Leica S Medium Format vs. Canon 5D MkIII Full Frame

OK, just for fun a friend kindly let me borrow his Leica S (type 006) for a couple of weeks so I could play with it in the studio. It is an awesome camera and I’m a big fan of Leica’s since buying a Leica M just over a year ago.

Having access to the S and few Leica lenses, I had to do a comparison between it and my standard workhorse camera (Canon 5D Mk III). I know it’s not a fair fight. The leica is a medium format camera whereas the Canon is full frame. Besides having a larger medium format sensor, the Leica also uses Leica lenses, arguably some of the best glass in the world. On top of that, the Leica has nearly 38 megapixels versus the Canon’s 22.

To try to keep things comparable, I shot fixed focal length lenses on both cameras. I also tried to use lenses that are most equal in focal length. For instance I shot a 120mm lens on the Leica and compared it to a 100mm lens on the Canon.

Now these tests were not scientific by any means. They are just rough comparisons of image quality. I’m sure you can find tons of analysis and charts/graphs online depicting the differences in the cameras, but for me, I just wanted to see a hands on comparison with real world examples. So that’s what I did.

Leica S (type 006) and Canon 5D MkIII

Back view of cameras.

My first test was shooting macro photos of a small nail. I think the Canon faired well, however there was more texture and detail with the Leica. When the full sized images are viewed it is much more apparent than what you see from these examples.

Macro photo from the Leica. Notice there is more detail in the surface of the nail.

The same shot with the Canon is good, but lacks some of the subtle detail captured by the Leica

My next test was a wider shot using the equivalent of a normal lens. I shot the Canon 50mm EF f/1.2 on the 5D and the Summarit 70mm on the Leica. I shot photos of the overhead door in the back of the studio, then cropped in from 100%. First here is the wide shot, then the cropped images. (The cropped images are of the upper most hinge).

Wide shot of the overhead door.

Shot with the Leica S.

Shot with the Canon 5D MkIII.

While it clear from the these images that the combination of the Leica S and Leica lenses produce sharper results than the Canon and Canon lenses, when you view the images full size on a monitor you can see a bigger difference.

After doing this test, I thought I’d also throw in an shot from my Leica M just to see how it compares.

Cropped image from Leica M, rangefinder using a Leica Summicron 50mm lens.

I’d say it faired very well. Better than the Canon, but not as sharp as the Leica S.

So what are my concluding thoughts? The Leica S is an amazing camera that produces extremely sharp images. It’s well suited for studio or landscape work. However, it’s big, heavy, and slow when compared to the Canon. The autofocus on the Canon is extremely fast and accurate. While the image above shows the Canon to be larger, it has a battery grip attached that only makes it look larger. For a photographer that shoots a variety of styles and subjects, the Canon is more versatile.

So, that’s my impression of the Leica S. I’d love to get my hands on the new Leica S (type 007) to see how it performs. It has an updated CMOS sensor (the type 006 has a CCD sensor) that allows live view which is great for framing a focusing on macro or product shoots. It’s a feature I use very frequently on my Canon.

That’s it. Thanks for reading!!

-Ken.

*************************** UPDATE 7/22/2015 *****************************

Last night I thought about another good comparison between the two cameras. I wondered how much difference there was in regards to the dynamic range. Once again I did a quick test. I opened the overhead door in the studio and set up a light next to it. Then, I turned off the normal lights. Since this was mostly a test of the sensors lens selection wasn’t as big a deal. I didn’t have a Canon fixed focal length lens that exactly matched the 24mm Leica. So I settled for my Canon 17mm T/S lens. It was a little wider but it’s sharper than my other alternative, the Canon 16-35mm. The brightness of the room varied from f/18 on the left side to f/2.5 on the right side by the wall calendar.

Wide shot of the room used to test dynamic range.

The calendar area at 100% shot by the Canon.

100% crop shot by the Leica. Notice the increase in contrast in the shadow area.

There is no doubt that the Leica is sharper, but the also holds better contrast in the shadows which equals better dynamic range. The areas on the right side of the image were comparable however the Leica’s sharpness yielded a better image. If I have time in the next day or so, I’ll try to setup a scenario with extreme dynamic range where I can go from blown out to black in one image.