Stephan Schulz interview....SL2 video, power management, etc

[Jeff S]

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I'm not interested in the video side, but others might find this discussion useful...

https://www.eoshd.com/news/interview-with-stephan-schulz-leica-camera-on-the-sl2-and-filmmaking/

Jeff

[scott kirkpatrick]

There's a lot of discussion of possible video codecs that the SL2 doesn't have, which went over my head, but Reid has a clear presentation of the power problems that the SL2  has with certain L-mount lenses.  Stills users have seen these problems as well.  The camera shuts down with a low battery warning when the MC21 adapter, or the Panasonic 50/1.4 super -quality lens are used even though the battery still has 80% or more of capacity.  Reid goes on to say that with the Panasonic 45 and Leica's SL, things go south at about 25% actual capacity remaining, and with M lenses (no autofocus motors inside) you can go just a bit further. Schulz accepts the complaints, says they are working on it, but he is not prepared to say whether or not it is just a bug, or a real limitation.  Shulz says that Leica wants to prevent loss of data before it happens, so it is possible that the error flags for video are set more conservatively than for still images.

[Luca]

from his words it seems firmware is not coming in the coming weeks as we all were hoping....

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

10 hours ago, Luca said:

from his words it seems firmware is not coming in the coming weeks as we all were hoping....

I suspect debugging firmware to chase down problems in connecting to BT and WiFi, and power problems as well, requires access to a lab with specialized equipment.  If everyone went home in March and only returned on 1 June, there will be a delay of, roughly, three months.

Edited June 9, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[hillavoider]

I really hope their fix is not "buy the hand grip cos we stuffed up using an old battery in a S1R" 

[hillavoider]

23 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

There's a lot of discussion of possible video codecs that the SL2 doesn't have, which went over my head, but Reid has a clear presentation of the power problems that the SL2  has with certain L-mount lenses.  Stills users have seen these problems as well.  The camera shuts down with a low battery warning when the MC21 adapter, or the Panasonic 50/1.4 super -quality lens are used even though the battery still has 80% or more of capacity.  Reid goes on to say that with the Panasonic 45 and Leica's SL, things go south at about 25% actual capacity remaining, and with M lenses (no autofocus motors inside) you can go just a bit further. Schulz accepts the complaints, says they are working on it, but he is not prepared to say whether or not it is just a bug, or a real limitation.  Shulz says that Leica wants to prevent loss of data before it happens, so it is possible that the error flags for video are set more conservatively than for still images.

I thought you were a non believer  

[scott kirkpatrick]

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1 hour ago, hillavoider said:

I thought you were a non believer  

Since I keep my batteries pretty much topped off, I couldn't reproduce the error message.  I got several hundred shots without incident.  But right now I have an SL2 with its battery down to one bar.  Let's see what happens when I go for 4K video.  Right!  I could take a single shot, but switching to medium speed multiple I get the message "battery power insufficient for 4K or multiple shot."  My trusty Nitecore charger shows 6.7 V on the battery (full is 8.2 or 8.3 V).  For the record, this is with SL2 and 35 SL SC mounted, no adapter or Panasonic lens involved.  

At 7.1 V (two bars) I could take some multiple exposures.  That suggests that a whole volt is being dropped across the lens mount for certain lenses or adapters.  This might have not gotten  clearly enough expressed in the L-Mount spec that is shared with the consortium partners.  Now that Wetzlar is opening again, I would assume someone with a high quality power supply and a battery-shaped set of contacts is checking to see why other L-mount lenses are doing this.  Of course, why the lens mount seems to be in series with the rest of the camera rather than in parallel may require some explaining.

at 7.5 volts (three bars showing), I installed a Panasonic 70-200/2.8 lens, and shot three medium speed exposures, after which the camera stopped and gave me the "insufficient battery for 4K and multi-shot" warning.

at 8.0 V (3-->4 bars showing on the charger, 4 bars at the camera), I could shoot a dozen or so shots with the 70-200/2.8.  The Leica charger showed this as just under 80%, and continues to charge, at a lower current.

Edited June 9, 2020 by scott kirkpatrick

[frame-it]

7 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

 

Since I keep my batteries pretty much topped off, I couldn't reproduce the error message.  I got several hundred shots without incident.  But right now I have an SL2 with its battery down to one bar.  Let's see what happens when I go for 4K video.  Right!  I could take a single shot, but switching to medium speed multiple I get the message "battery power insufficient for 4K or multiple shot."  My trusty Nitecore charger shows 6.7 V on the battery (full is 8.2 or 8.3 V).  For the record, this is with SL2 and 35 SL SC mounted, no adapter or Panasonic lens involved.  

At 7.1 V (two bars) I could take some multiple exposures.  That suggests that a whole volt is being dropped across the lens mount for certain lenses or adapters.  This might have not gotten  clearly enough expressed in the L-Mount spec that is shared with the consortium partners.  Now that Wetzlar is opening again, I would assume someone with a high quality power supply and a battery-shaped set of contacts is checking to see why other L-mount lenses are doing this.  Of course, why the lens mount seems to be in series with the rest of the camera rather than in parallel may require some explaining.

at 7.5 volts (three bars showing), I installed a Panasonic 70-200/2.8 lens, and shot three medium speed exposures, after which the camera stopped and gave me the "insufficient battery for 4K and multi-shot" warning.

at 8.0 V (3-->4 bars showing on the charger, 4 bars at the camera), I could shoot a dozen or so shots with the 70-200/2.8.  The Leica charger showed this as just under 80%, and continues to charge, at a lower current.

does the S1R have this same battery issue ?

[scott kirkpatrick]

5 hours ago, frame-it said:

does the S1R have this same battery issue ?

Dunno.  It has almost twice the battery capacity (23 WHr to the SL2's 14 WHr.) and right now its battery is fully charged.

[Richardgb]

7 hours ago, frame-it said:

does the S1R have this same battery issue ?

For still photos on my S1 (I don't do video), the camera will write images to the card until there are no bars showing and then, unsurprisingly, the camera goes dead until a charged battery is inserted.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Leica does this battery level check before starting to run video or continuous shooting, but not before a single shot.  Also before starting a firmware  install.  Have you tried shooting multiple continuous still frames on an S1 with the battery partly run down?

[helged]

3 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Leica does this battery level check before starting to run video or continuous shooting, but not before a single shot.  Also before starting a firmware  install.  Have you tried shooting multiple continuous still frames on an S1 with the battery partly run down?

Certainly no problems with the S1R; I have emtied lots of batteries in high frame rate mode (still photo), everything works until the battery is empty. 

[scott kirkpatrick]

4 hours ago, helged said:

Certainly no problems with the S1R; I have emtied lots of batteries in high frame rate mode (still photo), everything works until the battery is empty. 

When I've  installed firmware on an S1R, it refuses to proceed if the BlueTooth or wifi is active, but I don't recall if there was a warning or even an error message about having an adequate battery level.  What have you seen in that situation?

[simon_hsn]

Thanks for sharing the interview, it was really interesting. I still think Leica must offer some form of raw video recording. Although the internal 10 bit 4.2.2. was impressive at launch, raw video is the future and if Leica wants to stay in the game they must offer the option. The Canon R5 will have internal 8k recording soon. They might reserve this for an Leica SL3, but this might take another 4 years then ...

[sebas_]

Absolutely. I hope Leica is listening. Adding h.265 codec would be important too - do not understand why they are using the old h.264 codec. ProRes RAW should be doable with Atomos, similar to the Panasonic S1H. And my biggest issue is the autofocus. Looking at Canon‘s Dual Pixel AF, I don’t really understand, why they still using a far worse technology, unless they have Time of Flight (panasonic?) somewhere in development for an SL 3, but yeah.... 4 years is a long wait. 

[simon_hsn]

I could not agree more. Autofocus should be much more of a priority, especially one that works for run & gun filmmaking. I think they must embrace video even more. For me the road ahead is quite clear and they should focus on what is relevant: Raw video, autofocus, Panasonic XLR1-like audio adapter. I would even like to see a flip screen (put the buttons on the right side of the sceen). 
 

Not to mock everything: their video UI and the complete separation of photo and video is stellar, really nice job on that front. 
Also, I like that they want to remove choices to keep it simple.

[sebas_]

Yes, absolutely! I think they have done a great job with the camera, but sadly failed on the autofocus part completely. It’s nowhere near useable for filmmaking, which is sad. And yes, autofocus has a part in professional work too. It could be such a great dual purpose camera, especially for run and gun applications. 
I really hope, that they will add ProRes Raw (most likely) capabilities as Panasonic is on the road with it. Yeah, the XLR Adapter would be a really welcome addition as well. 
 

On a photo site, I really hope for Profoto compatibility....  

[Jim B]

On 6/9/2020 at 2:48 AM, scott kirkpatrick said:

 

Since I keep my batteries pretty much topped off, I couldn't reproduce the error message.  I got several hundred shots without incident.  But right now I have an SL2 with its battery down to one bar.  Let's see what happens when I go for 4K video.  Right!  I could take a single shot, but switching to medium speed multiple I get the message "battery power insufficient for 4K or multiple shot."  My trusty Nitecore charger shows 6.7 V on the battery (full is 8.2 or 8.3 V).  For the record, this is with SL2 and 35 SL SC mounted, no adapter or Panasonic lens involved.  

At 7.1 V (two bars) I could take some multiple exposures.  That suggests that a whole volt is being dropped across the lens mount for certain lenses or adapters.  This might have not gotten  clearly enough expressed in the L-Mount spec that is shared with the consortium partners.  Now that Wetzlar is opening again, I would assume someone with a high quality power supply and a battery-shaped set of contacts is checking to see why other L-mount lenses are doing this.  Of course, why the lens mount seems to be in series with the rest of the camera rather than in parallel may require some explaining.

at 7.5 volts (three bars showing), I installed a Panasonic 70-200/2.8 lens, and shot three medium speed exposures, after which the camera stopped and gave me the "insufficient battery for 4K and multi-shot" warning.

at 8.0 V (3-->4 bars showing on the charger, 4 bars at the camera), I could shoot a dozen or so shots with the 70-200/2.8.  The Leica charger showed this as just under 80%, and continues to charge, at a lower current.

Welcome to my world..... 

[BernardC]

17 hours ago, simon_hsn said:

Autofocus should be much more of a priority, especially one that works for run & gun filmmaking.

I am not convinced that any DSLR is appropriate for "run & gun" film making. For that you need a dedicated video camera, preferably with an APS-C or smaller sensor.

I am sure that Panasonic will release a video camera in L-Mount. They have certainly hinted that the next EVA-1 or Varicam will have an L-Mount, and offer features like "virtual follow focus."  Their latest zooms already claim to eliminate focus breathing. This indicates that they are able to integrate focus and zoom functions, compared to legacy AF mounts like EOS and Sony. The other big player here will be Canon: you can bet that they did not forget to add those additional data paths to their R mount.

15 hours ago, sebas_ said:

sadly failed on the autofocus part completely. It’s nowhere near useable for filmmaking, which is sad.

The reviews I have read tell me that it is surprisingly good for filmmaking, but not as good for stills. That's because they have conflicting requirements: video needs smooth focus racks that follow the action, while still photography needs harsh and sudden re-focusing. I appreciate that your personal experience differs.

17 hours ago, sebas_ said:

Adding h.265 codec would be important too - do not understand why they are using the old h.264 codec.

h.265 is a great distribution format with high compression, but it makes a lousy capture and editing format for the same reason. It is very CPU-intensive (or GPU), and there isn't much "extra" information when you want to correct colour/exposure. The main advantage of h.265, from a film maker's point of view, is that you can record longer takes on a card. That can be useful for some documentary and event work, especially when using multiple independent cameras. Of course, that advantage disappears if you are using a camera with a 29:59 record time limit!

 

17 hours ago, sebas_ said:

unless they have Time of Flight (panasonic?) somewhere in development for an SL 3

Actually, Leica is at the leading-edge of ToF sensor development: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/02/leica-pmd-tof-product.html

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[sebas_]

It depends. I guess that the line is getting more and more blurred. Looking at the Panasonic S1H and Canon R5 are clearly focusing on video. Having a small form factor camera, with IBIS and good AF system, does help with filmmaking. It depends on the situation of course, every tool has its benefits and shortcoming and a dedicated video camera has definitely its place! Yes, I would love to see that future of Panasonic, moving the EVA 1 / Varicam line to L-Mount, which could be really interesting, as well as securing the L-Mount system.  I am not owning a Panasonic lens yet, but have also watched some videos, and having focus breathing mitigated is a really welcoming move for hybrid shooters. 

Regarding Autofocus. With stills AF-S is pretty snappy, AF-C is a hit and miss, and clearly not up to today's standards, which is a pity. I am not a sports shooter, so I can live with this for the time being. 
In video I have not yet wrapped my head around it. It is pretty okay for talking heads (Face detected), where there is not much movement, so a bit forth and back and it's pretty okay.
I have then tested the Tracking AF (Camera on a Jib) https://www.dropbox.com/s/nyn14ew6i9simj8/Autofokus-Test.mov?dl=0 It should track the garden gnome. I have not found out to lock the AF on the garden gnome while recording, unless I keep half-pressing the shutter during the whole take. Have gone through the video-menus couple of times, but nowhere I find a focus-lock (on tracking subject) for the take, unless I keep pressing the shutter button half-way. The video above (dropbox-link) was the outcome, which I really think is far from useable. If I made some mistakes, I would love to hear an idea. If I do not press the shutter button half way, the camera does not stay tracking on the gnome, but moves away from it.

True, that h.265 is not a good capture codec, but the applies to h.264 as well. Both are primarily meant for distribution. As most hybrids use these codecs, I would love to see the newer one implemented in a recent flag-ship camera like the SL2 (h265 is used in most other recent models of other brands). There are some benefits. h.264 is an codec intended for 8bit, unless special "treated" to accept 10bit, which results, that e.g. Apple Quicktime cannot play Leica's h.264 files. h.265 is intended for 10bit. The algorithms of h.265 are more advanced and should create less macro-blocking artefacts than h.264. h.265 outputs the same quality than h.264 by half the bandwidth, which results in a smaller file or a file with better quality (if using the same bandwidth as h.264). Regarding CPU/GPU intensity, currently yes, but this will be mitigated by newer processors, which have dedicated transcoders for h.265 (as they now have for h.264). So I do not really get, why Leica is not using a modern file format, unless their Maestro processor is too weak to handle it, which would be odd as well.
And yeah...the record limit annoys me too (just a little bit, but I can understand it, regarding overheating issues), luckily it can be circumvented with an external recorder (which then circumvent the AVCHD / HEVC issue as well). 

That are interesting news, and could be a fantastic turn, if Leica is able to scale this ToF technology up for full-frame cameras. This would make AF really capable and would put Leica cameras a massive step forward in AF tech. In the meantime there is a development for an accessory ToF solution: https://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/45360-af-adapter-development-thread-sneakest-of-sneak-peeks/

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by sebas_