IkarusJohn

What about the 35 Sumilux Aspherical?

I use Formatt Hitech Firecrest filters on Vieri’s recommendation.

Sure I do. But I don’t use live view for that sort of photography. I use whatever tools are available, and functions of cameras that I have. I haven’t had to “lean on the floor for a low shot”, using an M camera in live view for demonstrations or social action; but for that the tiltable Visoflex is about as good as I could do. The M cameras are pretty versatile, within the range of focal lengths for which it is best suited. Typically, using the optical viewfinder, held to the eye. The visoflex is a good enough option, and Fotos useful. I do use my X2D with live view sometimes, and with the tiltable LCD, but only in limited situations. I don’t have an M camera with an LCD for live view, and don’t miss it. What I do is hardly relevant to you, I guess.

The depth of field must have been challenging wide open. I have the APO Elmarit-R 180/2.8, and I wouldn’t want it bigger!

That’s also where remote triggering with the Fotos App is invaluable.

This happens with monotous regularity - these dates come and go, with little happening. If Leica is releasing something, noramlly there is an event with invitation to the great and good …

I use filters a lot - red, orange and yellow for my Monochrom, polarising and a set of ND filters, all Heliopan, Rodenstock, Lee Seven5 and Formatt Hitech. I see no degradation in image quality in these filters at all. I do have one Leica UVa filter for my 50 Summilux ASPH, which I do leave on - not sure why. That said, I don’t use UV filters for lens protection. I used to do that, and after I dropped a Nikkor lens, the thread on the front of the lens was crushed. So, I’m not convinced about lens protection - haven’t scratched a front element in over 50 years of photography in some pretty challenging places around the world. I do use hoods for flare and lens protection. Interestingly, when I took my Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90 lens in for sale, it turned out the lens was impact damaged - I hadn’t noticed, but the hood had taken a knock, breaking the plastic where it mounted the lens, and the lens ring itself was also damaged. The best protection for your camera gear is to take care of it!

I already read that post, Andy. And liked it. 😀

I’m laid up recuperating from further surgery on my foot and facing sartorial shift surgery in the next few weeks (metastatic melanoma, for those of a medical bent). The Masters has kept me entertained. Looks like another win for Scottie Sheffler. The forum is also providing distraction. It’s interesting how some topics are evergreen. SD cards (problematic since the get go) and others. What has struck me is how we take photos, and I wonder if this has greater effect on the M11 issues than we think. Coming from over 40 years of film (most with Kodachrome) before my first real digital camera (an M9), my habits remain relatively unchanged, some good, some not so much: I replace the lens cap after each shot - if your camera faces the sun, it’s easy to burn a hole in the shutter curtain, particularly the rubber coated cloth shutter of the Leica film cameras I don’t use filters (except for black & white) I do use hoods for flare and lens protection I turn my camera off between shots I never machine gun shots All this tends to mean I take very few photos. Having thought about where I want to take the picture, exposure, focus etc, I don’t feel the need to take another similar shot. I appreciate this is not a good thing. It’s just an ingrained habit. Why’s that relevant here? Well, I wonder if M11 users are playing whackamole with the underlying issues - profiles, SD cards, bluetooth, Fotos, Visoflex, lens codes, and my favourite, I’m alright jack. Perhaps it’s not just one of these things, but a combination of too much happening all at once, heat management, random software conflicts and hardware failings. It might be interesting to know how those who have had no issues use their cameras - with patience, contemplatively, allowing the camera to do everything it needs to do before asking more, left on etc. If this was a simple fault, Leica would surely have fixed it by now.

Ah, the right colour for you? Of course. I agree. No rabbit hole on objectivity.

Ah, right. Yes. I think. Back to my point, with the M9, I used a white balance card to get a good starting point. Auto white balance on the M60 was good enough, I stopped using the WB card. With the SL, I just set white balance at 5.5k kelvin for consistency. The AWB on both the X2D and the M10-D is also a good starting point. Sure, the DNG conversion in LightRoom or whatever is your choice is the starting point, following which you make adjustments. And a consistent starting point from the camera saves effort. Striving for the “right” colour balance, even using a colour wheel, strikes me as wasted effort as I’m going to adjust colour balance in post anyway. What drives me to distraction is inconsistent colour balance out of camera. For me, there’s no such thing as the right colour.

That’s done in post. I’m not disagreeing about weird colours in bad lighting, Italian flag, IR issues or bad colour balance. Just questioning what “right” colour is. I don’t think it really exists. More critically, if you do get colours which approximate what you see, what’s the point? Photography has never been about capturing “reality”. For me at least. It’s a serious question.

We know nothing about how the poster uses the camera. No better informed.

Not really. It would be useful. What is “using a normal working camera”? Or are you saying “move on, there’s no problem here” … If, say, 10,000 M11 cameras are sold, and we get 5,000 posters saying “all good” how does that help? Or 9,000 or 1,000 …. We’ve learned a lot from Edax’s post on the other thread. We might learn something from fsprow if we had more information. I seem to recall that you’re happy with your M11.

To what end?