Photo Credit: © Dan Havlik

One of the most anticipated cameras of the year, the Leica S2, made a brief debut at a Manhattan photo retailer Monday, albeit in a still pre-production yet close-to-final form. The 37.5-megapixel DSLR/Medium Format S2 was on display at fotocare as part of a special event to promote the re-opening of the store which moved to its new location at 41 W. 22nd Street in May.

The unveiling was also, of course, a way for Leica to generate more buzz for the camera which, since its launch at photokina last year, has drawn an extraordinarily high level of interest from photographers. Details on the S2, however, were still not finalized at the time of this writing with pricing and a final feature set still in the works.

"Final pricing and features will likely be announced in early August," said Leica Product Specialist Justin Stailey who was on hand at fotocare yesterday to show off the camera. "I also haven't yet seen a hard shutter speed for what the flash sync will be."

Stailey added though that Leica was determined to have the camera shipping by September. "There's a certain point," he noted, "where you have to draw the line in the sand and say we have to move forward or otherwise it's not going to happen."

The S2 on display at fotocare was one of three S2 pre-production models sent out from Leica's headquarters in Germany for product demos. Fotocare's S2, which PDN Gear Guide had a chance to briefly play and shoot with, was a step above the pre-pre-production model that Leica showed off at the PMA show in Las Vegas earlier this year. The PMA prototype was also on display at fotocare alongside the newer, working model.

"It's thrilling," said Jeff Hirsch, owner of fotocare, which caters mainly to professional photographers. "The fact that Leica was willing to introduce this camera here and participate in our store opening shows that our customer base is exactly who they're looking for."

After yesterday's event, which included an invitation-only S2 "premiere" party for fotocare's customers and a demo by Leica photographer and graphic artist Rinze Van Brugg, the new prototype was scheduled to be shipped back to Leica's headquarters.

For close-up photographs of the camera, please see page 2.