Leica Q2 lessons for the CL - that extra button

[LocalHero1953]

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I am a button-phobe, but the CL has always seemed to be short of one button. I would really like to use back button focusing on the CL, but 'single action' tasks like this cannot be assigned to either the Fn button or the second dial button. Nor could the centre button on the direction pad be reassigned, even if this was allowed: it is needed for confirming menu and selection choices.

Leica has converged on a common interface for successively the CL, the M10 and now the Q2. The M10 doesn't need back button focusing, obviously. The Q2 does, and even with its reduced number of buttons, Leica has left the Zoom/Lock button in place, which @gotium and @jonoslack have just confirmed can be assigned to back button focusing.

I'm willing to bet the CL2 will have this button added. That's annoying - it's the one defect of the CL that regularly annoys me. 

[jaapv]

I'm sure the CL2 - due in a couple of years, I guess- will be a development of the ideas implemented in the Q2.  Weathersealing, EVF, interface, etc., maybe even IBIS... It is always a game of leapfrog.

[EUSe]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb jaapv:

I'm sure the CL2 - due in a couple of years, I guess- will be a development of the ideas implemented in the Q2.  Weathersealing, EVF, interface, etc., maybe even IBIS... It is always a game of leapfrog.

I really hope so, although the CL1 is pretty good already.

[LocalHero1953]

Yes, I agree - I don't want to overplay my annoyance!

[bags27]

I really love my Q and will eventually buy the Q2 (or maybe wait for the Q3!). But I'm developing a sort of smug attitude since I've bought the CL. It is such a cool marriage of digital image and film ergonomics. There are a number of things that make it a higher learning curve than the Q, but it is in its unique way at least as satisfying a camera.

[scott kirkpatrick]

14 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I am a button-phobe, but the CL has always seemed to be short of one button. I would really like to use back button focusing on the CL, but 'single action' tasks like this cannot be assigned to either the Fn button or the second dial button. Nor could the centre button on the direction pad be reassigned, even if this was allowed: it is needed for confirming menu and selection choices.

Leica has converged on a common interface for successively the CL, the M10 and now the Q2. The M10 doesn't need back button focusing, obviously. The Q2 does, and even with its reduced number of buttons, Leica has left the Zoom/Lock button in place, which @gotium and @jonoslack have just confirmed can be assigned to back button focusing.

I'm willing to bet the CL2 will have this button added. That's annoying - it's the one defect of the CL that regularly annoys me. 

Why does use of the center button for confirming a choice when the menus are active and visible interfere with its use to initiate single point or area AF when you are in manual focus mode and no menus are showing?  I would prefer a real joystick, which sticks up and is easier to press without also pressing a direction button, but I think it would work.  The joystick and the 4-way button with a center button should create identical streams of command data.  So I think the CL could do what we want today (with a SMOF -- small matter of firmware).

[LocalHero1953]

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Yes, that would work.  At present that button serves as a toggle for screen info, so you would end up having to choose between that and back button focusing (or other function).

Another way would be to allow single press actions (like back button focus, recentering the focus point, screen info toggling) to be assigned to the Fn or right dial button. In my normal usage I have User Profiles and ISO assigned to those buttons and I would not like to lose them.

These things come down to personal preference, but I would rather have the Q2's zoom/lock button than use an existing button.

Edited March 10, 2019 by LocalHero1953

[scott kirkpatrick]

I think Leica's drive for clear UIs would make them reluctant to have a button with two different single-press functions that apply during shooting.   Having to choose between AF on the center button (held because you are in MF) with the display contents fixed and no back button AF while you can cycle through two styles of display (something like 6 on the SL!) is unfortunate.  That's why there was one more back button on the SL, which can do back button AF.

Jono Slack and Sean Reid have written about their experiences talking to Leica about their ideas for good user experience.  Jono, for example, is in favor of user profiles as well as ability to choose uncoded lenses in the M10-D.  He seems to think that lens codes will happen and full user profiles will not.  I suspect there are still layers between the people they talk to and the team that actually write, test, and release the firmware and now Fotos software for each line of camera.  So helping Leica to do the right things is pretty hard! 

[Petercoll]

At the end of the day, it's the button on the top that takes the photo !!!

[colonel]

Personally I hope CL 2 is completley redesigned

I would like permanent aperture, speed, exposure dials and exposure comp switch

but thats just me

 

[jaapv]

If you have aperture and speed dials, what do you need EV comp for?

[cirke]

these settings works perfectly for me , ISO Auto up to 800
M mode  : left = aperture , right = speed

A mode : left aperture , right = E comp.

Edited March 15, 2019 by cirke

[lct]

Leica won't add another button or joystick to the back hopefully (for me). The Q2 has less of them than the Q apparently.