Leica’s S3 Celebrates Being 64 (Megapixels, That Is)

First mooted at the 2018 Photokina, Leica’s new medium format DSLR is now a reality.

The S3 keeps the same form factor as its predecessor with a weather-sealed magnesium alloy body, but it has a new 64MP (effective) Leica ProFormat CMOS sensor with dimensions of 30x45 millimetres. This represents a 71 percent increase in resolution over the previous model’s 37.5MP sensor, and Leica is claiming a dynamic range of 15 stops. There is no optical low-pass filter. The sensitivity range is ISO 100 to 50,000, while continuous shooting is at up to 3fps. The sensor is mated with Leica’s Maestro II generation engine and there’s a 2GB buffer memory. RAW images are captured as lossless compressed Adobe DNG files. On the video side, the S3 can now record 4K video in the DCI resolution of 4096x2160 pixels at 24fps with 8-bit 4:2:2 colour using the full width of the sensor.

Full HD video is recorded at 30, 25 or 24fps. The S3 has built-in stereo microphones supplemented by a stereo audio input, while an audio output is provided for connecting headphones (via a 3.5mm connector).

As before, the monitor screen is a fixed 3-inch TFT LCD panel with a resolution of 921,600 dots, but the refresh rate has been increased to 60fps. Display elements in live view include a level indicator, real-time histogram, guide grids, highlight warning and focus peaking. The viewfinder is, of course, optical and has a magnification of 0.87x with 98 percent subject coverage. The focusing screens are interchangeable. Dual memory card slots are provided for the SD and CompactFlash formats (with UDMA 7 speed support). The S3 has USB 3.0 and HDMI Type C connections plus a built-in GPS receiver and WLAN wireless connectivity (including remote camera control via the Leica Fotos 2.0 app).

The camera’s mechanical shutter has a speed range of 60-1/4000 second with flash sync up to 1/125 second, but six Leica S system lenses have leaf shutters which enable flash sync up to 1/1000 second.

There are currently 16 S system lenses spanning 24mm to 180mm (19mm to 144mm equivalents in the 35mm format), including a 30-90mm zoom (24-72mm equivalent).

Other features include a dual-delay selftimer, intervalometer, tethered shooting (via the Leica Image Shuttle app), mirror lock-up and a scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass faceplate on the monitor screen.

The Leica S3 is available now priced at $29,000 body only.

For more information visit https://au.leica-camera.com