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Leica Q: Firmware Update v3.0


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The thing why i didnt understand your question is: I use Screen (Display) / EVF in Auto-Mode, that means when the cam is not on my eye, it shows everything on the touchscreen. 

 

What i miss is: Normally i would prefer the EVF-Mode only, but there is no easy way to activate the screen. I miss a feature like this: In EVF-Only mode there should be a setting so that with just one tap on the touchscreen it will be activated. Then you can activate the screen again without the cam on your eye... Or does anybody know how to activate the screen very fast in "EVF only" mode

 

 

You can assign the Fn button to LCD/EVF settings, it’s not exactly what you are asking for but it’s better than before.

yes. i also think that`s the best workaround at the moment

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I’ve been experimenting with the SF-40 flash and the new Electronic Shutter settings. This is what I discovered. Not too surprising once you think about it.

 

Electronic Shutter On = No Flash.

Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash On = Shutter limited to <= 1/2000.

Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash OFF = Shutter full range up to 1/16,000.

Electronic Shutter Off = Shutter <= 1/2000, Flash works normally.

Edited by Infiniumguy
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I’ve been experimenting with the SF-40 flash and the new Electronic Shutter settings. This is what I discovered. Not too surprising once you think about it.

 

Electronic Shutter On = No Flash.

Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash On = Shutter limited to <= 1/2000.

Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash OFF = Shutter full range up to 1/16,000.

Electronic Shutter Off = Shutter <= 1/2000, Flash works normally.

 

In this configuration: Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash On = Shutter limited to <= 1/2000

 

Will the flash actually sync at 1/2000? I never use on-camera flash, but often with multi flashes in the studio or on location... if so, that would be a revelation.

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I installed the 3.0 yesterday and have been using the Q for most of the day today. Favourites menu is helpful, exporting and importing user profiles saves much time after any camera reset and the possibility to set the OIS to automatically become active at 1/60 s is very good.

Otherwise I'm really disappointed.

 

The naming of user profiles is almost useless because when I select them from the Fn-button, they still appear as numbers only.

 

In the way I use my Q the most irritating behaviours still persist:

 

1. Occasional freezing continues. Today the camera froze twice. A new behaviour was that the live view was working as it should, but the camera would not take pictures nor respond to any attempted action. The only remedy still is to take the battery out. Because the camera is so silent I may not immediately realize that the camera is frozen. Therefore I lost a few shots.

 

2. Very slow activation of the EVF when I raise the camera to the eye. I have to continue using the pre-activation technique by putting my left hand thumb close to the eyepiece.

 

3. No underexposure indication with Auto ISO.

 

4. Still lacking a "Settings-only" - display on the LCD panel, without live-view.

 

It is really a pity that a camera of this level of mechanical and image quality has such a poor electronics/software.

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In this configuration: Electronic Shutter Extended and Flash On = Shutter limited to <= 1/2000

 

Will the flash actually sync at 1/2000? I never use on-camera flash, but often with multi flashes in the studio or on location... if so, that would be a revelation.

It does sync up to and including 1/2000 shutter speed. That’s the fastest the leaf shutter in the lens operates thus why for faster shutter speeds it uses the electronic shutter (but the flash does not operate). The aperture and ISO controls the light assuming your flashes are in manual.

 

How do you trigger multiple flashes in studio?

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Documentation:

 

* Thanks to other posters here that noted this omission: you must hold down the video button when powering up to load the firmware.

 

* The instructions tell you to download your user settings before doing the firmware upgrade. Seems to me though that you can only download your user settings to an SD card if you have version 3! OOPS.

 

Functionality:

 

* for me, the BEST SINGLE fix is that now you can make so that you don't start shooting cine from the shutter release if you happen to be in the view mode with the video icon. This was just nuts... That's the good news. The bad news is 1) you would never know that from reading the firmware install instructions Overview (usually you want to put the good stuff in the release notes!) and 2) it isn't very intuitive how to set it (the secret is Main Menu/Customize Control/Mode lock Photo/Video OFF. Not a great choice of option name... For some reason they didn't make this the default (boggles my mind because I never shoot video on the Q, but to each their own) and 3) the iconography in both Lock Photo/Video OFF and ON appears to be the same (little "x" in the corner of the video icon).

 

* There are lots of FN button enhancements, but you can easily get confused if you don’t realize that you can’t click no on items that are actively selected in the FN menu. Only a minor set up annoyance once you figure this out. No excuse to not clearly document this in the release notes at least.

 

* Not part of the upgrade, but if you enjoy the small sized single focus spot, you will need to reset it after the upgrade. This is done easily if you press the delete key and turn the thumb wheel.

 

All in all I'm thankful that Leica has given us this upgrade and they have fixed my biggest issue. I wish that they had beta tested their upgrade so the documentation was right and I do think they have a few bugs left, but I'm excited to shoot with V3.0!

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It does sync up to and including 1/2000 shutter speed. That’s the fastest the leaf shutter in the lens operates thus why for faster shutter speeds it uses the electronic shutter (but the flash does not operate). The aperture and ISO controls the light assuming your flashes are in manual.

 

How do you trigger multiple flashes in studio?

 

I thought I read in the owner's manual the leaf shutter would sync only up to 1/500, so I never tried anything faster. I need to read that section again, I guess. That seemed right because 1/500 was as fast as the leaf shutters would sync in the Hasselblad film cameras of yore I used to use. Back in the day when shooting color pro/college basketball for Sports Illustrated, I used 'Blads because they synced at a higher speed than Nikons (1/125) with the Speedotron strobes we had up in the arena's ceiling.

Anyway, I use a set of (up to) five Profoto monolight strobes in the studio and sometimes on location. Cameras don't have PC terminals anymore, so I use a PC terminal adapter in the hot shoe (a Nikon piece) then a coiled PC cord goes to a Pocket Wizard wireless trigger on my belt. I have the Pocket Wizard's mate hanging on the stand of one of the strobes that it's plugged into. All of the Profoto heads have internal slaves. The remote trigger allows me to walk around easily. I'm old school - the strobes are all manual, and I use an incident light/flash meter to set my ratios. I've been doing it that way for 40 years, so it's very easy for me. I don't know much about TTL flash shooting. The nice thing about using high shutter speeds, is bring able to use wider apertures/less DOF. There's only so far you can turn down powerful strobes units, and even at 1/4 power, they still put out a lot of light. The Q is a fun camera to use for location editorial portraits and studio work. 

Edited by beez
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Documentation:

 

* Thanks to other posters here that noted this omission: you must hold down the video button when powering up to load the firmware.

 

* The instructions tell you to download your user settings before doing the firmware upgrade. Seems to me though that you can only download your user settings to an SD card if you have version 3! OOPS.

 

Functionality:

 

* for me, the BEST SINGLE fix is that now you can make so that you don't start shooting cine from the shutter release if you happen to be in the view mode with the video icon. This was just nuts... That's the good news. The bad news is 1) you would never know that from reading the firmware install instructions Overview (usually you want to put the good stuff in the release notes!) and 2) it isn't very intuitive how to set it (the secret is Main Menu/Customize Control/Mode lock Photo/Video OFF. Not a great choice of option name... For some reason they didn't make this the default (boggles my mind because I never shoot video on the Q, but to each their own) and 3) the iconography in both Lock Photo/Video OFF and ON appears to be the same (little "x" in the corner of the video icon).

 

* There are lots of FN button enhancements, but you can easily get confused if you don’t realize that you can’t click no on items that are actively selected in the FN menu. Only a minor set up annoyance once you figure this out. No excuse to not clearly document this in the release notes at least.

 

* Not part of the upgrade, but if you enjoy the small sized single focus spot, you will need to reset it after the upgrade. This is done easily if you press the delete key and turn the thumb wheel.

 

All in all I'm thankful that Leica has given us this upgrade and they have fixed my biggest issue. I wish that they had beta tested their upgrade so the documentation was right and I do think they have a few bugs left, but I'm excited to shoot with V3.0!

Not sure what I’m missing but the video lock in either position still lets me shoot video from the shutter, and I’d rather disable this.

 

*** Figured it out. The icon is still there but doesn’t start the video. Much better though I could live without the icon.

Edited by creidtaylor
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I thought I read in the owner's manual the leaf shutter would sync only up to 1/500, so I never tried anything faster. I need to read that section again, I guess. That seemed right because 1/500 was as fast as the leaf shutters would sync in the Hasselblad film cameras of yore I used to use. Back in the day when shooting color pro/college basketball for Sports Illustrated, I used 'Blads because they synced at a higher speed than Nikons (1/125) with the Speedotron strobes we had up in the arena's ceiling.

Anyway, I use a set of (up to) five Profoto monolight strobes in the studio and sometimes on location. Cameras don't have PC terminals anymore, so I use a PC terminal adapter in the hot shoe (a Nikon piece) then a coiled PC cord goes to a Pocket Wizard wireless trigger on my belt. I have the Pocket Wizard's mate hanging on the stand of one of the strobes that it's plugged into. All of the Profoto heads have internal slaves. The remote trigger allows me to walk around easily. I'm old school - the strobes are all manual, and I use an incident light/flash meter to set my ratios. I've been doing it that way for 40 years, so it's very easy for me. I don't know much about TTL flash shooting. The nice thing about using high shutter speeds, is bring able to use wider apertures/less DOF. There's only so far you can turn down powerful strobes units, and even at 1/4 power, they still put out a lot of light. The Q is a fun camera to use for location editorial portraits and studio work.

Wow. I’m very impressed with your studio setup. Please post some studio photos someday. If you have already, apologies. I’ll look.

 

I didn’t look at the manual. I hate reading manuals although sometimes I have to to find obscure details.

 

I simply turned on the SF-40 and set the shutter speed to 1/2000. The resulting image looked normal to me and the flash definitely fired. I most often use manual on flashes. I like the constant light level. I use the camera on full manual also. I think a key is its a leaf shutter in the lens and not a focal plane shutter.

 

Let me know if you learn anything contrary to what I’ve posted.

Edited by Infiniumguy
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can I upgrade from 1.1 to 3.0 directly?

I never upgraded to 2.) because I was not sure that it was worth the upgrade.

I have followed all the steps and I still have not been able to upgrade to 3.)

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can I upgrade from 1.1 to 3.0 directly?

I never upgraded to 2.) because I was not sure that it was worth the upgrade.

I have followed all the steps and I still have not been able to upgrade to 3.)

There is no reason why you can’t! FW 3.0 should contain FW 2.0.

 

I’d go back to post #15 to identify which file is the right one to download (the 3rd file) and back to post #1 to repeat all 9 steps. If no success then try to install FW 2.0 but I do not know where to get it. Others might know.

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...has such a poor electronics/software.

 

Try Olympus cameras sometime, you'll learn the true meaning of bad software <_<

 

Q's firmware has been a solid "it just works" territory for me. It's a bit opinionated so not everyone gets the camera act like they want to.

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I bit the bullet and upgraded the firmware. Really like the increased capacity and usefulness of the FN button. Almost makes the new Favorites menu unnecessary. Good to have the flexibility and configurability.

 

Sadly the back button didn't gain any new options, I thought it did?

 

I also noticed that the preview pictures that Q produces alongside DNG files got more crisp. This used to be a (very minor) problem when I shoot DNG only; the embedded preview image wasn't sharp enough to judge focus accuracy. (You could circumvent this issue by shooting DNG+JPEG.) Now it seems to be. :)

 

Any issues I had, had to do with the settings resetting to defaults. I lamented for a while how the camera flashes some UI bits in the viewfinder/LCD after taking a shot at 0-second review. Nasty issue if you ask me. Didn't help to disable all the image review UI bits either. But it fixed the issue when I went to review mode and selected a mode that shows nothing but the picture.

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Thanks for checking! That's true. But the other danger is to toggle to the video screen and when you press the regular shoot button, it turns on the video. Either on or off, you have only one protection, and I accidentally toggle the screen far more often than I accidentally hit the red button. So, mine stays off.

 

I find that neither setting (On or Off for Mode Lock Photo/Video) stops the toggling of the Video Capture screen. Very annoying - I have my JPEGs set to BW (partly) so that I can see if I've accidentally switched to that screen!

 

(OK, as mentioned above - you still see the Video screen, but now pressing the shutter now just takes a still photo - still confusing, be better if there was no video screen with the On setting.)

Edited by Sulis
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Try Olympus cameras sometime, you'll learn the true meaning of bad software <_<

 

Q's firmware has been a solid "it just works" territory for me. It's a bit opinionated so not everyone gets the camera act like they want to.

 

I wouldn't like to take the worst software as reference when evaluating the Q. However, repeatedly crashing software in Q is just poor quality.

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However, repeatedly crashing software in Q is just poor quality.

That's just bad polemics.

 

Neither the current firmware nor the previous versions had this problem.

 

Many beta testers had the current software in use for several months, I myself even on two different cameras with different settings. There were no crash problems at any time.

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