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Leica SL2 / SL2s - Firmware 4.0 Requests


2436

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Dear Leica fan girls and boys, I am an enthusiastic landscape photographer and bought the SL2 a good two years ago. I chose the Leica SL2 mainly because of its unique operation and excellent menus. Nevertheless, there are some features that I sorely miss on the SL2 and make taking pictures unnecessarily difficult. I’ve mailed the following firmware request to Leica. I hope they’re reading this forum too. What do you guys think of my suggestions and what do you wish for the firmware 4.0?

1. Bracketing

1.1. Unfortunately, you cannot currently combine automatic exposure bracketing with a self-timer on the SL2. This is very annoying as you are forced to either use a remote shutter release or the Leica app to get a shake-free shot. Both are often very time consuming. I therefore propose to integrate an option for a self-timer in the exposure bracketing menu - similar to the multi-shot mode.

1.2. Currently you can only choose between 3 and 5 shots for exposure bracketing. Due to the good dynamic range of the SL2, however, in most cases it is sufficient to take only 2 shots, e.g. a normally exposed shot and an underexposed shot for the highlights. It would be very nice to see Leica cameras offering more flexibility in the bracketing menu.

2. Aspect Ratio

2.1 It is currently not possible to assign the selection of the aspect ratio to any of the function buttons or the favorites menu. As a landscape photographer, I often change the aspect ratio and always have to search in the menu in a very cumbersome way. I therefore propose to integrate the aspect ratio option into the direct access menu of the Fn buttons and the favorites menu.

2.2 When it comes to selecting aspect ratios, I really miss the classic film formats 5:4 and 17:6 as well as the 2:1 format, which are particularly popular with landscape photographers.

2.3. Unfortunately, the aspect ratios in the selection are currently not sorted according to their ratio. I therefore suggest sorting them, starting with 1:1.

3. Auto Iso

The auto-ISO function currently regulates the limiting shutter speed of the SL2 via the set focal length in a ratio of 1/(2*focal length). In my opinion, this ratio is too high due to the good image stabilization in the SL2 and leads to unnecessarily high ISO values and thus to increased image noise. I therefore suggest adding a second auto function that limits the exposure time according to the ratio 1/focal length (similar to the M11).

4. Depth of field preview

Almost every professional camera on the market offers a depth of field preview according to the selected aperture, only the Leica SL2 does not. I imagine that Leica could put depth of field preview on the Fn buttons and then when you press the button, the lens stops down according to the chosen aperture.

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I would also like to see the self timer moved from a shooting mode, to a feature to be used with all shooting modes.  The only mode that works in conjunction with self timer is the multishot mode.  So I know Leica could easily enable for bracketing, where it's sorely missed. 

Depth of Field preview would be nice also. 

I was going to add AF-ON, but I finally figured out how to get that to work in M mode. 

 

Paul 

 

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I’m still waiting for geotagging to work consistently and reliably with the FOTOs app.

Aside from this, there are a few other changes that would be nice to have including:

  • Increasing exposure time limit beyond 1s which is an electronic shutter limitation on the SL2 but not the SL2-S for multi-shot mode
  • Further enhancing the geotagging capabilities such as allow FOTOs app to cache the last few hours of location data so that if the camera is disconnected from the app, once it reconnects, it has previous location data that can be used to retroactively geotag the photos taken by the camera.
  • Making the SL2/SL2-S MFi certified so it can benefit from the tethering capabilities with the iPhone which was announced with the M11
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4 hours ago, 2436 said:

Dear Leica fan girls and boys, I am an enthusiastic landscape photographer and bought the SL2 a good two years ago. I chose the Leica SL2 mainly because of its unique operation and excellent menus. Nevertheless, there are some features that I sorely miss on the SL2 and make taking pictures unnecessarily difficult. I’ve mailed the following firmware request to Leica. I hope they’re reading this forum too. What do you guys think of my suggestions and what do you wish for the firmware 4.0?

1. Bracketing

1.1. Unfortunately, you cannot currently combine automatic exposure bracketing with a self-timer on the SL2. This is very annoying as you are forced to either use a remote shutter release or the Leica app to get a shake-free shot. Both are often very time consuming. I therefore propose to integrate an option for a self-timer in the exposure bracketing menu - similar to the multi-shot mode.

1.2. Currently you can only choose between 3 and 5 shots for exposure bracketing. Due to the good dynamic range of the SL2, however, in most cases it is sufficient to take only 2 shots, e.g. a normally exposed shot and an underexposed shot for the highlights. It would be very nice to see Leica cameras offering more flexibility in the bracketing menu.

2. Aspect Ratio

2.1 It is currently not possible to assign the selection of the aspect ratio to any of the function buttons or the favorites menu. As a landscape photographer, I often change the aspect ratio and always have to search in the menu in a very cumbersome way. I therefore propose to integrate the aspect ratio option into the direct access menu of the Fn buttons and the favorites menu.

2.2 When it comes to selecting aspect ratios, I really miss the classic film formats 5:4 and 17:6 as well as the 2:1 format, which are particularly popular with landscape photographers.

2.3. Unfortunately, the aspect ratios in the selection are currently not sorted according to their ratio. I therefore suggest sorting them, starting with 1:1.

3. Auto Iso

 

The auto-ISO function currently regulates the limiting shutter speed of the SL2 via the set focal length in a ratio of 1/(2*focal length). In my opinion, this ratio is too high due to the good image stabilization in the SL2 and leads to unnecessarily high ISO values and thus to increased image noise. I therefore suggest adding a second auto function that limits the exposure time according to the ratio 1/focal length (similar to the M11).

4. Depth of field preview

 

Almost every professional camera on the market offers a depth of field preview according to the selected aperture, only the Leica SL2 does not. I imagine that Leica could put depth of field preview on the Fn buttons and then when you press the button, the lens stops down according to the chosen aperture.

 

+1. Would also be nice if we could assign the crop function to a button, or even to the favorites menu. 

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  • Auto ISO options from Sigma FP-L e.g. select minimum shutter from Auto, Auto (Faster), Auto (Slower), 1/100, 1/200 etc.
  • Ability to select generic Lens Profiles to enable IBIS e.g. Generic 50mm 
  • Customisable Lens Profiles e.g. Vignetting +5
  • Customise quick menu buttons
  • Option to sort the menus alphabetically
Edited by threeseed
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Better support for lenses with aperture rings. Instead of having aperture selection redundant on both the lens and thumbwheel when in A or M modes, allow the thumbwheel to be reassigned to another function. If I could select for aperture on the lens, shutter speed on the front wheel, exposure compensation on the thumbwheel and have auto ISO, I would be able to quickly adjust to most any situation.

 

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- Better R-Lenses profile (with some lenses corners are over corrected, ie: summicron-r 50)
- Possibility to permanently turn off lens recogniction (in order not to have lens profile which often degrade picture)
- Recognition of ROM-EXTENDER 2X and lens attached, actually it shows: Unknown Lens

Edited by sarav
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Is someone from Leica monitoring this thread/forum? and also Self timer shot. Such an expensive camera can only take one self timer shot at a time, it's very annoying when I have alot of people in the frame who would like to try different pose I have to constantly reach to the camera.

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18 minutes ago, cumirebus said:

Such an expensive camera can only take one self timer shot at a time, it's very annoying when I have alot of people in the frame who would like to try different pose I have to constantly reach to the camera.

A simple hack is to use the intervalometer. You can set the delay you want and then have it take photos once every second for however many seconds you want.

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22 hours ago, 2436 said:

2.2 When it comes to selecting aspect ratios, I really miss the classic film formats 5:4 and 17:6 as well as the 2:1 format, which are particularly popular with landscape photographers.

 

Can you not use profiles?

14 hours ago, sarav said:

- Possibility to permanently turn off lens recogniction (in order not to have lens profile which often degrade picture)

it is called LENS PROFILE off

 

22 hours ago, 2436 said:

The auto-ISO function currently regulates the limiting shutter speed of the SL2 via the set focal length in a ratio of 1/(2*focal length). In my opinion, this ratio is too high due to the good image stabilization in the SL2 and leads to unnecessarily high ISO values and thus to increased image noise. I therefore suggest adding a second auto function that limits the exposure time according to the ratio 1/focal length (similar to the M11).

don't you the ISO setting the same in landscape bracketing? AUTO works well for me.
The reason the M11 has 1/4* is the IBIS is not present.

 

22 hours ago, 2436 said:

I therefore propose to integrate an option for a self-timer in the exposure bracketing menu - similar to the multi-shot mode.

+1

 

17 hours ago, threeseed said:
  • Ability to select generic Lens Profiles to enable IBIS e.g. Generic 50mm 
  • Customisable Lens Profiles e.g. Vignetting +5

Any lens profile you pick manual on M or R will only activate IBIS.

If you are not using a Leica original M or R adapter with lenses that support it, no lens correction will be applied .
Lens correction only apply if detected automatically from the camera.

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9 hours ago, cumirebus said:

Is someone from Leica monitoring this thread/forum? and also Self timer shot. Such an expensive camera can only take one self timer shot at a time, it's very annoying when I have alot of people in the frame who would like to try different pose I have to constantly reach to the camera.

You can accomplish this using the interval drive mode, where you can control the timing on the first shot, how many shots you want to take, the time between shots. If this solves your issue, then credit should go to David and Josh at Leica Store Miami where I heard this tip.

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On 1/31/2022 at 7:00 AM, 2436 said:

4. Depth of field preview

 

Almost every professional camera on the market offers a depth of field preview according to the selected aperture, only the Leica SL2 does not. I imagine that Leica could put depth of field preview on the Fn buttons and then when you press the button, the lens stops down according to the chosen aperture.

 

It is Leica position not to stop down so there you have it 😆

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23 minutes ago, sarav said:

I know that but it doesn't stay permanently off. Every time I switch lens with a ROM one, it automatically turn on.

you can cover the contacts with electrical tape or get an adapter with out contact on the cheep.

You can also make a camera profile with lens profile OFF and that worked for me when I had different M lenses.

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2 hours ago, Chun Chang said:

It is Leica position not to stop down so there you have it 😆

I was waiting for the conversation to devolve a little before making the suggestion that the red dot on the camera should be color changing LED so you can enter stealth mode when you don't want the red dot, and it would turn black.

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