘Leica Pro Format’ they state they have chosen this format as a sweet spot between ‘645’ and the ‘standard 35mm’ film formats. Because both formats have up- and downsides Leica claims to have landed somewhere in the middle for the best of both worlds. Namely the depth of field on ‘645’ cameras can be so small you always need to stop down to enlarge the depth of field to get a photo with a large enough depth of field to make it usable.

On the other hand the Leica S has a bigger sensor than full-frame so it can create some very pleasing fore- and background unsharpness. And has a great resolution vs pixel size ratio.