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M240 FW


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Thanks for doing that, pop. Now we know there was a profound change.

 

This is not an encouraging situation.

 

My sympathies to Leica and their firmware development group. I have been in similar situations and it was very frustrating. But I am so long gone from RT programming that I'm helpless. I suppose they use Fujitsu's suite. I can still read C code, and am still pretty good with SD, but all the rest under the Leica's bonnet is a mystery to me. Frustrating!

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The profound change between the M9 and the M (Typ 240) consists of two profound differences:

 

one - as far as we can make out here, the software for the M has been re-written from scratch. Other functions of the M9 have been discussed here which did not find their way into the M or in a form which was not an improvement.

two - the software for the M8 and M9 was written by Jenoptik. The software written for the M was written by Leica.

 

I have no citable sources for those two assertions, but those things have been mentioned here by people here in this forum who should know. All is not lost as some functions may have been improved between then and now. 

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With respect to the camera not taking any pictures when there is no SD card present: I could argue that this was a better UI design than the solution in the M9 which allowed you to take pictures but only a few and the pictures were only preserved if you then managed to properly install a perfectly working SD card.

 

The M says up front that there's no card (or no useable card, who knows) and it says it both in the optical viewfinder and on the LCD. You know there's no chance of taking a picture. You fall into that trap at most once, and then you know. The only shortcoming to this implementation seems to be that the camera then goes through the motions of taking a picture anyway.

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I've just checked my M240: the first exposure after start-up or wake-up is quick without a card; not instantaneous, but much quicker than with a card.

 

As far as I am concerned, I would rather risk losing a shot because I'd forgotten to put a card in (something I've never done) than because my camera does not wake up quickly enough (often).

 

Of course, if battery technology and power consumption improved, then I could leave the camera on all the time and forget about sleep mode - but this is probably not likely to happen soon.

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I certainly prefer the M9 implementation but with its frequent lock ups and card incompatibilities the M240 is a godsend. To me the slow start up and wake up times are just a minor inconvenience. When I'm out shooting I need to make sure I half press the shutter release before I bring the camera to my eye. It's normally enough time by the time I finish focusing the camera is ready to shoot. I use Transcend 16 and 32 gb cards. The start time is about 1.5s for the 16 gb and 3s for the 32 gb. The wake up time is slightly longer. I would not mind if this bug is fixed but I learned to live with it.

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With respect to the camera not taking any pictures when there is no SD card present: I could argue that this was a better UI design than the solution in the M9 which allowed you to take pictures but only a few and the pictures were only preserved if you then managed to properly install a perfectly working SD card.

 

This is ridiculous.

If you were in the process of swapping the SD card on the M9, you could still catch the decisive moment.

 

The M240 is a step backward, and the fact it takes the shot and then throws it away (without any alert) is misleading and totally unacceptable.

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What do you mean by "throws it away" if i may ask? Just curious.

 

The camera does not flush the internal RAM buffer to SD as soon as the SD has been inserted.

Therefore it simply deletes ("throws away") all the pictures taken when there was no SD card in the camera.

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On my Nikons I can opt to have the camera not take a photo if no card is in place, which I always select. If the 240 can not buffer the orphan images with a full or no card present then a FW update should either make it to where the camera will not fire with no card present or have the same option the Nikons do. It warns you to no end though that there is no card and therefore no photo, so I am not really bothered by it at the present and I don't really like the idea of a buffer holding important images until a swap happens...that seems risky given the nature of SD cards and cameras not always being 100% foolproof. 

 

What I *really* want in a FW update is a way to either bias the AWB from the ridiculous blue cast or just make it less blue overall. I would love a few custom presets as well, that way I can just plug in a couple of Kelvin settings and be good to go. One of the most brilliant things about using the Nikon DSLR UI is the "My Menu" options, it makes using the camera for me far, far more productive and exponentially faster. 

 

My thoughts on the 240 after having it just under 24 hours...

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I think you need to update your camera profile in Lightroom. That will solve your AWB problem.

 

I need it right in camera, it's just the way I work.

 

Predominate color casts can change both perceived and actual exposure, luminosity and tonal values...a lot. It's a very subconcious and experiential thing and I need it to be right out of the camera so I will just fly the K settings for the most part for now....

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The camera basically has no white balance if you shoot raw. It is just a rendering. Are you running old firmware? This was a problem with the first firmware. Nowadays the AWB is pretty good, actually.

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The camera basically has no white balance if you shoot raw. It is just a rendering. Are you running old firmware? This was a problem with the first firmware. Nowadays the AWB is pretty good, actually.

 

I am running 2.0.1.7.

 

Actually the camera does have white balance, if I hand that card to an assistant and say export and move these to the desk / art director, it needs to be dead on, it's the way I shoot. It's like handing a service bureau a perfectly exposed slide, there is no doubt in their mind how it is to look. 

 

I'm not saying AWB settings on other cameras are perfect, they are not which is why I often dial in K settings. I have been working in RAW since the very first iteration of it and this is just the way I work with it. 

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Older serial numbers have bluish screens, but the images look ok on the computer screen. I know my camera has the older LCD version. It seems more recent cameras have better color corrected screens.

 

Ah...I just took a look at that and it does seem more blue, serial 478XXX.

 

Thanks a bunch for pointing this out!

 

I'll explore this further but would still love to see some options in the menu for custom presets..

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The camera basically has no white balance if you shoot raw. It is just a rendering. Are you running old firmware? This was a problem with the first firmware. Nowadays the AWB is pretty good, actually.

 

Pit does "basically" have white balance if you only shoot raw. My camera can only shoot raw, and it has auto white balance (I can't change it in camera). The white balance is set in camera, but can easily be changed in LightRoom.

 

that said, the in camera AWB is actually very good. 

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