Coding. Why not in software?

[hammam]

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Maybe this has been discussed before, but I missed it. Please, forgive me.

 

Why do lenses HAVE to be coded at all? Why is it that the data about focal length and max aperture can't be transmitted by software? Why can't we use a few lines of menu to just enter the data, and be done with it? Surely, it can't be that difficult to implement. After all, coding is about the same thing, only automatic, right? Is this some way to convince users of the M8 to buy Leica lenses at all costs? Especially, since Leica won't code other brand lenses.

 

Please, someone, give me a good reason, because this is beyond me, and I don't think too highly of Leica in that respect. Thank you.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Oliver one becuase it has no idea what lens is actually on the camera, without the coding on the lens if you put a 28 mm lens on the camera only knows to put up a 28 and 90 frameline other than that it does not know the difference between them. What the coding does on the lens is identifies itself to the camera and orginally the coding was for vigneting . So when you stick a coded 24mm lens on there the camera processor or brains knows oh I need to correct for this much vignetting for this lens. That is the orginal intent on coding.

 

Next part is now the IR filter which Leica did not orginally count on having to use, so now with the IR filter the cyan corners on 35mm and wider will show a cyan cast in the corners. Now Leica is designing the new 1.10 to automatically go oh i have a 24mm lens on here is what to do for the vignetting and also here is what it will do for the cyan cast automatically in the processor of the camera. So now this is a two fold issue and without the coding the camera is basically deaf , dumb and blind to what lens is actually on there.

 

So no matter what brand lens you use Zeiss ,CV or leica your going to want to code it OR Leica HOEPFULLY will give a menu item to pick a focal length and than it will make those corrections which will help with non coded lenses . BUT this will also be a PITA because than you switch lenses than you need to go into the menu item and pick your lens. Not really the fastest way to be working reason i think buy coded lenses or make them with a sharpie or some other technique.

 

Now with this cyan cast you really should code those lenses under 35mm before the orginal intent was you may not really need them because vignetting can be fixed in processing but today no raw processor can fix the cyan cast YET so your only real option is to code the lens now because the IR filter is going to need it

[guywalder]

Guy,

If I understand Olivier he was talking about a menu option as well.

Personally i find the menu option as implimented by Nikon very good, and not at all slow to use. I hope it arrives in V1.10 but I will believe it when i see it

Guy

[guywalder]

forgot to say, including an option 'UV/IR filter fitted / not fitted' would also be handy

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I knew what he was asking i just thought i would go through it all again because it is somewhat confusing and new folks everyday here. i think this is the goal for Leica is to implement the menu option but it may not be in 1.1 until later because there working on the coded automated part first and they are fighting a time issue to get the fixes in and that cyan cast to work. The menu option maybe viewed as a option. The filter on /off i think has to be there on 1.1 for all of the coding stuff to work. We really will just have to see how far they can take everything we want in that time frame to deliver it. There is a lot of testing to be done on it and the fixes to make sure everything works together. let's not forget some of the serious issues that need immediate fixing to me that is priority one is the sudden death syndrome.

[ibogost]

If you subscribe to Sean Reid's reviews, he argues (convincingly) that coding doesn't even seem necessary all of the time, depending on your shooting habits. In some cases, it even seems undesirable.

[guywalder]

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Ian,

there is already the option to switch lens recognition on or off, and i would like to think that when/if a menu option to identify lenses is implimented it would include the same facility.

Guy

[adan]

The coding allows for identifying 64 different lenses - a menu option, to be equivalent, would require a menu list 64 items long to cover the same range of lenses.

 

Frankly, for me, stopping to fiddle with the menu every time I change lenses is a non-starter. The moments that make compelling photographs don't hang around that long.

 

(Heck, even Nikon's original twist-the-lens-to-index-the-aperture back in the F/F2/Nikkormat days was too silly and time consuming for me - I shot unmetered bodies (or Canon) until the AI system was introduced).

 

If Leica wants to eventually add a menu list of all possible lenses for manual indexing - more power to them, and to those who could use it. Me - I'll never touch it.

[ibogost]

Ian,

there is already the option to switch lens recognition on or off, and i would like to think that when/if a menu option to identify lenses is implimented it would include the same facility.

Guy

 

Right, I agree. My response was incomplete. I just meant to point out that coding itself is possibly overrated, at least in certain situations.

[guywalder]

Andy,

fair enough and each to their own.

I was sceptical of the nikon system until i tried it, and because the lense range is larger there are more options in it than leica need for the M8 (they dont need to fill all 64 vacancies for a start). But with sensible grouping/sub-menus, and the fact that it remembers what was the last manually coded lens, it works very well for me. I change lenses more frequently with my nikon than with my leica as well, and changing lens setting on the nikon is just as easy as changin ISO on the m8.

You never know, you might be surprised...

Guy

[@bumac]

Why coding insteed of menu? They want you to use only Leica-lenses. That's all.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Just for confusion sake we have 2 Guys here which is very unusual, maybe if quoting put M or W. I'm confused now. LOL

 

Like Andy said it really could be a nightmare but if there was a menu option i would vote for a 15,21,24,28,35 and call it a day just use a generic size. But were not sure this will come either it has been a request

[carstenw]

Olivier, unlike others, I don't believe that Leica is using lens coding to increase their revenue. I simply believe that they have a philosophy of uncomplicated cameras which take perfect pictures with a single click.

 

A menu gets in the way of the simplicity. It also allows for errors, ie. using the wrong lens in the menu. The coding solves it again. Btw, there is no particular reason to do any of this in the camera at all, except perhaps for very wide angle lenses and JPG.

[scott kirkpatrick]

This has been discussed extensively, but extensive discussions are not so easy to read. It might be worth trying to summarize the main points.

 

1) Motivations -- Leica seems to consist of two communities, marketing and engineering. Of course marketing wants us to buy Leica lenses and will find reasons why that is best for us. But Leica's engineers take a very conservative approach, and I can understand their thinking even if I don't always agree with it. They want to offer the highest possible quality even in the hands of users who don't manage to read the manual or keep up with a complicated procedure.

 

2) Technical challenges -- The engineers also know that the proper vignetting correction (adjusting color balance and intensity as a function of radius from the center of the image while constructing the raw file and before compressing it as a JPEG) depends on the exit pupil distance (the apparent focal length seen from behind the lens) and on details of the lens construction which cause the full aperture to be partly obscured when seen from the edges of the image. Only the effects of the IR-filter in front of the lens depend purely on the lens focal length, and here focal lengths are often different from the nominal values stated. So it is probably easier to put all this information in the form of a table of coefficients for each lens supported. This is probably the main reason why we expect Leica to only support Leica lenses in firmware -- constructing such a table is a reasonably difficult job. Their present firmware is only approximately correct, according to user tests. And of course there is no electrical connection between lens and firmware to tell the camera what aperture is set on the lens. It may be possible to estimate this by comparing the external metering input with the meter data seen using the center-weighted meter behind the lens, but this will be error-prone.

 

And the marketing people would not see any good reason to change the engineering people's minds on this point.

 

3) Looking at the actual firmware, you can already see the labels that will be displayed when you use the "menu" button to tell the camera whether you have an IR-cut filter installed or not. I presume this will be enabled in 1.10. The firmware is already large, multilingual, and capable of handling long lists that scroll for several pages, so calling up the table for a particular lens in software is certainly possible, but I haven't seen the pieces that would be used to do this. An unofficial, relayed comment from a leica senior engineer indicates that they plan to allow setting focal length by menu only for the 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar, where that is the only possible solution.

 

I think that is most of what we know at this point. More will come out next month when the vignetting correction firmware is to be released.

 

scott

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Personally i am going with coded lenses one way or another. I do NOT want to play in the menu options at all.

[guywalder]

Hi Guy, its me, Guy ;-)

well I may be swimming against the tide here, but I am firmly of the opinion that Leica should be helping its customers out here. As things stand, if i happen to have more than 2 lenses I have to start buying filters just so my camera system works properly. Then on top of that, if I made the mistake of already buying my lenses, I now have to pay to get then coded, just so my system works as it should.... sorry but I am not impressed.

At least a menu option helps mitigate the situation.

 

Carsten,

'I simply believe that they have a philosophy of uncomplicated cameras which take perfect pictures with a single click.'

This nicely sums up Leica's problem in making the transition to digital. Because to get the best quality in the digital word simply isnt as simple as a making a single click. In the past you had to make a load of image quality / image look decisions before you pick the camera up (ie you chose your film!), now its all built in, And it can indeed must be optimised depending on your circumstances. So Leica need to work that into their minimalist (or feature poor!) products.

Of course they could leave you to do all the work in post, but then that hardly meets the 'one click' ethos either.

Also since Leica themselves implimented lens coding (before the IR hiccup), they clearly see it as having an impact on image quality, and it clearly does, so why should I loose that possibility just because i have an old lens? at which point I refer back to the start of my post!

Guy

[rosuna]

The menus have a problem: if you set a lens in the menu and after that you change the lens, forgetting to change the menu option, the camera will apply an erroneous correction to the file. This would be a mess. It is more secure to apply corrections only when the camera is sure about the lens.

 

I think it would be easy to make a long menu of lens options shorter. You can select a set of preferred lenses, to be kept in memory as "preset". For instance, if you have 3 lenses, by selecting them for a preset you would have them at the top of the list, or even in a separate row at the top of the "menu" settings (you can place the full lens list at the bottom). It would be as easy and fast as changing the ISO.

 

I think Leica should offer this menu. It would allow to apply corrections to non-coded lenses, and save a lot of money in coded mounts (if you have many lenses). The potential danger is, as I said, selecting the wrong lens and correct the files in an incorrect way (vignetting, cyan borders).

[jaapv]

The menus have a problem: if you set a lens in the menu and after that you change the lens, forgetting to change the menu option, the camera will apply an erroneous correction to the file. This would be a mess. It is more secure to apply corrections only when the camera is sure about the lens.

 

I think this is a bit of a non-argument. It is not necessary to engineer a camera to this level of idiot-proof (no offense intended and including myself) After all, leave the shutter speed at the wrong setting without noticing: exposure all over the place. Focus with your finger in front of the window,focus by merging the wrong telegraph pole, twiddle the aperture ring, all is at the same level as this.

 

Havong said that,I do not see why there should be an obligation for a camera maker to accomodate competitors. The only thing I agree with is the charging for retro-coding. That is debatable.And IR filters should be a free option with new lenses ( after a price hike )

[guywalder]

Jaap,

'I think this is a bit of a non-argument....'

I'm glad you wrote that paragraph, I would have been much more indignant, especially as we are talking about the company that has only just got round to giving me auto exposure in the M7!

As for 'accomodating' competitors, well ignoring them is invariably fatal. This forum may be full of enthusiasts, buts lets not forget that it is not so long ago that Leica needed an emergency transfusion! (re-financing). The importance of the M8 cant be overestimated, and I for one want it to be a success.

rosuna,

I like your idea, actually there are almost certainly lots of ways that a menu could be implimented, including options to hide it for those people who dont want to look at it!

Guy

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[Shootist]

Just my $0.02.

I really don't think the M8 has the internal memory, flash, to handle to much more entries in the menu system. Every camera is limited to what can go into and what can'

t fit into the internal memory of the camera. My think is that is one reason why the newer firmware, 1.10, is taking longer because they need to write a whole bunch of other parameters to the firmware to take care of the Vin with the IR filters. That means they need to re-write the whole firmware to save as much space as possible to add the extra code.