Leica SL2 Firmware 3.0 officially released

[Simone_DF]

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8 hours ago, hillavoider said:

doesn't the panasonic version have a cross on the eye? i was hoping for that 

It does, and I find that really annoying. I’m happy with both a box around the face or a box around the eye, but the big Panasonic cross is very distracting 

[hillavoider]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

It does, and I find that really annoying. I’m happy with both a box around the face or a box around the eye, but the big Panasonic cross is very distracting 

At least it’s on the eye and not faked SL2 eye autofocus 

Does the S1R have the cross on the eye? 

[Simone_DF]

54 minutes ago, hillavoider said:

At least it’s on the eye and not faked SL2 eye autofocus 

Does the S1R have the cross on the eye? 

I don't know about the S1R, never used one. I had a S5 for a while though. I assume it's the same on the S1R, and there's no reason why it shouldn't be.

Anyway, it's 100% the same autofocus. Where do you think Leica source its AF system? Leica engineers add minimal UI retouches and system compatibility, but the engine is 100% the same. When I tested the S5 and the SL2-s side by side, I couldn't find any significant difference. Maybe the S5 was a hair faster/more reactive, but in real life it had zero impact.

[hillavoider]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

 

Anyway, it's 100% the same autofocus. Where do you think Leica source its AF system? 

i'm trying to work this out, how can it be worse than the lumix when its taken from the lumix?

[BernardC]

12 hours ago, hillavoider said:

isn't a tiny box on the eye smaller then a big yellow box over the face? 

A smaller box that hides the subject's facial expression can be very frustrating.

In the end it's just a design decision. As you mention, other camera brands offer the full-info display that you want, so you have the luxury of choice. It's important to feel comfortable with our tools, no one will criticize you for choosing something that is more agreeable to you.

[Simone_DF]

45 minutes ago, hillavoider said:

i'm trying to work this out, how can it be worse than the lumix when its taken from the lumix?

Because while the Panasonic Sx and the Leica SLx share most of the internal hardware and the core software, it's not 100% the same, and those differences, no matter how small they are, must be taken into account when compiling and adapting the software for a given platform.  

Take the SL2-s, as far as we know, the sensor has no equivalent over in Panasonic land, and therefore the AF system must be optimized for it.

I work in IT, you won't believe how many times a small hardware change can break everything on the software side and viceversa.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Simone_DF

[hillavoider]

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38 minutes ago, BernardC said:

A smaller box that hides the subject's facial expression can be very frustrating.

In the end it's just a design decision. As you mention, other camera brands offer the full-info display that you want, so you have the luxury of choice. It's important to feel comfortable with our tools, no one will criticize you for choosing something that is more agreeable to you.

no i want eye auto focus which i paid for, not some snake oil face tracking dressed up as eye tracking, anyway... the donkey is on ebay already its gone

[BernardC]

7 minutes ago, hillavoider said:

the donkey is on ebay already its gone

That's exactly the right decision. No point in keeping a camera that you don't gel with.

[BernardC]

Further to this, it's not an easy problem to solve. Photographers have been struggling with the problem of placing focus on faces since the first portrait was made.

I had the great luck of learning "Hollywood-style" portrait techniques from a retiring photographer, while I was in my teens. We shot in a studio with a 4x5 inch portrait camera. His technique was the result of years of experience. Basically, if the camera was placed over one X on the floor, and the subject was placed over another X (sitting on a high stool), and his soft light was exactly arm's-length away from the sitter's face (180cm or so), he knew that he could get nose-to-ear in focus on Tri-X at f:16!

F:11 would have made the nose unsharp, and killed the rim-light effect over the hair. F:22 would have been too much for the flash system...

Equipment is more sophisticated now (arguably), but the aesthetic issues are the same. We are very harsh judges of human portraits. Photographers know exactly what they want sharp, what they want slightly blurred, and what they want to throw out of focus. Getting those results is exceedingly difficult if we can't trust our tools (and judgment).

That's not to say that any one piece of gear will work best for everyone. I personally like the SL's EVF, and the way it allows me to judge the spread of focus. Others prefer to work with different tools, and that's OK, provided that they are getting results that they want.

[beewee]

4 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Take the SL2-s, as far as we know, the sensor has no equivalent over in Panasonic land, and therefore the AF system must be optimized for it.

I work in IT, you won't believe how many times a small hardware change can break everything on the software side and viceversa.

Yup. I work with real-time embedded systems and let me tell you that it only gets worse the more low level you go. Different sensor reading out speeds results in different latencies and all of this needs to be accounted for and the only way to do this is through rigours testing in lots of different test environments which is very expensive.

[Simone_DF]

33 minutes ago, beewee said:

Yup. I work with real-time embedded systems and let me tell you that it only gets worse the more low level you go. Different sensor reading out speeds results in different latencies and all of this needs to be accounted for and the only way to do this is through rigours testing in lots of different test environments which is very expensive.

Yes, and when you think you found the solution, you discover that your solution is introducing new regressions somewhere else. Been there, done that. 

[Virob]

21 hours ago, Gavin Cato said:

I''ve found the 3.0 face/eye (whatever) af works beautifully on a single subject, but put a few people in the scene and it'll invariably grab the wrong one.

The sony a9 was a bazillion times better here as you could use the center af to focus/recompose on a face, and it'd then stay on that face like glue.

But anyway, no complaints here. I'll use the face detect stuff with portraits, and switch to another mode when there's a few people in the scene.

 

 I am new to the SL2 and a complete neophyte with face/eye detection, but I was playing with the new update and found it works well. I haven’t had a chance to play with it much when there is more than one person in the scene, but when you bring the camera up to your eye, it starts looking for people and faces right away and puts boxes around then in white and then selects one with a yellow box. If it chooses the wrong one you can shift to the other one using the joystick. When you now half press the shutter it seems to lock on well to the one select. At least, with my limited experience, and not sure if that is of any help with your issue.

[zaolaotou]

I have just updated my SL2 to F/W 3.0.  I found that the date and time and no longer be set inside the camera.  They can be sync via Leica Fotos over the smartphone though.  Did I miss something or have done some stupid operations?  Anyone experienced the same?

[Photoworks]

16 hours ago, zaolaotou said:

I have just updated my SL2 to F/W 3.0.  I found that the date and time and no longer be set inside the camera.  They can be sync via Leica Fotos over the smartphone though.  Did I miss something or have done some stupid operations?  Anyone experienced the same?

Camera setting > Date & Time is still there

[zaolaotou]

17 hours ago, Photoworks said:

Camera setting > Date & Time is still there

Yes, still there.  But it seems that the Date & Time can no longer be set and adjusted by any button on the camera.  They can only be synchronized with the smartphone via Leica Fotos.  It means that I cannot change the date and time without connecting to my smartphone like before with the older firmware.  I wish to know if I have missed something.  Many thanks.

[Photoworks]

13 minutes ago, zaolaotou said:

Yes, still there.  But it seems that the Date & Time can no longer be set and adjusted by any button on the camera.  They can only be synchronized with the smartphone via Leica Fotos.  It means that I cannot change the date and time without connecting to my smartphone like before with the older firmware.  I wish to know if I have missed something.  Many thanks.

I can change it just fine, try the joystick and wheel combination

[zaolaotou]

1 minute ago, Photoworks said:

I can change it just fine, try the joystick and wheel combination

Will try again, many thanks.

[sillbeers15]

On 10/6/2021 at 8:02 PM, Simone_DF said:

Because while the Panasonic Sx and the Leica SLx share most of the internal hardware and the core software, it's not 100% the same, and those differences, no matter how small they are, must be taken into account when compiling and adapting the software for a given platform.  

Take the SL2-s, as far as we know, the sensor has no equivalent over in Panasonic land, and therefore the AF system must be optimized for it.

I work in IT, you won't believe how many times a small hardware change can break everything on the software side and viceversa.

It is good that you have IT background and can share your valuable experiences and opinion with us.

It is my assessment coming from the manufacturing management background that Leica AF system is likely wholesale licensed from Panasonic. Leica is only a USD$300mil company. A SME by global definition. It would mean almost impossible to have the resources to design and have it's own AF algorithm & hardware design from scratch. There can be minor tweeks from Leica in GUI of Leica products to differentiate it from Panasonic cameras. However if you look at the number of AF sensors of both Leica & Panasonic, they're identical but very different from Sony & others. I am very sure the face/ body detect AF from Leica & Panasonic is identical. Leica likely do not display the cross over the eye although the sensor does track the eye (only logical to think so). The misses in focusing on the eye should happen equally on both Panasonic & Leica cameras (please tell me otherwise if you have different experiences) as the processing power & speed is the limitation (hardware of IC limitation).

[Simone_DF]

6 hours ago, sillbeers15 said:

It would mean almost impossible to have the resources to design and have it's own AF algorithm & hardware design from scratch. There can be minor tweeks from Leica in GUI of Leica products to differentiate it from Panasonic cameras.

Yup. What is surprising to me, is that it took Leica about 9-12 months to optimize Panasonic's firmware for the SL2s. The S5 was released in September 2020, the SL2s 2.0 update in June 2021. That's 9 months, maybe more if Leica engineers had had access to pre-production firmware a few months before release. 

This makes me wonder about their engineering team. It must be really small.

Re: differences: I didn't see any notable difference between the S5 and the SL2s, maybe the S5 was a hair faster, but hard to tell. Basically in real life use the difference was zero. I came to this conclusion after having both cameras at the same time for 3 weeks. 

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[Stuart Richardson]

6 hours ago, sillbeers15 said:

It is good that you have IT background and can share your valuable experiences and opinion with us.

It is my assessment coming from the manufacturing management background that Leica AF system is likely wholesale licensed from Panasonic. Leica is only a USD$300mil company. A SME by global definition. It would mean almost impossible to have the resources to design and have it's own AF algorithm & hardware design from scratch. There can be minor tweeks from Leica in GUI of Leica products to differentiate it from Panasonic cameras. However if you look at the number of AF sensors of both Leica & Panasonic, they're identical but very different from Sony & others. I am very sure the face/ body detect AF from Leica & Panasonic is identical. Leica likely do not display the cross over the eye although the sensor does track the eye (only logical to think so). The misses in focusing on the eye should happen equally on both Panasonic & Leica cameras (please tell me otherwise if you have different experiences) as the processing power & speed is the limitation (hardware of IC limitation).

With respect, Leica invented autofocus before selling the technology to Minolta who first used it in commercial applications. They are a small company but they have a lot of know-how. Much of that is optical rather than software, but they clearly seem to have good people working with their color science. I think it is natural to assume that Panasonic does the heavy lifting in this case, but I assume Leica is responsible for integrating it into their user interface and displays etc.