Leica Fotos App - feature requests

[DickieT]

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I though it could be useful to collect the various ideas and desires from M10-D owners here regarding the FOTOS app functionality to change the camera settings. Hopefully the Leica App developers read some of the discussions here and use the information in their advantage.

I can easily come up with 3 items :

1) Manual lens selection for all coded and non coded Leica lenses
2) Free file and folder naming on the SD card
3) toggle on/off the "999" i.e. images left to shoot on your card in the range finder right after you fire the shutter. This should only be visible when you click the 'functions' button

Please feel free to add! 

Dick

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[scott kirkpatrick]

(copied from another thread with different title:

 

here's my list:

for all the cameras -- make the WiFi hotspot wake up faster, or if there are multiple steps, form the connection with the phone fast  and signal that other parts of the program are still initializing.  For FOTOS, be able to suppress reading all the files on the (perhaps nearly full) SD card when the user just wants to check or modify a setting, or go into remote mode.  Right now, the SL and CL are relatively fast starting, the M10 and M10-D are quite slow.  The SL with Android FOTOS is easily hung or disconnected by trying to do things in FOTOS too quickly.  Fix that.

For the M10-D, where getting at settings is especially important, complete the list of accessible functions claimed in the users' manual:

   supplying the code for an R or an uncoded M lens seems top priority

   then allowing modifications of the file names produced -- choose a first letter, choose the folder number to start with, enter the copyright or artist name.

 

Eventually it would be nice to have

   Make FOTOS a better remote interface, faster, and with all information that is available in the EVF on the camera including the histogram.

   Leica didn't promise it, but the M10-P can magnify the live view image around the spot that you touch on the LCD, so why not FOTOS?  On the SL and CL AF at the point you touch is working, so there is some sort of interface available.  (There is a way to move the magnified image region in the EVF without FOTOS, but it is so hard to find and use that it qualifies as an Easter egg, not a feature.)

[LocalHero1953]

- When reading the photos available on the camera, read the most recent first, and allow you to select and download just the latest. Don't try and display all of the shots on the SD card, which could be many hundreds - this takes far too long. There should be a 'Download all' option though.

- Indicator of progress of downloads, not just a bar display. Grey out those images already downloaded.

- Much faster downloads!

- Fotos app for Windows 10 (I suppose those strange people who use MacOS might want this as well).

[APA_Leica]

1.  That  the user can actually change the drive function from the fotos app (this feature appears to be there, but does not work).

2. Slower startup time as Scott explains above.

Paul

[Guest]

The only thing I would want would be that the set-up menu could be accessed in the EVF so one wouldn't have to bother with the 'phone / WiFi / FOTOS link at all. If that could happen then the "linking/access" via 'phone would be totally unnecessary.......I wouldn't use the WiFi or FOTOS at all if I didn't have to connect to a 'phone to access the menus on the M10-D, as it is I think I've only messed with that twice in the past month or so of M10-D ownership. 

Downloading the picture to a 'phone too is something I don't need or use, for me there's no value in that. Removing the SD card and pulling the images directly is much surer than downloading to a 'phone. Checking the images after shooting? I wouldn't do that either because why am I using a MD rather than the M10 if I feel I need to review the shots? And anyway why would I want to download to a phone rather than a "proper" computer that can deal so much better with the large full res' DNG images?

[scott kirkpatrick]

4 hours ago, APA_Leica said:

1.  That  the user can actually change the drive function from the fotos app (this feature appears to be there, but does not work).

2. Slower startup time as Scott explains above.

Paul

on 1, several people have found that the setting changes in the camera (so if you press the physical shutter button the drive mode is changed) but the FOTOS remote mode still gets a single shot.  That's a bug, and I'm sure they are working on it.

on 2, I hope you mean shorter startup time, faster startup.  I agree -- this could be a big incentive to use Fotos, or at present a disincentive.

 

[hteasley]

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If the camera thinks it isn't capable of live view, it won't connect. I'd like it to connect anyway, so I could browse images on the camera.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Do you mean that if there is no lens attached, it won't connect?  I'll try it and see, but later today.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I've tried chasing down the "If the camera thinks it isn't capable of live view, it won't connect" complaint, but I can't reproduce it.  With an SL and a CL, each with the lens removed and a body cap in place, I could connect to the cameras, see recent exposures, and even go into remote mode, in which the image was black, but the aperture mode and auto ISO settings were indicated.  With the M10-D, no lens, I could connect, review settings, but could not enter remote mode.  FOTOS did exit that mode and resume operating by using the back button.  The M10 did give some trouble.  I could connect and review pictures on the chip, but when I entered remote mode, it tried to send a message saying no lens attached (which appears on the LCD).  That was too much for FOTOS, which simply disconnected.  Also, FOTOS in the course of this experiment reported that the M10 had only 4% of its battery capacity left.  I pressed the INFO button, and it indicated 60%.  When I stopped I put the battery into a lLeica charger and it is already indicating 80% or better.

Did you have another setup in mind, in which the camera was not capable of live view?

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by scott kirkpatrick

[HELM]

Store to micro-SD card - it seems to default on my Samsung S8 to phone storage (Which is full)

"save as" with a folder choice is so 1999 🙂

[scott kirkpatrick]

Incidentally, it's important to distinguish gripes and good stuff on the iPad/iPhone version of FOTOS from what you see or want to see on the Android version.  Although the intent seems to be to make them the same, the code base has to be different, and they are not bug-for-bug compatible.  I use mostly the Android version, but check things on the iPad version.  The customer feedback option is only working on my Android phone, but that is not Leica's fault.

[scott kirkpatrick]

In a thread on the SL forum, it was pointed out that when you have WLAN on, interval shots are greyed out in the drive mode menu, and vice versa.  So you can't launch FOTOS and then take a time series of shots.  But on the M10 and M10-D, you can do this.  However, setting the parameters for the time sequence requires going to a second menu, not accessible over FOTOS on either camera.  On the M10, even while FOTOS is active, you can get to that menu but on the M10-D obviously you cannot.  Does anyone want to launch a time series from the Fotos remote panel?

edit:  The use case that an SL owner has in mind is an upcoming lunar eclipse.  That makes sense to me. You could ride gain on the exposure settings while the camera clicks away every few seconds on interval.

Edited January 16, 2019 by scott kirkpatrick

[simonoz]

I'm very annoyed that the fotos app will only download the full resolution file from my M10. You The old M app allowed you to choose smaller file sizes so that I could email photos directly from a location shoot then download the full DNG later on a laptop. 

I'v emailed Leica app team and they still don't know when that function will be enabled. It's a deal breaker for me.

[hteasley]

On 1/14/2019 at 12:17 PM, scott kirkpatrick said:

I've tried chasing down the "If the camera thinks it isn't capable of live view, it won't connect" complaint, but I can't reproduce it.

 

I should have been clear in my complaint, but it is with the M10 that I encounter the issue. If the camera can't do live view, it won't connect to the app. This happens when no lens is connected, and also happened when I had an LTM adapted lens connected.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I found that FOTOS disconnected when my M10 tried to send a message to the LCD in remote mode.  That may be what you encountered.

[scott kirkpatrick]

This point was made in another thread.  The M10-D can accept firmware upgrades (so can the M-D), but the camera has no way to confirm the current firmware level.  Since FOTOS can do some things with the M10-D, such as format cards, that were impossible before, why not add the ability to display the firmware level.  Firmware updates are likely, since the M10-D seems to have the capability to be around and in use for a while.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Fotos is now 1.1 on both iOS and Android.  New firmware released for the SL and Q apparently brings their WiFi functions into the standard one step form that we already see on the M10s and the CL Bugfixes and increased stability, possible quicker connections, are claimed.  I haven't had time to test all this, except on the SL, which works fine.  Has anyone checked for new stuff or improved performance?

Has the problem hteasley reported gone away?

Edited February 1, 2019 by scott kirkpatrick

[Coltma]

5 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Has the problem hteasley reported gone away?

Yes, just tested without lens. Works fine.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[scott kirkpatrick]

Good.  But as far as I can tell, no new functions or settings are exposed on the M10-D by the latest Fotos.

[Chris]

4 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Good.  But as far as I can tell, no new functions or settings are exposed on the M10-D by the latest Fotos.

Yeah... it‘s a bummer. Hopefully they rotate between stability (this last one) and feature updates (maybe the next one?!)