M Firmware/Hardware Improvements Thread

[Guest roey]

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File and folder numbering as a global setting

 

At present you have to set it for each profile.

 

The same should be true for the time zone.

[CheshireCat]

Other improvement:

 

If lens selection is set to "auto", and the lens is not recognized, then use last manual selection.

 

I wonder if firmware people at Leica ever used a camera in their life.

[mmradman]

Other improvement:

 

...

 

I wonder if firmware people at Leica ever used a camera in their life.

 

Probably written by student trainee during summer vacation.

[01af]

When using the EVF, the black-out after each shot must be eliminated.

[01af]

When the M (Typ 240) falls into sleep mode with the accessory EVF attached then the battery will be discharged after a couple of hours (even when live view was not engaged before going to sleep!). This won't happen when the accessory EVF is not attached.

 

So the attached EVF will suck the battery dry, even when not actually using it, even in sleep mode.

[wlaidlaw]

When the M (Typ 240) falls into sleep mode with the accessory EVF attached then the battery will be discharged after a couple of hours (even when live view was not engaged before going to sleep!). This won't happen when the accessory EVF is not attached.

 

So the attached EVF will suck the battery dry, even when not actually using it, even in sleep mode.

 

Not with my Olympus VF-2 it doesn't. After the initial week or so, I have not had the battery discharge problem and the VF stays on my 240 90% of the time. I was using it all day Saturday with the 240 switched on and at the end of the day, the battery was at 75%.

 

Wilson

[Ario Arioldi]

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When the M (Typ 240) falls into sleep mode with the accessory EVF attached then the battery will be discharged after a couple of hours (even when live view was not engaged before going to sleep!). This won't happen when the accessory EVF is not attached.

 

So the attached EVF will suck the battery dry, even when not actually using it, even in sleep mode.

I am not able to replicate this: with the Leica EVF-2 attached I left the camera in stand by with the battery at 30% and after two hours was still at 30%.

In the past I have also experienced a total battery discharge overnight, but I have not been able to replicate the occurrence.

[mjh]

I have had this happening once, and without the EVF attached. There must be something triggering this behaviour and the EVF may or may not be a contributing factor, but the underlying cause must be more complex than that.

[Ario Arioldi]

I have had this happening once, and without the EVF attached. There must be something triggering this behaviour and the EVF may or may not be a contributing factor, but the underlying cause must be more complex than that.

This is also my opinion.

[01af]

Well, so I shall repeat the experiment and see if I can find some consistency in there.

 

Anyway, I left the camera sitting in the evening with the EVF attached, the battery status at 35 %, and the main switch set to 'S'. The next morning, the battery was totally discharged. Such a thing has never happened before.

 

I removed the EVF, replaced the battery with a fresh one at 100 %, and put the camera in the bag, switched off. Didn't use it the whole day. Checked the battery status in the evening; it still was at 100 %. Attached the EVF, did not engage live view but just let the camera sit idle (switched on, in sleep mode). I checked if the camera really will fall into sleep mode after five minutes—yes, it really does. After two hours, the battery was down to 95 %. Removed the EVF and let the camera sit for eight more hours over night (switched on, in sleep mode): the next morning, battery still was at 95 %, so no further loss with the EVF removed.

 

So the EVF seems to be the culprit. Maybe mine is defective—but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it when actually using it. Perhaps I shall borrow and try another sample ...

[mjh]

When the first reports about this issue came in, I could not reproduce it – I could leave the camera switched on for hours and days and the charge displayed would stay the same. Only one fine morning two weeks ago, I fetched the camera (not the same copy, for what it’s worth) from the bag, only to notice that the battery, nearly fully charged the evening before, was dead. Luckily I still had my Fuji X10 with me. But now when I try to reproduce this behaviour I cannot; the M goes to sleep after 5 minutes, just as it was programmed to do.

[pico]

When using the EVF, the black-out after each shot must be eliminated.

 

What would you put in its place? The last frame view? There is nothing to view when the shutter covers the sensor.

[lct]

The black out and the last view last two seconds more or less. Just the time to remove the EVF and put it in my bag.

[01af]

When using the EVF, the black-out after each shot must be eliminated.

What would you put in its place? The last frame view? There is nothing to view when the shutter covers the sensor.

Umm ... yes, "eliminated" wasn't the right word. Let's change it to "reduced." Sure the black-out cannot be eliminated entirely, similar to the black-out in an SLR camera's optical viewfinder. In an SLR, there's not only the shutter moving during exposure but also the mirror moving before and after the exposure, and still the black-out is hardly objectionable. But in the M, the black-out is about two seconds. If it was, say, two or three tenths of a second then it would be fine, and this is not too much to ask for. Two seconds, however, is a serious interruption and renders the camera almost useless, in live-view mode, for quick shooting of moving objects or active scenes of life.

[mjh]

After the shot, the camera needs to divide the CPU power between processing and saving the image data and resuming the live view video stream. Accepting a black-out allows the processor to spend all its cycles on image processing; if one wants live view to resume as fast as possible one has to accept that it will take longer for the previous image(s) to be saved. It’s a trade-off.

[pico]

[...] if one wants live view to resume as fast as possible one has to accept that it will take longer for the previous image(s) to be saved. It’s a trade-off.

 

Nikon hasn't such latency for their Leica level $$$$$ camera.

 

So what's up with Leica?

[furcafe]

Smaller camera = smaller & slower processor maybe?

 

Nikon hasn't such latency for their Leica level $$$$$ camera.

 

So what's up with Leica?

[mjh]

Nikon hasn't such latency for their Leica level $$$$$ camera.

I haven’t used Nikon gear for a while so I cannot say how, say, a D4 behaves in live view mode, but of course the CPU throughput would be a factor.

 

In any case, suggesting to Leica that we want a shorter black-out period is probably moot; it is not like they wouldn’t know. It is fairly obvious that a shorter black-out would be preferred and if they should find a way to achieve that, I trust they will.

[CheshireCat]

After the shot, the camera needs to divide the CPU power between processing and saving the image data and resuming the live view video stream. Accepting a black-out allows the processor to spend all its cycles on image processing; if one wants live view to resume as fast as possible one has to accept that it will take longer for the previous image(s) to be saved. It’s a trade-off.

 

Sorry Michael, but we are no more in the '80s

 

Modern chips have dedicated parallel components for heavy tasks.

De-bayer and compression are made on DSP (usually parallel engines) in a matter of milliseconds.

For simple tasks, like saving a file to flash, the CPU load is basically 0%.

 

The Fujitsu chip inside the M (re-marketed as MAESTRO) is far from state-of-the-art, but should be still fast enough to handle all this. Keep in mind that the same chip was used in many Nikon cameras (re-marketed as EXPEED) and no one complained about 2 seconds blackouts.

 

To prove this is yet another firmware issue, my M in Live View (no EVF) has a blackout of a few hundreds millis (which is preposterous, but still far less than 2 seconds).

... and no, I have not overclocked my M

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[StephenPatterson]

I see on the X Vario that a quick press "UP" on the Navigation Pad on the back of the camera brings up Exposure Compensation, which is adjusted with the Thumb Wheel. Press "UP" twice and you can quickly set Exposure Bracketing. A third press brings up Flash Compensation.

 

This is so simple and intuitive compared to the M240's twister method.