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Photography Culture

Photographers are Sleeping on Leica’s Best Retro Camera

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 09/12/2025
10/30/2025
3 Mins read
The Leica S2 with a few lenses. Credit: Chris Gampat
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Lots of photographers hype up and talk about the Leica M9 — and I’m totally one of them. The Kodak sensor gave us images that looked and felt like something completely different and a whole lot like slide film. And with newer M cameras, we’ve gotten similar looks for sure. But in a conversation that I had recently with the staff, the Leica M9 is actually not totally worth buying today unless you get a really good copy. Instead, I’d tell any photographer to go for the Leica S2 instead. The simple reason for this: it’s basically the Leica M9 but better in ways that most photographers would yearn for.

So why the Leica S2? Well, I’ll list those reasons out here:

  • The Sensor: The sensor in the S2 is cut from the same wafers that the Leica M9 uses. So essentially, it’s the same Kodak sensor but bigger.
  • The Lenses: Often, you can find lenses for the S2 much more affordably than you can Leica M9 glass. But there isn’t much when it comes to third party lenses. However, these lenses can be adapted to the Fujifilm GF mount.
  • The Look: The S2 delivers a look that’s both like slide film and retro digital at the same time. Shoot over ISO 400 and you’re going to find digital imaging noise. Shoot below that, and it will look like film.
  • The Feeling: Imagine the Canon 5D Mk II but on steroids. That’s really how I always felt the Leica S2 was.
  • Autofocus: Many photographers don’t like manual focusing. And the Leica S2 has a rudimentary form of autofocus. Essentially, you’re still going to mostly use the center focus point and then shoot.

If you’re considering the Leica M9, I’d probably urge you to go for the Leica S2 instead. Sure, it might still suffer from similar sensor corrosion. But I’m very confident that Leica would do some sort of sensor replacement or something else in the same way they did with the Leica M9.

Overall, too, what you’re buying into is a time when cameras were slower and more methodical devices. When photographers take their time to make images and act more intentionally than letting the camera do all the work for them, they make better photos. Just think about this, if you’re using scene detection or face detection, you’re letting the camera do the work for you and you’re not making an intentional decision. Sure, you’re making a decision about composition still. But if you do both, then you’re fully shooting with intention.

Here’s a workaround: for years, photographers did this method called focusing and recomposing. You essentially focus on the subject and then slide the camera a bit to change the composition while keeping the subject in focus. You’ll have to do that with this camera, or just shoot with everything that you want in the center and then just crop later on. It’s a very intentional way of shooting that’s changed a whole lot over the past years.

camera leica leica m9 leica s2 lenses m9 medium format sensor
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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