cl: waiting impatiently for mine

[jaapv]

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It is the same 3M adhesive tape used to stick logos and decals to cars. It never comes loose, yet it can be twisted off and removed without residue.

The user profiles are not really meant to change one setting. They are really useful for cases that you need to change the setup of the camera for a different use. For instance, with a long lens you  might want to  change to shutter priority, auto-ISO, and spot AF. For general. it might be Aperture priority, ISO 200 and field AF.  Putting them all in a user profile allows you to change all three settings in one go. It is also useful to set up one profile with all the settings you will use regularly to use as a "standard" profile that you can always revert to.

[gteague]

4 minutes ago, jaapv said:

It is the same 3M adhesive tape used to stick logos and decals to cars. It never comes loose, yet it can be twisted off and removed without residue.

The user profiles are not really meant to change one setting. They are really useful for cases that you need to change the setup of the camera for a different use. For instance, with a long lens you  might want to  change to shutter priority, auto-ISO, and spot AF. For general. it might be Aperture priority, ISO 200 and field AF.  Putting them all in a user profile allows you to change all three settings in one go. It is also useful to set up one profile with all the settings you will use regularly to use as a "standard" profile that you can always revert to.

yeah, i agree. but the exercise was worthwhile. as i surmised, it's not much easier if at all to switch to a monochrome user profile instead of going through the style function unless you want to change multiple items when shooting b&w. as you well might.

/guy

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[dfdann]

I have Lim’s Thumb grip and his half case and find both to be well made

and useful. Especially like the Thumb grip when removing camera from

bag and with the 55-135mm Tl.  It doesn’t interfere in any way.

Cheers Dan

[ramarren]

I never use in-camera JPEG settings: I turn JPEGs off entirely. My image processing workflow is all raw files, which nets the maximum versatility from *any* camera. Proper exposure is still the bottom line ... I rarely spend more than thirty seconds rendering any image. Color or B&W, white balance, B&W filtration, framing proportions ... whatever, it is just five or ten seconds work. Spending time configuring cameras for image processing output results is more work and more time than a raw workflow with good tools, and not as versatile or as capable. 

Regards grip, I'm perfectly happy with a Jason Cui half case and nothing else. Never liked the faux wind lever things, and bumps on the front just rob space for where my fingers should be gripping the body. The only issue with the CL body is that it's just a little bit short for the width of my hand, and either the Leica Protector or the Jason Cui half case address that nicely; I have both. I use the Jason Cui case because the trap door to get to the battery and storage card is more sensibly arranged and it's a quarter the price of the Leica Protector (which I received free of charge as a bonus when I bought my CL, in lieu of the  M Adapter L since I already had one of those; the adapter was included in the purchase of a body for a time in 2018 as a promotion). 

Having had Panasonic and Olympus FourThirds format gear since 2007 as well as Nikon, Pentax, Canon, etc, I have to say that the Leica CL (and SL, and M) proves a superior performer and an easier camera to learn and remember than any of those. That said, the Olympus E-1 is simply a masterpiece of an SLR design, the E-M1 the astonishing pinnacle of customizable camera designs, and both superb performers with the higher end Olympus lenses. The Leica CL leaps ahead due to the Leica optics, Leica's brilliantly executed lens profiles (which net forward compatibility for all my various M-mount and R-mount lenses), and clean/sensible control design. Features and customizability, IMO, are far less important to my use of a camera than getting the basic design right, and this is where Leica has excelled. Leica camera designs are subtle and remain simpler than most of the competition, and they work (for me at least).

G

[gteague]

2 hours ago, ramarren said:

I never use in-camera JPEG settings: I turn JPEGs off entirely. My image processing workflow is all raw files, which nets the maximum versatility from *any* camera. Proper exposure is still the bottom line ... I rarely spend more than thirty seconds rendering any image. Color or B&W, white balance, B&W filtration, framing proportions ... whatever, it is just five or ten seconds work. Spending time configuring cameras for image processing output results is more work and more time than a raw workflow with good tools, and not as versatile or as capable. 

Regards grip, I'm perfectly happy with a Jason Cui half case and nothing else. Never liked the faux wind lever things, and bumps on the front just rob space for where my fingers should be gripping the body. The only issue with the CL body is that it's just a little bit short for the width of my hand, and either the Leica Protector or the Jason Cui half case address that nicely; I have both. I use the Jason Cui case because the trap door to get to the battery and storage card is more sensibly arranged and it's a quarter the price of the Leica Protector (which I received free of charge as a bonus when I bought my CL, in lieu of the  M Adapter L since I already had one of those; the adapter was included in the purchase of a body for a time in 2018 as a promotion). 

Having had Panasonic and Olympus FourThirds format gear since 2007 as well as Nikon, Pentax, Canon, etc, I have to say that the Leica CL (and SL, and M) proves a superior performer and an easier camera to learn and remember than any of those. That said, the Olympus E-1 is simply a masterpiece of an SLR design, the E-M1 the astonishing pinnacle of customizable camera designs, and both superb performers with the higher end Olympus lenses. The Leica CL leaps ahead due to the Leica optics, Leica's brilliantly executed lens profiles (which net forward compatibility for all my various M-mount and R-mount lenses), and clean/sensible control design. Features and customizability, IMO, are far less important to my use of a camera than getting the basic design right, and this is where Leica has excelled. Leica camera designs are subtle and remain simpler than most of the competition, and they work (for me at least).

G

lol! our shooting philosophies are going to be severely at odds if you like how olympus works. i tried 3 of their m43 cameras and despite buying books and reading everything i could find, i was completely unable to use them. and sony is not much better and the only sony i have left is the rx100 which i mostly use on /AI/ since it's too small to really operate manually.

but you'll get old one day and it's catching up to me. i don't dare change lenses when out on my walks as i drop everything i touch the last few years. luckily women have yet to hand me babies or i'd flee in terror. so my grip needs are going to different than someone with hands which haven't started to shake yet.

i've done cameras and computers for decades and you'd think digital photography would be a perfect fit for me, but it isn't. i don't grok the paradigm of digital editing. i'd love to shoot video, but i can't even figure out how to cut and splice clips, much less the more advanced stuff although i mastered luts and log without problems. go figure. but it's more that the programs are light grey unlabeled icons on a light grey background and tiny and most of the functions aren't even in the menus. i suck at figuring out what icon are meant to do and even my phone scares me as it has no help bubbles at all and you just poke and pray.

thus, i revert to the philosophy of henri cartier-bresson, get the shot right when you shoot it. if you have to diddle and muck about with it later, that shot has failed. a lot of photography isn't even photography anymore, it's bit diddling. and i do as little of it as possible. i also don't use tripods or artificial light, so i'm an outlier. of course, there's no one grading my shots either--if i'm happy with them, then they've succeeded. 

/guy

Edited February 28, 2020 by gteague

[gteague]

2 hours ago, dfdann said:

I have Lim’s Thumb grip and his half case and find both to be well made

and useful. Especially like the Thumb grip when removing camera from

bag and with the 55-135mm Tl.  It doesn’t interfere in any way.

Cheers Dan

i'm going with lim. i realized i have a phone case and a m3 player case from them. i also got the lim's thumb grip and like it so i've ordered a half case which has a grip built in which should satisfy my need for protection and grip surface on front and rear.

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[ramarren]

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I'm already old. I've been doing photography since 1962.

I've been doing digital imaging since 1984, when I did it for NASA/JPL and it took $10M worth of computing power to make it happen. I had to write the applications myself then. An Olympus E-M1 is complex but only has 200 or so configuration controls; child's play. I spent a month learning it when I bought it in 2013, configuring it, and have made a lot (thousands) of satisfying photos with it. It's nowhere near as difficult as you make out. You can get great JPEGs out of it by just setting it on Auto mode and snapping the shutter when you see a nice scene. Lightroom and a few other current image processing apps make doing digital imaging so easy it is absurd to compare it to what I used to do in the 1980s. 

It is always best to get the image right in the camera with exposure first of all, but remember that HCB never printed his own work, and he made negatives, not finished, rendered photographs. 

G

 

[gteague]

22 minutes ago, ramarren said:

I'm already old. I've been doing photography since 1962.

I've been doing digital imaging since 1984, when I did it for NASA/JPL and it took $10M worth of computing power to make it happen. I had to write the applications myself then. An Olympus E-M1 is complex but only has 200 or so configuration controls; child's play. I spent a month learning it when I bought it in 2013, configuring it, and have made a lot (thousands) of satisfying photos with it. It's nowhere near as difficult as you make out. You can get great JPEGs out of it by just setting it on Auto mode and snapping the shutter when you see a nice scene. Lightroom and a few other current image processing apps make doing digital imaging so easy it is absurd to compare it to what I used to do in the 1980s. 

It is always best to get the image right in the camera with exposure first of all, but remember that HCB never printed his own work, and he made negatives, not finished, rendered photographs. 

G

 

ha! i started around 1964 with my grandmother's folding kodak 620. been shooting ever since!  i wanted to be a photojournalist, so every class i took was geared towards this goal. had to drop out on my 17th birthday and join the navy in 1970 and since i was a licensed ham radio operator (kg5gt) they made me a radioman. i tried to change to photographer's mate, but they had like 140% they needed and only 85% radiomen, but i love radio, so that was fine.

when i got out of the navy in 1980 i went straight to our local newspaper, but they told me they didn't hire anyone without a degree. which was a blatant lie but the computer manager ran out and caught me in the parking lot and hired me on the spot. which turned out perfectly because i had the incentive to automate my computer tasks so i could spend every minute in the photo lab where i would develop for the photogs freeing them up to take other assignments.

i spent 45 years in radio, networking, and computer support, so i have not the slightest problems learning hardware or software--i imagine i've forgotten more than most people will ever learn, in fact, and forgetting more by the hour! was a beta tester for decades for major companies. but that means i recognize bad design and user hostility and lazy programming and nearly every single digital imaging program i've tried to use suffers from it--worst offenders being video editors--as do the olympus and sony firmware and user interfaces.

i've used nearly all brands and panasonic is by leaps and bounds the least worst. the leica cl is not the best when it comes to intuitiveness, but you can tell that there's a philosophy of how photography should work behind it and thus i understand i only have to grok the philosophy and the system as a whole will eventually make sense, unlike other brands which you can tell were thrown together without an overarching plan and features bolted on without being internally incorporated into a theme. a perfect example being microsoft outlook  which they kept adding to and adding to without fixing existing bugs until the whole thing just eventually exploded.

i still maintain that most who started shooting in the digital era are more bit twiddlers than photographers. but it's ever thus--things change, things fall apart. <sigh>

/guy

Edited February 28, 2020 by gteague

[gteague]

On 2/27/2020 at 10:49 AM, gteague said:

just found this in a long 'field trip' review by andrew tobin at http://tobinators.com/blog/2018/01/landscape-2/leica-cl-in-scotland-2018-part-5-last-one/

 

bear in mind this was written just after release of the cl (i think) and supposedly doesn't include the subsequent firmware updates.

/guy

ah! i think that wandering focus box bit me my first session. i shoot about 80% with the single field in the center of the frame and i have the touch af turned off and i never move the box. never. but when shooting awhile ago i wasn't satisfied with the face detection shooting my cat and changed to single box focus. and i couldn't see the box. took me awhile to locate it (they need a bolder font for the boxes, imo) down in the bottom right hand corner. hmmmmmmm says i, how'd it get there? and since i didn't need to know how to move it, it took a few minutes to realize the arrow pad was how you moved it if you weren't using touch af.

like others, i'm completely unsure how it moved. i sure didn't do it deliberately and supposedly just touching the screen wouldn't have done it. and in the multi-field af modes, moving the arrows shouldn't affect anything i wouldn't think.

/guy

[jaapv]

Double tapping the LCD also centers the box.

[gteague]

even if you have touch af turned off? i think i saw in the manual that 'gestures' work even with touch af off. i usually just turn off all touch functions and ignore the lcd except for viewing, but i guess you can't turn the cl one completely off, i think i accidently went into video mode while setting it up.

/guy

[ramarren]

There's a logic even to the Olympus camera UI, which I've become quite accustomed to since I've been in and out of Olympus digital cameras for 17 years now. I find it complex but not difficult. Sony's UI is just a mess far as I'm concerned, and they simply don't know how to make a good shutter that doesn't vibrate the camera every chance it can. 

Leica knows how to make a good shutter and their UI design is simple, subtle, and efficient in my opinion ... Quick to learn, easy to remember. That's why I buy their cameras as well as their optics. They also know how to make their optics work with their cameras very well, something that Olympus does too, but Sony is often challenged with (again, in my experience). 

Life's too short and I've been working at my desk too long today. I'm stuffing a camera in my bag and going for a bicycle ride now.

G

[gteague]

good on you! and it bodes well that leica and panasonic have a symbiosis as both contribute very good ideas although i'm not sure in what ratio. i do know the leica-certified panasonic lenses for the m43 and now the lmount system are my preferred choices although the olympus and panasonic 'pro' lines are superb. i've never had a better lens than the olympus pro 12-40 and 40-150 models which i had back when i was tying to use olympus. especially the 12-40--i'd have to say that was the best lens i've ever owned and edges out the oly 75/1.8 and the lumix leica 45 noctalux? noctacron? (which i still  have)  both regarded as the very top m43 lenses.

i suffer from the cold and have been cooped up for months. i envy you the ride. when it's above about 66º i'll walk and shoot photos every single evening during magick hour.

/guy

Edited February 28, 2020 by gteague

[gteague]

before i found the lim case/grip i ordered a haoge bracket grip from amazon along with a screensaver. the first screensaver i bought specified for the cl wasn't even close. perhaps for the q? much too large. they came in just now and for the first time i feel like i can handle the cl comfortably and risk taking it outdoors on my walks when i figure out which strap to use. in combination with the lim's thumb grip it is as secure in one hand as it's ever going to get.

the haoge grip seems very nice indeed. the battery/card cutout doesn't bind and the door opens freely. there's a huge wheel to screw it to the body. the front grip feels very secure and is a good size. it does add a little size and weight to the cl, but i happily accept that tradeoff as the cl is just one size too small for me anyway. in fact, the single flaw i see is that the tripod socket is so far offset to the left as to be useless. but then again, i'm not a tripod fan anyway and if there's to be a flaw, this is an inconsequential one for me.

hopefully the lim's half case with grip will make this one redundant and provide more protection and maybe even a quick release plate for a tripod although they don't specify it's arca swiss which the tripods i have take. but the grip part on this one looks just like the one in the pictures of the lim's case, so i'm hopeful.

[ramarren]

18 hours ago, ramarren said:

... Life's too short and I've been working at my desk too long today. I'm stuffing a camera in my bag and going for a bicycle ride now.

I stuffed a camera into my bag with a fresh load of B&W film in it. I only made one photo on my bicycle ride, but after I returned home and dressed to go to the club for a drink with some friends, I carried it again and shot the remaining nine frames on the bus and while walking about downtown. I like five of them. 

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Photos About Town - San Jose 2020

I hope you get your preferences in case, grip, etc with the CL sorted out. It's a lovely camera, if you can bring yourself to accept it for what it is, workaround whatever bugs you, and exploit its capabilities. After all, the important part of a camera is what your vision does with it to make photographs that you like.

G

"Equipment is transitory. Photographs endure."

[gteague]

1 hour ago, ramarren said:

I stuffed a camera into my bag with a fresh load of B&W film in it. I only made one photo on my bicycle ride, but after I returned home and dressed to go to the club for a drink with some friends, I carried it again and shot the remaining nine frames on the bus and while walking about downtown. I like five of them. 

 

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Photos About Town - San Jose 2020

 

I hope you get your preferences in case, grip, etc with the CL sorted out. It's a lovely camera, if you can bring yourself to accept it for what it is, workaround whatever bugs you, and exploit its capabilities. After all, the important part of a camera is what your vision does with it to make photographs that you like.

G

"Equipment is transitory. Photographs endure."

are those actually polaroids or something you did in an editor? looks exactly like the fuji instant wide film. and whether you intended or not, some of these look 'blocked up' like polaroid is wont to do.

/guy