SL2-S Firmware Coming soon 👏

[i-Leica]

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Am 11.5.2021 um 10:00 schrieb profus:

You have some inside info or...? If yes - WHEN do we get the SL2 fw?

July

[Simone_DF]

I recently got a SL2s and from what I could see the new firmware brings substantial improvements in both AFS and AFC.

To my eyes and after about 1000 pics shot with the SL2s, the AF went from basically unusable to overall acceptable. Ie it's still crap but I can live with it.
- Face, body and eye detection is visibly improved. It recognize elements more easily, it's faster and more reliable, with some caveats.
- AF in general feels snappier.

Now the bad stuff:
- Face, body and eye detection goes banana the moment there's more than one person in the frame. Instead of locking onto one subject and stick with it, it starts to jump around. The more the people, the more it gets unreliable. If there are 5 or more moving people in a frame, you have to disable it and use field or whatever to lock focus where you want it. I think this can be easily fixed via firmware, they should add a more stable focus locking, ie once focus is acquired, restrain it so it doesn't jump the fuck around. Note that this happens only in crowds. If there are ie two people, it's not that dramatic.
- It's still a tad too slow to recognize human subjects in a frame. Not enough horsepower issue, probably
- AF-C is more reliable but let's be honest, it's still crap and below what Sony accomplished 6 years ago with the A7rII, and 6 years or more gap is very visible nowadays.

For a long series of circumstances, I got both a S5 and a SL2-S, and from what I can see, the S5 is a bit faster and has slightly better AF performances, but it's not a big gap. I'd say the SL2-S has 90-95% of the S5 AF performance, but take that with a pinch of salt, it was not a scientific test, just my impression after normal use. 

There are some rumors about Panasonic launching a second gen S1 with "revamped DFD". That would be great news, especially if it trickles down to a SL3 later on

 

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[LocalHero1953]

Agreed..........

But we have heard the 'new dawn of DFD' before. I won't hold my breath.

Edited June 9, 2021 by LocalHero1953

[Simone_DF]

1 hour ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Agreed..........

But we have heard the 'new dawn of DFD' before. I won't hold my breath.

Yup. But a new, more powerful processor should improve things. Have a look at how piss poor is the AF on the Q2 (Maestro II) vs the SL2s (Maestro III)

[Photoworks]

5 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Yup. But a new, more powerful processor should improve things. Have a look at how piss poor is the AF on the Q2 (Maestro II) vs the SL2s (Maestro III)

The Q2 has totally different lens system with central shutter, they are always a little slower

[caissa]

On 5/5/2021 at 10:14 PM, Mpi said:

I only own Leica lenses (APO-Summicron-SL 35, 75, and 90, the Vario-Elmar 24-90 and 90-280, and the Summilux-SL 50). AF for all of them is faster and more precise on the S1H than the SL2.

As both the Panasonics and the Leicas use a contrast based AF I was hoping that this update might bring Leica to Panasonic levels. So I was wondering whether someone tried. @MarkinVan's post at least gives me hope (just to be clear: I don't think AF is terrible and it is certainly not something that limits me 99.99% of the time -- but if I can get an improvement I will happily take it)

This update was only for the SL2-S. For the SL2 it will come maybe next month (July). So it would be a miracle if the SL2 had already improved ....

I would really like to hear from SL2-S users if they agree that AFs has been improved. The same question also for AFc. Please be very specific (photo mode and video mode) and do not mix results, like so many do in their “tech reviews”.

[Steven]

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6 hours ago, caissa said:

This update was only for the SL2-S. For the SL2 it will come maybe next month (July). So it would be a miracle if the SL2 had already improved ....

I would really like to hear from SL2-S users if they agree that AFs has been improved. The same question also for AFc. Please be very specific (photo mode and video mode) and do not mix results, like so many do in their “tech reviews”.

AFc in video mode is still unusable. I cannot see any noticeable improvement. 

I am happy with the AF in stills, as I was before the update. 

[chris_tribble]

On 6/9/2021 at 11:14 AM, Simone_DF said:

:
- Face, body and eye detection goes banana the moment there's more than one person in the frame. Instead of locking onto one subject and stick with it, it starts to jump around. The more the people, the more it gets unreliable. If there are 5 or more moving people in a frame, you have to disable it and use field or whatever to lock focus where you want it. I think this can be easily fixed via firmware, they should add a more stable focus locking, ie once focus is acquired, restrain it so it doesn't jump the fuck around. Note that this happens only in crowds. If there are ie two people, it's not that dramatic.
 

Doesn’t this miss the point? Face detection works brilliantly IMHO for portrait work. In other contexts (including groups) it’s beside the point. Use field. It’s quick and accurate. I don’t want the camera to do everything for me. It’s my eye which frames and selects - not an algorithm. 

[Simone_DF]

14 hours ago, chris_tribble said:

Doesn’t this miss the point? Face detection works brilliantly IMHO for portrait work. In other contexts (including groups) it’s beside the point. Use field. It’s quick and accurate. I don’t want the camera to do everything for me. It’s my eye which frames and selects - not an algorithm. 

Nope, it works fine for all other brands, it should work fine for PanaLeica too, but it doesn't. It should not jump around to begin with, that's clearly a bug.

I do switch to field but sometimes the focus miss by a hair, especially if your subjects move erratically.

Ideally it should be a merger of the two. You use field to select your subject, Face AF kicks in and locks onto the face you selected and sticks to it. Instead we have two separate modes that do not really work well in these situations.

[frame-it]

S1/S1R are getting Blackmagic Raw soon, via a Firmware Update, i hope the SL2-S gets that Update too.