Official Response from Leica on Laundry List

[jrc]

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Question 11, sudden death, is most important to me. Their short answer may be excused since there were only a "few" of this problem reported before PMA. But there have been quite a few more reports of sudden death around PMA time and after. My M8 is still in Solms, and since they have not identified the problem, I will have no confidence in the camera when it returns. This also prevented me from getting a second body. Would like to get updates/progress reports from Leica on this.

Alan

 

 

Guy: thanks. I don't know how you find the time, but it's appreciated.

 

As for sudden death, I am in exactly the same position as Alan. My camera has gone off to Solms, and I have no idea of when it will come back. I would buy a second body today if I was even reasonably sure that it wouldn't die; but I'm not. So I'll tell you what:

 

- If Leica would send me a NDA, on their estimate of the statistical chance of failure, I'd sign it, and I WOULD keep my mouth shut; and if the chance is low enough, like less than 10 percent that the body will suffer sudden death, I'd buy another one.

 

- Or, I'd buy another M8 if Leica agreed to replace the body if it failed before my first body got back from Solms, whenever that is.

 

JC

[Jager]

Seriously, I can only echo the thoughts that so many have already expressed, Guy - we're all enormously appreciative of your efforts on behalf of the M8 community. Many thanks!

 

I also think it's rather amazing that Leica has publicly commented on all these issues. That's an incredibly rare thing in today's business world. Kudos to them...

 

Jeff

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[pklein]

First off, fantastic job, Guy! And thanks to Stephan for communicating Leica's answers.

 

I vote for putting the estimated aperture in the EXIF. As someone mentioned, if they are concerned about us going "ballistic," put it in a manufacturer field, clearly labeled as an estimate.

 

Let me just add my voice to those that really, really, really want a lens selection menu like the Nikon D200 (Question #8). And let me add that it is a significant factor in my purchase decision.

 

I don't yet have an M8. I'm a long-time Leica user who has a number of M and LTM lenses--some old, some new, some Leica, some not. I will be *much* more comfortable buying an M8 if I can use all my lenses, without having to do special processing on every color picture to eliminate "cyanosis."

 

Since we already have to change a menu item to turn coding on and off, there already is "danger." I don't want protection, I want versatility. If Leica is really so concerned about us leaving the menu set improperly, it would be a simple thing to code the camera so changing lenses causes an LED to blink if the lens is not coded, until you go to the lens menu, or hit a button to cancel the warning.

 

I know Leica wants to sell more new lenses. But consider how many sales they will gain if they can say "You can use any of your old lenses without fear of bad color drift if you don't mind adjusting a menu when you change lenses. For ultimate convenience, use coded lenses." That's a lot more customer-friendly than "Sorry, only recent Leica lenses give correct colors across the frame, perhaps there's a software solution."

 

I suspect they will sell more M8s if they truly and fully support all those old lenses out there. Just as I think D200 sales are significantly enhanced by its legacy lens menu.

 

--Peter

[robsteve]

I know Leica wants to sell more new lenses. But consider how many sales they will gain if they can say "You can use any of your old lenses without fear of bad color drift if you don't mind adjusting a menu when you change lenses. For ultimate convenience, use coded lenses." That's a lot more customer-friendly than "Sorry, only recent Leica lenses give correct colors across the frame, perhaps there's a software solution."

 

 

--Peter

 

Aren't most of the old M lenses able to be coded by Leica? If I remember correctly, it is only a handful of old M lenses that could not be coded, some of which were not compatible with the M8 regardless of whether they are coded or not.

 

As for the screw mount lenses, I suppose Leica could offer screw mount adapters with the proper codes.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Seriously, I can only echo the thoughts that so many have already expressed, Guy - we're all enormously appreciative of your efforts on behalf of the M8 community. Many thanks!

 

I also think it's rather amazing that Leica has publicly commented on all these issues. That's an incredibly rare thing in today's business world. Kudos to them...

 

Jeff

 

 

I agree Jeff and i think it is a smart thing to do is engage your customers. Hopefully more will come.

 

Now the fix issues we pretty much know all about and have not seen anything glaringly new and leica is obviously aware of the biggest concern issues .

 

Now reading through all of this , there are many comments on feature sets. if anyone wants to go back and compile that like the top ten ISO/EV, 16BIT/B&W LCD review etc etc. Than we can send that to Leica and hopefully can get some feedback on that. Like I said this is a good beginning but good idea's need to be heard so let's continue. Thanks folks for all your comments and really you don't have to thank me , remember i am a big leica user also and this helps me too.

[LJL]

Aren't most of the old M lenses able to be coded by Leica? If I remember correctly, it is only a handful of old M lenses that could not be coded, some of which were not compatible with the M8 regardless of whether they are coded or not.

 

As for the screw mount lenses, I suppose Leica could offer screw mount adapters with the proper codes.

 

Robert,

I think you are correct about most Leica lenses being able to be coded. The issue that comes up is the cost and time for doing that. Add to that the cost of the filters one has to purchase in addition to the coding, and you can see how this might cause a few folks to pause a bit from jumping right in. Now, if it were possible to just purchase the filters, which really are required for the IR stuff, and then be able to dial in your lens on the menu, that would be so much more user friendly to do. The concept of purchasing new glass is still not lost, but the point is to get folks to buy a body and get started. Once they are using their lenses, they may really want to spring for a new one or two or three. But being able to get started with an existing collection, including Zeiss and CV lenses would encourage more folks to jump in, I think.

 

Having all your lenses coded will become important, there is a "workaround" to engage the firmware to handle things instead. As I mentioned, Leica does not have to create a table for anything other than their lenses, and that already is in the firmware now. Folks would select whatever seems to provide the best solution for a non-coded lens. That is really not a lot different than the hand-coding some are trying to do now. Just my thinking on this.

 

LJ

[russell]

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In this day and age it's funny to see they don't trust us when it comes to menu selecting our lenses. But I suspect it's rather due to them wanting to recreate the monopoly they lost on the M-mount in 1999(2000?) when the M-mount went public domain. It's a shame since all my nice old lenses with their distinctive Leica glow would love to be recognized on the M8. And not including the estimated aperture data? The Fuji medium format rangefinders of the 1990s burned them on the film rebate and no one complained that was only estimated data. Give us the choice and let us decide! Also in general the answers seemed a bit sparse to me... But at least we got something. Thanks.

[charlesphoto99]

YES to the hold set for iso - either with up/down buttons or scroll wheel. The push "set" three times to change iso was definitely not designed by a photographer.

 

YES to setting the lens in menu ala D200. Patronising to say the least that M users might forget. And so what if one does? It won't be the end of the world. Give us the choice. Some may opt to code all of their older lenses or only some ie foregoing the lesser used ones. Or more likely the ones they can't be without for six weeks. Why did Leica want to create so much extra work for themselves at this juncture?

[DaveSee]

Laundry List.

[snipped]

7 AWB still seems off

 

Leica is aware that the AWB needs to be improved. Improving the current AWB algorithms did not prove to be a promising way to come to a satisfactory result. Therefore Leica is working on a new setup of algorithms to come to a reliable AWB function. Intensive tests have still to be made, therefore we cannot give a specific launch date at this time.

 

8 Lens selection option "in menu" like the Nikon D2 lineup, would solve a lot of compatibility issues...

 

Technically, this would be feasible, but we think that a manual selection would bring the risk of forgetting to change the setting when changing a lens. This is particularly dangerous, because the settings also influence DNG files.

 

[snipped]

 

10 THINK the WBs are more inconsistent. «Tungsten» is still bad

 

There have been no changes in the WB presets so far and we did not have complaints until now. Anyhow, in combination with the Firmware 1.10 and the UV/IR filters, there will be an adoption to the presets, especially in the tungsten mode, as there is a lot of infrared light.

 

[snipped]

 

14 I am wondering why there is a menu option to turn off lens detection. Leaving it on with uncoded lenses makes no difference in my experience

 

When uncoded lenses are used with “lens detection on”, there is a risk of a false reading when there is a bayonet screw in the position of the reading device. This happened several times in our internal tests.

 

[snipped]

 

16 Did this change from 1.091 to 1.092

 

Old color matrix

ColorMatrix1:

0.6863 -0.1407 -0.0775

-0.3086 1.1390 0.1921

-0.0971 0.2791 0.6609

ColorMatrix2:

0.6863 -0.1407 -0.0775

-0.3086 1.1390 0.1921

-0.0971 0.2791 0.6609

 

V1.092 Color Matrix

ColorMatrix1:

1.0469 -0.5314 0.1280

-0.4326 1.2176 0.2419

-0.0886 0.2473 0.7160

ColorMatrix2:

0.7675 -0.2195 -0.0305

-0.5860 1.4118 0.1857

-0.2425 0.4007 0.6578

 

This should change the color rendering of any DNG aware Raw processor

 

This is correct. We have improved the color matrix. This is i.e. used by Adobe camera raw. There is no influence when using capture one, as there is a specific profile for the LEICA M8 embedded in this software.

 

[snipped]

 

23 Is there the possibility of an "auto ISO" feature, either from M (where you select aperture and shutter and M8 shifts ISO appropriately) or from Auto (where ISO shift is tied to shutter safe position, or something, e.g. you hit the shutter limit for the lens and the ISO shifts up or down accordingly).

 

The LEICA M8 is a camera with concentration on the essentials. We have not implemented every possible feature to keep it pure and clean.

Thanks Guy! And all parties attending this list creation...

 

I quoted because there is an interesting message implied through these quoted items:

 

Nos. 7 & 16 are related... and there's more: the EXIF fields named

"Calibration Illuminant 1" and "Calibration Illuminant 2" are "some odd binary" in f/w 1.06 and 1.09, but in f/w 1.092...

Calibration Illuminant 1 Standard Light A

Calibration Illuminant 2 D65

 

Which would indicate--from EXIF field "Linearization Table", that magic used to interpret 14 bits to 8--that these EXIF field values have been literally normalized to a constant value in 1.092. In earlier f/w, these values were computed in camera much like that magic used to "compress" 14 bits into 8. What Stefan's reply implies is that C1 is just one of many DNG converters, "i e Adobe Camera Raw"... Some converters will use these "Illuminant" values, where C1 may not.

 

I agree with Leica that the "Lens Detection" should be a user specified Boolean( on/off ), and not left to the f/w to determine.

 

As for the presets... I would never trust them because they are a holdover from the type-casting of film stock, not the light drawn through the optics. "Auto" will always yield control to the camera, yet provides a good enough guess; "Manual" puts the photog in control, with "Pringles" lids, ExpoDisc or some external "mark twain"; and "Kelvin" yields yet more to those who sense ambient temps.

 

And No. 23: again, I am thankful for the "pure and clean" over the "assumed and asserted"... I'm newly curious about the use of these "Calibration Illuminant" values... are my ~1000 1.06 DNG files the first and last of their species? Is a D65 "white point" what I want? I suppose just as mythical as a "True 16bit" file

 

rgds,

Dave

[sdai]

I am not convinced by the arguments about the absence of negative effects of the 8-bit compressing. Detail in the highlights are lost, but Leica says it is "unnseen" in real cases.

I'm not sure how I've missed your posts in this thread, Ruben ... just saw your picture in another thread ...

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/20156-ir-foreheads.html

 

I don't think this is IR caused problem ... if you understand how the infrared thermometer for outdoor fever scanning works, you know the forehead surface temperature is very close to the tympanic temperature, so if IR is causing highlight blown out on your forehead then you should also see something "wrong" around your ears, which is apparently not the case.

 

This reminds me of the very common highlight compression phenomenon with Nikon's compressed NEFs.

[ho_co]

They haven't realized that there is a real opportunity in creating a thin external flash adapter, with a viewfinder socket on top of it -- we should find ways of keeping this active.

I agree. Judging from the answer (that this would be considered for a future model) they don't understand that it is (or could be) an accessory request. Very important for some of us, and should be easy for them (or some other agency, e.g. Mark Norton) to implement.

 

Of course, we need to consider the size of the Universal finder and the size of the flash that we want to mount. Or consider the first and use the cord LFI mentions to move the flash off camera. Ironically, the LFI article mentions the discontinued Nikon SC17 cord. The major new feature of the current SC28 cord is that it relocates the cable by 90°, putting it in the way of the simple viewfinder attachment we're requesting.

 

@ Guy: Thanks for bearing the burden.

 

@ Leica: Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

@ those who are requesting one or more digital-only lenses: I think most of us have cut back severely on the amount of film we shoot--but if we want at some time in future to have something like a full-frame M, it would be best for Leica and for us that they not produce any digital-only lenses. Just an opinion; not attempting to get into a discussion about the matter.

 

--HC

[heninger]

This is really heartening to see this list and the responses so fast.

 

The one thing I think we need to reinforce with Leica, and it has been suggested elsewhere in this thread, is a quick way to get at the exposure compensation via the up/down arrows or the scroll wheel. Either way, it takes way to long to get at those important features.

[eronald]

This is really heartening to see this list and the responses so fast.

 

The one thing I think we need to reinforce with Leica, and it has been suggested elsewhere in this thread, is a quick way to get at the exposure compensation via the up/down arrows or the scroll wheel. Either way, it takes way to long to get at those important features.

 

The built-in comp is too kludgy to use in the field. I switch the camera to full manual.

 

Edmund

[stunsworth]

Edmund, I agree. The ISO change dowsn't bother me at all as it only takes a couple of seconds to do and you'd need to take the camera away from the eye whatever the system, but the exposure compensation change is more fiddly.

[rosuna]

I'm not sure how I've missed your posts in this thread, Ruben ... just saw your picture in another thread ...

 

http://www.leica-camera-user.com/digital-forum/20156-ir-foreheads.html

 

I don't think this is IR caused problem ... if you understand how the infrared thermometer for outdoor fever scanning works, you know the forehead surface temperature is very close to the tympanic temperature, so if IR is causing highlight blown out on your forehead then you should also see something "wrong" around your ears, which is apparently not the case.

 

This reminds me of the very common highlight compression phenomenon with Nikon's compressed NEFs.

 

I agree. I think it is due to a compression effect. The LFI magazine also preferred a wider encoding (10 or 12 bits non-linear encoding). I think the same. The 8-bits compression was a too risky decision, and an error from a marketing point of view.

[rosuna]

@ those who are requesting one or more digital-only lenses: I think most of us have cut back severely on the amount of film we shoot--but if we want at some time in future to have something like a full-frame M, it would be best for Leica and for us that they not produce any digital-only lenses. Just an opinion; not attempting to get into a discussion about the matter.

 

--HC

 

I agree HC.

[wparsonsgisnet]

I added a pic to the same thread. I mentioned in that thread that I agreed with Edmund that powder would have fixed the blown highlights, BUT I would very much like to see what 16-bit files would do to save these pictures.

 

If the 8-bit storage scheme is causing blowout of highlights going to 16-bit files could save these images.

 

Note: I never had this problem with my D2 and I took many pictures of the same person shown in the IR Forehead thread using that camera.

[rosuna]

If the 8-bit storage scheme is causing blowout of highlights going to 16-bit files could save these images.

 

Maybe that isn't necessary Bill. A 10-bit non-linear compression would be enough.

[DaveEP]

On the subject of reformatting cards, it would be nice if the system (M8) could read the current volume name prior to formatting, and give the newly formatted volume the same name. This is not that hard to do...

 

That way we could format all our cards with different volume names on (say) a PC/Mac, and the M8 would preserve that volume name when reformatting.

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[robsteve]

I agree. Judging from the answer (that this would be considered for a future model) they don't understand that it is (or could be) an accessory request. Very important for some of us, and should be easy for them (or some other agency, e.g. Mark Norton) to implement.

 

Of course, we need to consider the size of the Universal finder and the size of the flash that we want to mount. Or consider the first and use the cord LFI mentions to move the flash off camera. Ironically, the LFI article mentions the discontinued Nikon SC17 cord. The major new feature of the current SC28 cord is that it relocates the cable by 90°, putting it in the way of the simple viewfinder attachment we're requesting.

 

 

Leica coulf make the shoe of the universal finder live and then have an acessory cord that plugs into the univeral finder to give flash sync.