M10 Monochrom Firmware Improvement Suggestions

[shirubadanieru]

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By the way I set my MM to go to auto-sleep after two minutes, and yesterday night I left it in auto-sleep, woke up this morning and the battery was all gone...:o might be a software bug that I wanted to highlight...as I don’t think auto sleep mode is supposed to deplete the battery.

[Gerbs]

My current top wish for a firmware update is a stronger Level Gauge. I find the tool incredibly useful, but also incredibly difficult to see. The little lines on the side in red practically disappear when I am outside, and I end up not even seeing them, randomly tilting until the main level line turns green. Also, sometimes that is even hard to see when the camera is held low and I am looking at the back of the camera at a shallow angle. In that case a vertical line in the center that moved left and right like a bubble level would easily show up!

Some of the issue I am sure are my old eyes and bifocals. One other thought, there's a lot of red/green color blindness, I shudder to think about how the red lines in the Level Gauge would disappear for them.

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[Gerbs]

I have been experimenting with ETTR, Exposure To The Right, and I'd sure like to see the option of having Exposure Bracketing more flexible. In this case either 1 or 2 frames LOWER than my choice for optimal exposure (say .3EV and 1EV lower), and maybe even with the option of having them not evenly spaced. With this camera, in monochrome only, and using Live View, it seems quite possible to hit the best exposure quite accurately for ETTR. However, if there is an error, it is wanting the exposure to have been slightly darker.

[Gerbs]

On 4/19/2020 at 7:21 AM, Gerbs said:

My current top wish for a firmware update is a stronger Level Gauge. I find the tool incredibly useful, but also incredibly difficult to see. The little lines on the side in red practically disappear when I am outside, and I end up not even seeing them, randomly tilting until the main level line turns green. Also, sometimes that is even hard to see when the camera is held low and I am looking at the back of the camera at a shallow angle. In that case a vertical line in the center that moved left and right like a bubble level would easily show up!

Some of the issue I am sure are my old eyes and bifocals. One other thought, there's a lot of red/green color blindness, I shudder to think about how the red lines in the Level Gauge would disappear for them.

I know, commenting on my own comment! Was out in the sun yesterday, sometimes working on a tripod, and I ***really*** want the Level Gauge bigger! Please please please. With my bifocals, I need to be at such a specific distance to stand a chance of seeing it the way it is, it is just cumbersome and often impractical to use.

[strohscw]

My top two wishes:

1.) Give me the possibility to select also a Min. ISO with the AutoISO

2.) Get rid of the SD-Card problems asap. Due to the fact that I have only one card in the camera I need to be sure that it works!

[shirubadanieru]

I’ve been testing auto ISO and don’t like the behavior that much...Leica always tries to select the lowest ISO (even if that means that the shutter speed is beyond 1/250)...this could be better balanced and prioritize faster shutter speeds when possible (ie above 1/250 for example). 

Because of this I had to change the settings of Auto ISO to a min shutter speed of 1/250 so that I can use it during daylight. But then if I want to shoot at night I need to change the settings to reduce the shutter speed to 1/30 which is a bit of a pain...I wish the camera could be smarter in this sense. 

[Gerbs]

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Although probably not practical, it would be grand to somehow be able to add a customized list for Manual lens detection. For non-Leica lenses you occasionally choose to use. Or even a way to specify ONLY the lens length as a less favorable way of identifying a lens that is non-Leica, while giving the camera and metadata valid information.

[jcm0]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:52 AM, shirubadanieru said:

I had to change the settings of Auto ISO to a min shutter speed of 1/250 so that I can use it during daylight. But then if I want to shoot at night I need to change the settings to reduce the shutter speed to 1/30

 

On my M10M (firmware 2.12.8.0), when I select a min shutter speed of 1/250 for example, on low light (e.g. by night), the camera will try to choose the highest possible ISO and if you set a maximum value (e.g  ISO 2500), it will automatically lower the shutter speed to get a correct exposure, so, it may reach 1/30 ... or even below resulting in a blurred picture.

 

My personnal wish would be an option to always keep the shutter speed egal or above the shutter limit configured (1/250s, 1/f, or any other setting) even if this will produce an underexposed shot : this is because, and especially with the leica M10M, an underexposed shot is much better than a blurred shot, as the underexposure can be, at least partially, fixed during development.

Moreover, on Leica digital camera (tested on M9 and M240, and as far as I've seen this is also the case with the M10M), you get a much lower noise when selecting a moderate ISO and pushing on development stage than using a high ISO value. For the M9 the limit was 640 Iso, for the M240 it was 1280 Iso, for the M10M, I currently use 2500 Iso. For the M9 and the M240, an underexposure of 3 or even 4 EV was ok, whereas 1 EV on shutter speed under your handheld limit may produce an ugly shot.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by jcm0

[Dsauro]

Given the sensitivity to highlight headroom, I would love a histogram based on raw data and not jpeg.  This would not only be a Leica game changer but an industry game changer.  

[Jeff S]

30 minutes ago, Dsauro said:

Given the sensitivity to highlight headroom, I would love a histogram based on raw data and not jpeg.  This would not only be a Leica game changer but an industry game changer.  

The original Monochrom provides a RAW histogram.

Jeff

[T25UFO]

On 5/6/2020 at 11:52 PM, shirubadanieru said:

I’ve been testing auto ISO and don’t like the behavior that much...Leica always tries to select the lowest ISO (even if that means that the shutter speed is beyond 1/250)...this could be better balanced and prioritize faster shutter speeds when possible (ie above 1/250 for example). 

Because of this I had to change the settings of Auto ISO to a min shutter speed of 1/250 so that I can use it during daylight. But then if I want to shoot at night I need to change the settings to reduce the shutter speed to 1/30 which is a bit of a pain...I wish the camera could be smarter in this sense. 

I use Auto ISO with longest shutter speed set to 1/250th most of the time.  It works for me.  When I need something different for low light photography I just set the ISO manually.  One click and it's done.  That's what the ISO dial is for 🙂.

[strohscw]

Am 24.6.2020 um 10:34 schrieb T25UFO:

I use Auto ISO with longest shutter speed set to 1/250th most of the time.  It works for me.  When I need something different for low light photography I just set the ISO manually.  One click and it's done.  That's what the ISO dial is for 🙂.

Yes, this is also my workflow. The only thing is that I would also like to set the min. ISO, for ex. 400 ISO

[jcm0]

I would like to suggest an improvment that could be especially useful for farsighted people (like me), but may benefit anyone as well.

I bought a correction lens for my M10M, and it helped me a lot: I am now able to take a picture without the need to use my glasses. ... But ... I am still unable to review a picture to verify if it is blurred or not. The M10M thanks to the touch screen allows in one tap on the screen to view the picture at 100% enlargement, and this is really great. But 100% is not enough, even with my glasses, to determine quickly if a texture is visible which would say the picture is not blurred. 

It would be great if one could review the recorded pictures with a higher enlargement : 200%  400%. Of course the enlargment must be correctly made using a good interpolation algorithm which doesn't destroy sharpness. This should be an achievable challenge for Leica.

This could be done in several ways:

- choose the enlargement defaut value in the menu: 100% 200% 400%

- in play mode, use the rear wheel to continue to zoom in up to 400%

- in play mode, press the focus button located on the front of the camera to jump to 400% enlargment.

 

 

[t00l1024]

Simple "fix" - Some consistency in interface across products.

Left is a Q2. Right is a M10 Monochrom.

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