M Firmware/Hardware Improvements Thread

[mjh]

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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).

Of course. I took ‘2 seconds’ to be one of the usual exaggerations meaning ‘it takes too long’.

[mirekti]

I'm not sure whether this was mentioned here, but I'd really find it useful if the default value for 1/focal lenght in minimum shutter speed would be 1/90 instead of 1/60 for 75mm lenses.

[01af]

Of course. I took ‘2 seconds’ to be one of the usual exaggerations meaning ‘it takes too long’.

Maybe it's not really two full seconds ... but it is more than 1.5 seconds. Way too long anyway for a hand-held camera that's supposed to be able to shoot two or three frames per second.

 

Regarding the battery discharge issue—I repeated my little experiment and left the camera on, in sleep more, overnight with the EVF attached. No undue loss of battery charge this time. So my hypothesis was wrong and Michael is right—the EVF is not the decisive culprit (and mine isn't defective).

[jaapv]

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.

I seem to remember from an older LFI article that the Maestro was specially designed to allow different processes running parallel.

[k-hawinkler]

Maybe it's not really two full seconds ... but it is more than 1.5 seconds. Way too long anyway for a hand-held camera that's supposed to be able to shoot two or three frames per second.

 

Regarding the battery discharge issue—I repeated my little experiment and left the camera on, in sleep more, overnight with the EVF attached. No undue loss of battery charge this time. So my hypothesis was wrong and Michael is right—the EVF is not the decisive culprit (and mine isn't defective).

 

 

Leica mystique at work?

[CheshireCat]

Maybe it's not really two full seconds ... but it is more than 1.5 seconds. Way too long anyway for a hand-held camera that's supposed to be able to shoot two or three frames per second.

 

Could it be a slow SD card and the fact that the firmware is waiting until the save is completed before resuming LV ?

[k-hawinkler]

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Could it be a slow SD card and the fact that the firmware is waiting until the save is completed before resuming LV ?

 

 

There are a number of threads on this issue.

Different M240s seem to behave differently, with the same or different types of memory cards.

It doesn't look like this issue is understood and needs to be investigated by Leica IMHO.

[marknorton]

I seem to remember from an older LFI article that the Maestro was specially designed to allow different processes running parallel.

 

Yes, but I expect all the processor cores are tied up processing the image. The data may be read out of the sensor using pure hardware memory mapping but after that, it's down to the grind of de-mosaicing and all the rest. The more processor cores you have and the faster they run, the faster and more refined a job you can do.

 

As for the image blackout, isn't it also down to the need to prepare the shutter for the next shot and then open the first curtain?

[k-hawinkler]

For comparison, here are some numbers from the NEX-7: Continuous shooting

 

• Continuous Shooting 3fps (for 17 Fine Jpegs, 13 Raw, 11 Raw+Jpeg)

• Speed Priority Continuous (~10fps)

[01af]

Way too long anyway for a hand-held camera that's supposed to be able to shoot two or three frames per second.

Could it be a slow SD card ...?

The card I'm using is pretty fast ... even though a few of the latest SDXC cards now are even faster.

 

 

... and the fact that the firmware is waiting until the save is completed before resuming LV?

If it really does then this is a firmware bug. The firmware mustn't wait. After all, the camera can fire another frame (unless the buffer is full) long before saving the last capture to card has completed. So if the shutter is operational then why is the viewfinder not?

[jaapv]

Yes, but I expect all the processor cores are tied up processing the image. The data may be read out of the sensor using pure hardware memory mapping but after that, it's down to the grind of de-mosaicing and all the rest. The more processor cores you have and the faster they run, the faster and more refined a job you can do.

 

As for the image blackout, isn't it also down to the need to prepare the shutter for the next shot and then open the first curtain?

I'm not an IT guy, but is that not a matter of allocation?

[mjh]

I'm not an IT guy, but is that not a matter of allocation?

It is. Whether two tasks run sequentially or in parallel has little to do with the number of processors or cores. You can multitask several tasks on a single core or split one task to run in parallel on many cores. In the first case the tasks will all take longer since they are taking shares in the same CPU while in the second case the single task will complete faster since several parts of it are executed in parallel. In the end it boils down to how many CPU cycles you can use per second, be it on one, two, or four CPU cores.

 

Sometimes it is preferrable to have two or more tasks run at the same time, even when that means that each one takes longer to execute, while in other cases you want to be done with some task as fast as possible so you allocate all the cores to that task while the other tasks have to wait until the prioritised task completes. Of course it also depends on whether a task can usefully be split into several parallel threads.

[CheshireCat]

If it really does then this is a firmware bug. The firmware mustn't wait. After all, the camera can fire another frame (unless the buffer is full) long before saving the last capture to card has completed. So if the shutter is operational then why is the viewfinder not?

 

Totally agree. You are preaching to the choir

[CheshireCat]

Sometimes it is preferrable to have two or more tasks run at the same time, even when that means that each one takes longer to execute, while in other cases you want to be done with some task as fast as possible so you allocate all the cores to that task while the other tasks have to wait until the prioritised task completes. Of course it also depends on whether a task can usefully be split into several parallel threads.

 

Multitasking and Multithreading (that's what you are talking about) are the two pillars of modern OS and App foundations...

... but first comes software optimization, nowadays the rarest gem.

Software optimization is an art, like achieving the best lens design for a certain focal length; software optimization is Leica's nemesis for waiting so much before going digital.

You want the best in lens design == you want the best in firmware design. This is where Leica falls miserably.

 

If you feel the camera is not up to your speed, then it is the manufacturer's failure. If you feel you deserve much more for the money, the it is the manufacturer's failure. There's no excuse. Software can be much faster than you can even imagine, even on obsolete Leica M hardware (and using obsolete hardware at obscene prices is far from an excuse).

[CheshireCat]

Other firmware "improvement": can we please have a focus peaking that actually works ?

Totally useless with the 50/1, as the FP is barely visible.

 

Since lenses are coded, FP could be tuned for each lens. But just having a user configurable FP level would be even better.

[John Black]

Some suggestions -

 

1) Show current time / date in the info screen

2) I saw it mentioned earlier - an option to set the wheel EC (no button press needed)

3) Another vote for swapping the front and M button

4) Auto-ISO option for 1/X, 1/2X, 1/3X and 1/4X

5) Option to make the focus peaking lines fatter in the in the 1X view

6) STOP WRITING 00'00.00 / 00'00.00 in the Lat & Long EXIF, just null.

7) Copyright field needs way more characters! And the © symbol.

8) The selected / active item when scrolling through the menu list needs more contrast

9) To echo others - fix WB and color profile

 

Sorry for listing some things that were mentioned earlier, consider it is a +1

[lct]

3) Another vote for swapping the front and M button

Thanks no thanks.

7) Copyright field needs way more characters! And the © symbol.

+1

[01af]

Other firmware "improvement": can we please have a focus peaking that actually works? Totally useless with the 50/1, as the focus peaking is barely visible.

Focus peaking works fairly well as it is. When focusing your Noctilux-M 50 mm 1:1 then use the rangefinder. If you still feel you'd have to use live-view for some reason then stop the lens down to f/1.4 or f/1.7, this will increase lens contrast and hence, make focus peaking more effective.

 

By the way, this works with many lenses. EVF focusing is not always best/easiest/most accurate at full aperture but at, say, one stop down from wide open, as this will reduce lens aberrations and increase contrast.

 

 

3) Another vote for swapping the front and M button.

Thank you but no thanks. The way it is now is just fine.

 

 

7) Copyright field needs way more characters! And the © symbol.

Yes, indeed. And the copyright notice and the artist fields show up swapped in Bridge/Lightroom. And there's some additional junk displayed that doesn't belong there.

 

I'd like to use the copyright text feature in the M (Typ 240) camera but cannot because in the current implementation, it's totally screwed up.

[wlaidlaw]

Olaf,

 

I disagree. There are various non-coupled low contrast lenses I use on the M240 where focus peaking is so faint as to be near indistinguishable or even totally absent at any aperture. I too would like to be able to turn up the sensitivity of the contrast edge detection. I was trying to take some portraits a few weeks ago using a Contax 85mm/f1.4 but with a Zeiss Softar II filter fitted. I ended up having to focus without the filter, telling the subject not to more a millimetre and then mounting the filter after focusing or else just focus by eye/zoom not the FP.

 

Wilson

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[furcafe]

I would like to able to see shutter speeds in the VF while shooting in manual. Looking at the current LED display, it appears that it would be possible, perhaps w/both arrows lighting up as a subsitute for the middle dot (like the original M6).