problem highlights leica sl

[jaapv]

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Strangely, in the past when the firmware was done by Jenoptik it was just as slow, despite JO being leading in optical-digital integration.

[wlaidlaw]

Strangely, in the past when the firmware was done by Jenoptik it was just as slow, despite JO being leading in optical-digital integration.

 

I suspect that might have been due to the small size of the cheques Leica was sending to them. 

 

Wilson

[adamdewilde]

All these problems are highlighted by Leica's desperate slowness in posting FW updates for all current cameras. They obviously do not assign sufficient resources to this aspect, I suspect because of their history of being a mechanical/optical camera company. I am not sure that it has really hit home that for digital cameras, the absence of firmware turns a digital camera into an expensive paperweight. The poor JPEG's have an easy work around in the use of DNG but the flash problems don't. The wedding I am doing in 10 days time, will be done with my M240, a borrowed Monochrome and lots of lens changing, rather than the SL and M240, which would have made life much easier, with its zoom and AF. 

 

Wilson

 

 

 

I feel you. I was a bit annoyed with the SF-40 flash.. Kinda pissed actually considering the price vs the Nissan flashes on their own. 

 

I routinely shoot with the M240+35FLE and M240+75APO so I don't have to switch lenses during important moments. But with Leica I've always just shot natural light or used manual flash. How do you shoot your Leica M without manual flash? And if you're shooting your Leica M with manual flash, why not shoot the SL with manual flash?

[adamdewilde]

If you mean that there are default presets in an embedded sidecar file in the DNG format you are obviously right. But they are easily overridden in ACR by the user (except distortion correction - one needs another raw developer for that) I was an early 240 adapter and did indeed need some time to tweak the import to my taste, including a decent camera profile, but I did not wait for Leica to do it for me. It was the same with the M8 - apart from the IR issue, of course. Jamie Roberts was even selling rather nice profiles for a while.

 

 

Sure you can.. And I do. But I'd need TONS of profiles to correct for the situations I'm faced with. It gets to be a headache after a while. And really this shouldn't be on me as the consumer. 

 

Though again... I'm sure Leica will fix this in their own time. 

[jaapv]

Well, if you need TONS of profiles, how can firmware cope? That can only be one-size-fits-all.

 

OTOH a simple dual-illuminant camera profile should do the trick for you.

[wlaidlaw]

I feel you. I was a bit annoyed with the SF-40 flash.. Kinda pissed actually considering the price vs the Nissan flashes on their own. 

 

I routinely shoot with the M240+35FLE and M240+75APO so I don't have to switch lenses during important moments. But with Leica I've always just shot natural light or used manual flash. How do you shoot your Leica M without manual flash? And if you're shooting your Leica M with manual flash, why not shoot the SL with manual flash?

 

I shoot the M240 and Monochrome with SF58 flashes set to TTL and slow speed sync at 1/focal length. This works well with the M240 in aperture priority mode, fixed ISO, even with the 58 on bounce and the secondary flash at 25 or 50% power fill in. This set up works as the light fades from late afternoon to into the evening, both inside and outside. Luckily my borrowed Monochrome will arrive with the wonderful 75APO Summicron on it, which avoids using my rather ordinary 75 Summarit. I will be swapping backwards and forwards between a Noctilux and 28 ASPH Summicron on my M240.

 

With the SF58 set to either TTL or Auto and the SL set to manual, flash exposure is just too unreliable with the flash straight ahead and hopeless on bounce. It takes too many button presses on the SL to get into flash set up to turn the flash power up or down to adjust exposure when you see that the last shot was either under or over exposed. 

 

Wilson

[jrp]

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I thought that the Leica Chief Exec was telling us only recently of his ambitions for Leica to be a Hardware, Software and Service company.    Yet, they can't wrangle the firmware.  The first firmware produced great colours, but image quality dipped at ISO 200.  The latest firmware fixed the latter (or reverted to the Beta behaviour) and added some handling improvements for manual shooting.  Since then, radio silence.

[brill64]

i think the yellow highlight is from your led lighting (around a mirror?) but it's mixed with a predominant flourescent light source for which the awb is correcting to daylight as best it can. it's very common to find this yellowing effect with mixed lighting interiors with any digital camera.

for your exteriors, are you shooting at +2ev or pushing the resulting correctly exposed jpg file +2ev in post? the latter can cause a cyan shift.

[adamdewilde]

I shoot the M240 and Monochrome with SF58 flashes set to TTL and slow speed sync at 1/focal length. This works well with the M240 in aperture priority mode, fixed ISO, even with the 58 on bounce and the secondary flash at 25 or 50% power fill in. This set up works as the light fades from late afternoon to into the evening, both inside and outside. Luckily my borrowed Monochrome will arrive with the wonderful 75APO Summicron on it, which avoids using my rather ordinary 75 Summarit. I will be swapping backwards and forwards between a Noctilux and 28 ASPH Summicron on my M240.

 

With the SF58 set to either TTL or Auto and the SL set to manual, flash exposure is just too unreliable with the flash straight ahead and hopeless on bounce. It takes too many button presses on the SL to get into flash set up to turn the flash power up or down to adjust exposure when you see that the last shot was either under or over exposed. 

 

Wilson

 

Oh I see.. I've never had good luck with the SF-24D, SF-58 or even SF-40 on the M240 or M-P240. I end up using Manual which can be a pain when you're moving around a room fast. 

[adamdewilde]

Well, if you need TONS of profiles, how can firmware cope? That can only be one-size-fits-all.

 

OTOH a simple dual-illuminant camera profile should do the trick for you.

 

I'm fine with my M/S/Q it's the SL that's a problem. I've tried profiling it a few times, in different lighting scenarios, mixed lighting etc.. It's really hit or miss. Sometimes it's fine, others it's terrible (RAW files) and the JPGS are just continuously terrible. I'm starting to wonder if it's not a firmware thing. 

Most of the time it's how the camera handles the highlights. BUT even when I under expose by two stops and bring it up, it happens. It's like the threshold for the highlights is really low. Worse then my M246

[Peter H]

Oh I see.. I've never had good luck with the SF-24D, SF-58 or even SF-40 on the M240 or M-P240. I end up using Manual which can be a pain when you're moving around a room fast. 

 

 

I do exactly he same as Wilson and find the SF58 works very nicely with the M240.

 

I often turn the front flash off completely depending on lighting but it's helpful when needed and very straightforward to operate and select its value.