Leica CL/TL2 and TL Firmware Update with Improvements, New Features and Bug Fixes

[jaapv]

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As a moderator, thanks for such a productive and useful post. BTW, you might want to edit the OP to include bugs in the installation and correct faulty instructions. That would be the moderator thing to do. 

Which raises the question: what level of handholding is the cut-off point of faulty instructions?

[albert]

You may wish to use a different card for firmware updates as well. This way your normal card will not be formatted and your SETTINGS.LCS file won't be erased accordingly. That is always what i'm doing personally. YMMV.

Sorry that I missed the boat but I have no idea how to obtain the latest firmware for my CL. Currently, it is version 1.0.

[jaapv]

http://us.leica-camera.com/Photography/Leica-APS-C/Leica-CL/Downloads

[albert]

http://us.leica-camera.com/Photography/Leica-APS-C/Leica-CL/Downloads

Is the upgrade of any value for me? I always shoot auto everything, spot focus, P, then have some fun on my iMAC and Photoshop. I know this disqualifis me as a legitimate Leica officianado and exposes me to multiple criticisms regarding money wasted, amateurism, social media poster, etc. etc. etc. but I just love Leica products.

[jaapv]

As we know you, Albert - don't.

It will add nothing to your photography and you would have to come to grips with the changes in the menus.

Just continue to have fun - the basic qualification for a Leica aficionado.  

[ramarren]

Is the upgrade of any value for me? I always shoot auto everything, spot focus, P, then have some fun on my iMAC and Photoshop. I know this disqualifis me as a legitimate Leica officianado and exposes me to multiple criticisms regarding money wasted, amateurism, social media poster, etc. etc. etc. but I just love Leica products.

Albert: I disagree with jaapv. Whether or not you use the specific improvements that the upgrade offers, I always recommend that you should upgrade to the latest firmware. There have been no backwards steps in it that I've experienced and one of the additions ... the left button "lock everything except the shutter release" long press ... has actually proven to be quite useful in the course of the trip I'm in the middle of. I use it far more often than I suspected I might when I first read about it.

[albert]

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Albert: I disagree with jaapv. Whether or not you use the specific improvements that the upgrade offers, I always recommend that you should upgrade to the latest firmware. There have been no backwards steps in it that I've experienced and one of the additions ... the left button "lock everything except the shutter release" long press ... has actually proven to be quite useful in the course of the trip I'm in the middle of. I use it far more often than I suspected I might when I first read about it.

Thank you very much. For what it’s worth I have never touched the buttons.

[albert]

As we know you, Albert - don't.

It will add nothing to your photography and you would have to come to grips with the changes in the menus.

Just continue to have fun - the basic qualification for a Leica aficionado.

Jaapv: Thank you for teaching me how to spell aficionado.

Also, for the good advice customized for my method of operation.

[jaapv]

Albert: I disagree with jaapv. Whether or not you use the specific improvements that the upgrade offers, I always recommend that you should upgrade to the latest firmware. There have been no backwards steps in it that I've experienced and one of the additions ... the left button "lock everything except the shutter release" long press ... has actually proven to be quite useful in the course of the trip I'm in the middle of. I use it far more often than I suspected I might when I first read about it.

I have a fixed rule about updates: If it offers no clear improvements, don't. For all software, not just cameras. It has saved me loads of digital grief over time

[lct]

I don't update softwares when i don't need the features they provide either but the new Button Lock and Power Saving Mode proved so handy that i see no reason to give up on the v 2.0 firmware update personally. YMMV.

[bags27]

I can't tell you how much I rue just updating Microsoft Office. But I say that every time I update Microsoft Office.....

[ramarren]

I have a fixed rule about updates: If it offers no clear improvements, don't. For all software, not just cameras. It has saved me loads of digital grief over time

  

 

I don't update softwares when i don't need the features they provide either but the new Button Lock and Power Saving Mode proved so handy that i see no reason to give up on the v 2.0 firmware update personally. YMMV.

Hmm. I was in a support role in the computer industry for a while when I was contracting. And I worked on many software update teams for OS and app software at both Apple and Sun during the course of my career. As a result, my attitude is exactly the opposite of yours: I always update all software, all OS and apps, whenever there is an update available. There are typically three to ten times the number of bug fixes and improvements made in every update than are ever documented to the public, and by not updating you are not getting the advantage of thousands of user reports and thousands of hours of engineering development time and effort to fix and improve everything. As a contractor doing system support, maintenance, and bug fixing, 90% of all the issues my clients ran into were fixed best by simply updating their OS and app installations to the latest revisions from the vendors.

 

When apps update into regressions, repeatedly, I stop using them and move on to other products. This is why there are no Microsoft apps on my computers at all: too many update regressions and no particular need to run Microsoft apps for collaboration with others. It's why I'm phasing out Adobe products too: competing solutions are proving less expensive, simpler, and more robust in use. Not one firmware update on any of the about four dozen digital cameras I've owned in the past twenty years has been a regression for my uses, although some new bugs have surfaced that proved a minor annoyance until a dot-dot release came out.

 

That's my opinion and experience ... I'll keep doing what I do, because my systems and cameras generally speaking run without a hitch for years at a time with no maintenance effort other than doing the updates themselves.

[lct]

Horses for courses. All those useless (for me) updates are too time consuming and make me feel like a slave of technology. I'm still using my old Photoshop CS3 go figure and i update C1 only when i need it for my actual cameras. BTW i'm still using Word and Excel standalones for my job and i'm not in a hurry to "upgrade" to current versions at all. Been doing this since the eighties so my case is hopeless i'm afraid. Now i'm glad to update when new features are of interest to me like Button Lock and Power Saving Mode in firmware 2.0 for the digital CL. YMMV again.

[jaapv]

If you like CS3 you'll hate C1

[jaapv]

  

 

 

Hmm. I was in a support role in the computer industry for a while when I was contracting. And I worked on many software update teams for OS and app software at both Apple and Sun during the course of my career. As a result, my attitude is exactly the opposite of yours: I always update all software, all OS and apps, whenever there is an update available. There are typically three to ten times the number of bug fixes and improvements made in every update than are ever documented to the public, and by not updating you are not getting the advantage of thousands of user reports and thousands of hours of engineering development time and effort to fix and improve everything. As a contractor doing system support, maintenance, and bug fixing, 90% of all the issues my clients ran into were fixed best by simply updating their OS and app installations to the latest revisions from the vendors.

 

When apps update into regressions, repeatedly, I stop using them and move on to other products. This is why there are no Microsoft apps on my computers at all: too many update regressions and no particular need to run Microsoft apps for collaboration with others. It's why I'm phasing out Adobe products too: competing solutions are proving less expensive, simpler, and more robust in use. Not one firmware update on any of the about four dozen digital cameras I've owned in the past twenty years has been a regression for my uses, although some new bugs have surfaced that proved a minor annoyance until a dot-dot release came out.

 

That's my opinion and experience ... I'll keep doing what I do, because my systems and cameras generally speaking run without a hitch for years at a time with no maintenance effort other than doing the updates themselves.

Quite - but when it runs without a hitch why update and run into update bugs?

[lct]

If you like CS3 you'll hate C1

 

Been using it before you were born to photography i suspect

[ramarren]

Quite - but when it runs without a hitch why update and run into update bugs?

Because in the most usual case, you obtain improved performance and reliability. It's a trade off ... a small amount of risk for a modest amount of benefit. It's TANSTAAFL in action.

 

If you know that a particular update breaks somethiing that you are dependent upon, and you don't feel the need to change your workflow, don't update. But being fearful of updates because everything seems fine isn't warranted by the evidence: most updates actually do improve functionality and make your life easier, with the side benefit of sometimes adding functionality that works better for some new thing. The side benefit of keeping up with incremental updates is that when larger, quantum jumps occur, the update process is usually a lot less painful if most of what you have installed is already up to date with the previous incremental updates. (It's far easier to test an update against the last released version of any specific thing than to test it against all the versions that were obsoleted who knows how many revisions before that...!)

 

I update everything all the time ... It's part of normal maintenance of my computing systems, just like putting fuel in my car every other week and having the oil changed every 5000 miles, or lubricating an external hinge on the back door every few months because the lubricant is washed away by rain. I use a lot of different devices and mechanisms ... I want them all to work together smoothly and reliably. Maintenance is essential to achieve that since all these things change over time, at different rates.

 

My car, motorcycle, bicycle, computer, toaster, doors, stove, dishwasher, refrigerator, piano, lamps, clocks, windows, shoes, light switches, et al all benefit from regular maintenance and updating. Why shouldn't my cameras?

[jaapv]

With Leica, the updates include the increments of the previous ones, so that is no problem

[ramarren]

So what? All the other devices in my home that take firmware updates do the same... Not a big deal, or a big plus.

 

Firmware updates are only rarely incremental things. In the vast majority of cases, you're replacing all of the operational code for any firmware update. That doesn't mean that having an old version installed implies no change whatever in the update process compared to having the previous most recent version installed. The install process itself (for self-installing systems like the Leicas) is part of the firmware and can be subject to improvement with every successive revision.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[jaapv]

No contest - I know that - you started about increments . Whatever - I'll stick to the if-it-aint-broke-don't-fix-it  school of thought