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XV it's getting old!


Manoleica

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Here's the full text of the email I just sent to Leica. I didn't copy most of the suggestions provided by some of you, because I thought they were either unfeasible or low priority (sorry!). Now let's see what happens... I do hope Leica will allocate some resources to implement at least the most important improvements.

 

We exchanged a few emails earlier, and I am taking the liberty to approach you again. After acquiring a second hand X2 last month, I now bought a new X Vario. I am positively stunned by the image quality. This camera is not much loved by many, but it deserves high praise! 

 
However, it also deserves… a 1.2 (or 2.0) firmware update. I know Leica would make many loyal X Vario users very happy (and even more loyal) with an update that would take care of the following things. A subset of these improvements would also be very welcome, to be sure, which is why I put the items in order of importance, as I see it. I also asked for improvement suggestions at the Leica forum, and it seems my initiative was well received there.
  1. Add exposure lock. Half-pressing the shutter button is not always an option, because the user may want to focus on a different part of the scene than the part that the exposure should be based on.

  2. When using spot for light metering in conjunction with manual focus, provide a mark at the center of the image so user knows which area is used for metering (the X2 has this). 

  3. Make the six o’clock position of the circular button on the back and the movie recording button both programmable, so user can set them to choosing user profile or light metering mode, or perhaps other functions.

  4. Make the self-timer stick (i.e. if user activates the self-timer, it should remain active until user selects normal shooting mode again).

  5. Allow the user to pick exactly which information is shown on the monitor/viewfinder while shooting, and add ISO and f-stop to the information that can be shown. For example, I’d like to see the histogram, but not the rule of thirds grid.

  6. Allow user to choose to have the exposure bar (I mean the display feature showing light measurement in third stops relative to a zero point in the middle) visible at all times (now it disappears after about 12 seconds, which is inconvenient when using spot metering to measure different light values in a scene).

  7. Auto ISO in manual mode (added with firmware 1.1) should be optional, i.e. user should be able to have it turned off by default.

  8. Make the shutter speed adjustable in smaller increments through use of a button/dial. When using an incident light meter, precise shutter speed values sometimes need to be set on the camera.

  9. Get rid of the semi-transparent bars on top and bottom of the most information-rich display view. They obscure parts of the target frame, and seem to serve no real purpose.

  10. Change the histogram to the one seen on the X2 with the horizontal bar showing Adams’ Zones.

  11. Improve live view to reflect the chosen exposure more accurately (when half-pressing the shutter button), and/or allow user to turn it off completely, making the viewfinder, whether LCD or EFV, function more like an optical viewfinder.

  12. Add preset film bracketing: let user choose two or three color reproduction styles, and let the camera produce these for each shot. The jpegs this camera produces are excellent, and for some situations, having film simulation bracketing would remove the need for shooting DNG.

  13. Add focus type (manual/auto) to the EXIF information written with the image files.

  14. Shorten the time elapsed before the camera is ready to shoot again when ‘auto review’ is sett to 'off’. 

  15. Enable user to enter basic copyright information that will be added to all images automatically.

Leica is in a position to make this amazing camera even better. Many people are still buying the X Vario, new, and I am sure they are all hoping for improvements like those listed above. Please, take the X Vario from “sehr gut” to “fabelhaft”!
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> 9. Get rid of the semi-transparent bars on top and bottom of the most information-rich display view. They obscure parts of the target frame, and seem to serve no real purpose.

 

Pressing the INFO button will make them disable them temporarily.

 

> 11. Improve live view to reflect the chosen exposure more accurately (when half-pressing the shutter button), and/or allow user to turn it off completely, making the viewfinder, whether LCD or EFV, function more like an optical viewfinder.

 

That feature is called "aperture preview" on most cameras. The camera first does focusing at max aperture, then switches to the specified aperture so the DoF can be checked.

You're basically asking for the "disable the aperture preview" feature that I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, BTW.

 

Toshi

Edited by TMorita
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> 9. Get rid of the semi-transparent bars on top and bottom of the most information-rich display view. They obscure parts of the target frame, and seem to serve no real purpose.

 

Pressing the INFO button will make them disable them temporarily.

 

> 11. Improve live view to reflect the chosen exposure more accurately (when half-pressing the shutter button), and/or allow user to turn it off completely, making the viewfinder, whether LCD or EFV, function more like an optical viewfinder.

 

That feature is called "aperture preview" on most cameras. The camera first does focusing at max aperture, then switches to the specified aperture so the DoF can be checked.

You're basically asking for the "disable the aperture preview" feature that I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, BTW.

 

 

Pressing INFO gets rid of the semi-transparent bars and the content of those bars. I was asking for the bars themselves to disappear; the data shown can be retained (using shaded lettering visible on any background).

 

About the aperture preview, my main request is to make it a lot more accurate (it is quite inaccurate now). 

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Pressing INFO gets rid of the semi-transparent bars and the content of those bars. I was asking for the bars themselves to disappear; the data shown can be retained (using shaded lettering visible on any background).

 

About the aperture preview, my main request is to make it a lot more accurate (it is quite inaccurate now). 

 

I think the lettering would become invisible in some circumstances, e.g. like when they are printed on top of a white cloudy sky.

.

I don't understand why you think the aperture preview is inaccurate?

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