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Leica SL2 / SL2s - Firmware 4.0 Requests


2436

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On 2/22/2022 at 2:49 PM, PixelAllen said:

I am seeking an entire sensor upgrade program since it isn't a software issue, it is the hardware itself. Phase detect sensor upgrade will bring Leica sl2-s which is video-centric to new heights in terms of af capabilities in the expense of possibly banding in high iso.

Most certainly.  I hope Leica move in this direction for the SL line.  Panasonic seem married to CDAF while every other manufacture has progressed to OSPDAF.

Edited by Chun Chang
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There are still a few bugs in the current firmware (SL2-s - FW: 2.1); now and then it happens that the focus crashes or the EVF suddenly goes black. This is very irritating in the middle of a shoot. Most of the time I just have to switch the camera on and off, then everything works again.

These are things I would like to see in the next FW:

- Since I often use the shoulder display, it bothers me that when selecting the ISO values, it is not marked there that the selection is currently taking place. This could be represented by an inverted ISO number, for example.

- For subjects with a lot of backlight (sunset, bright sky behind people, ...) the Live View darkens so much that dark areas are hardly or not at all recognisable. This makes framing partly impossible. A mode to make dark areas still more bright would be necessary. For me it’s ok than to live without the exposure preview.

- Nothing to do with the firmware, but still: I would like to see another button for the thumb (between the rear dial and the joystick). It's great that you can press the joystick, but in the heat of the moment it's easy to accidentally adjust the focus point instead of pressing it.

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Enable preview of images (currently the Play button functionality) to one of the programmable buttons to the right. This is the only (practical) way to avoid lowering the camera from the eye in order to review an image. 

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1. - DOF PREVIEW !!!!! (common Leica , it can not be that hard?) 

2. - Fix camera Profiles (they are not fully working, i can not save two different profiles in the same mode for example)

3 - Fix issue with Panasonic 70-200 not being able to shoot Burst mode if Battery is below 50%

 

Edited by hossegor
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On 1/31/2022 at 4:00 PM, 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.

 

And depth of field is fun too. How are you going to learn this if the camera can’t show it to you. By looking at pictures? You can only figure this out by doing it. And the taste on how much you want or need come from contemplating it. So we have this outstanding viewfinder and the most fun thing to do is left out. I spend hours using this feature on my old om2. The button on the lens was so often pushed. Anyway for any commercial work this feature is crucial. 
and it’s not a big deal. It was there in the SL. So pls. It has nothing to do with getting simplistic in taking things away that really matter. So thanxs for pointing it out. 

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On 1/31/2022 at 9:35 PM, Virob said:

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.

 

That’s one I also struggle with! 
or exposure compensation! That would be so great ! 

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The only thing that has bothered me since the camera came out is that it is impossible to compose a picture in the Multishot mode. If you have the multishot mode on, as soon as you even slightly move the camera, a full screen warning comes up telling you you need to be stable. Since this gets in the way of the frame, it makes it difficult to adjust the composition. I wish they would not activate this warning unless you half press a shutter or at least give you an option to turn off the warning. The current implementation means that you have to compose everything in a different drive mode, lock down the camera, take the picture, go out of MS mode, find another picture, switch back to MS mode etc. It is time consuming and frankly just stupid. I doubt they had a photographer's input on this particular design choice. 

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7 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

The only thing that has bothered me since the camera came out is that it is impossible to compose a picture in the Multishot mode. If you have the multishot mode on, as soon as you even slightly move the camera, a full screen warning comes up telling you you need to be stable. Since this gets in the way of the frame, it makes it difficult to adjust the composition. I wish they would not activate this warning unless you half press a shutter or at least give you an option to turn off the warning. The current implementation means that you have to compose everything in a different drive mode, lock down the camera, take the picture, go out of MS mode, find another picture, switch back to MS mode etc. It is time consuming and frankly just stupid. I doubt they had a photographer's input on this particular design choice. 

Yeah, even a programable button to temporarily mute the camera movement warnings in multishot mode until you half-press the shutter or something would be nice.

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On 3/7/2022 at 7:54 AM, hossegor said:

1. - DOF PREVIEW !!!!! (common Leica , it can not be that hard?) 

2. - Fix camera Profiles (they are not fully working, i can not save two different profiles in the same mode for example)

3 - Fix issue with Panasonic 70-200 not being able to shoot Burst mode if Battery is below 50%

 

With mirrorless EVF we have WYSIWYG to include seeing whatever DOF with whatever aperture we select realtime through e.g., SL2 EVF. Why do we also need DOF Preview ?  

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vor 4 Stunden schrieb LBJ2:

With mirrorless EVF we have WYSIWYG to include seeing whatever DOF with whatever aperture we select realtime through e.g., SL2 EVF. Why do we also need DOF Preview ?  

Hi,

because we do NOT see what we get. SL2 and SL2-S measure always with open aperture. Working aperture is only active during shutter actuation. This is in photo mode.

In video mode the SL2-S and maybe also the SL2 have working aperture ! If it works in video mode, it should be an easy FW change to allow this also in foto mode.

 

Therefore as an ugly workaround, the DOF preview can be done with switching to video mode, temporarily.

 

regards

Reiner

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4 hours ago, LBJ2 said:

With mirrorless EVF we have WYSIWYG to include seeing whatever DOF with whatever aperture we select realtime through e.g., SL2 EVF. Why do we also need DOF Preview ?  

Because in stills mode, the EVF always shows the scene with the largest available aperture to help with autofocus and there’s no way to visualize the scene with the selected aperture … unless you switch to video mode.

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On 4/23/2022 at 6:41 AM, Stuart Richardson said:

The only thing that has bothered me since the camera came out is that it is impossible to compose a picture in the Multishot mode. If you have the multishot mode on, as soon as you even slightly move the camera, a full screen warning comes up telling you you need to be stable. Since this gets in the way of the frame, it makes it difficult to adjust the composition. I wish they would not activate this warning unless you half press a shutter or at least give you an option to turn off the warning. The current implementation means that you have to compose everything in a different drive mode, lock down the camera, take the picture, go out of MS mode, find another picture, switch back to MS mode etc. It is time consuming and frankly just stupid. I doubt they had a photographer's input on this particular design choice. 

Multi shot means multiple takes of the exactly the same view, with the sensor moving one-half a pixel in each direction. The camera must be be rock steady for this to work, any tremor larger than one half pixel negates the use of multi shot. Using a remote release or timer is also important since the mere push on the shutter button will induce some motion. So what you are asking for is a non-starter. 

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You misunderstand me Jean Michel. I am not asking to be able to move the camera while taking the picture, only that the warning does not take up the entire screen whenever the camera moves. In practice it means that you cannot compose a picture in multishot mode, because you cannot see a clear frame at all while the camera is being moved the entire time it is in multishot mode. So if you have the camera on a tripod and loosen the ballhead to move the composition, you cannot clearly see the frame. So you either have to guess where the frame would be, stop, wait for the warning to go away, adjust the camera more, wait for the warning to go away, and so on. The warning should come either just as soon as you go into that mode and then not come back, or be user controllable. 

Edited by Stuart Richardson
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11 hours ago, beewee said:

Because in stills mode, the EVF always shows the scene with the largest available aperture to help with autofocus and there’s no way to visualize the scene with the selected aperture … unless you switch to video mode.

Does the SL2/SL2-S not stop down when you half-press the shutter? The Q2 does for sure and I would expect other cameras to behave this way. If not this is a massive oversight!

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12 hours ago, matted said:

Does the SL2/SL2-S not stop down when you half-press the shutter? The Q2 does for sure and I would expect other cameras to behave this way. If not this is a massive oversight!

Answering my own question, looks like the SL2-s doesn't stop down when you half press the shutter like the Q2 does. Silly! Given the amount of effort Leica has appeared to put into maintaining a "consistent UI and experience" across the Cl, Q2, SL2(s), and M11, I am surprised at the number of arbitrary differences between my Q2 and Sl2-S, such as the DOF preview, and what you can add to the favourites menu, for example.

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On 4/25/2022 at 6:37 AM, matted said:

Does the SL2/SL2-S not stop down when you half-press the shutter? The Q2 does for sure and I would expect other cameras to behave this way. If not this is a massive oversight!

 

14 hours ago, matted said:

Answering my own question, looks like the SL2-s doesn't stop down when you half press the shutter like the Q2 does. Silly! Given the amount of effort Leica has appeared to put into maintaining a "consistent UI and experience" across the Cl, Q2, SL2(s), and M11, I am surprised at the number of arbitrary differences between my Q2 and Sl2-S, such as the DOF preview, and what you can add to the favourites menu, for example.

Actually, not stopping down when half pressing the shutter is a huge advantage, and doing it was one of the main reasons so many criticized Sony cameras at the beginning, (not sure if this is still an issue haven't used a Sony in a long time).

This is not an oversight is actually a huge plus that it does the same as a DSLR.

Stopping down will make autofocus incredibly irresponsive, especially if you are shooting in a studio environment. Low light, small aperture, forget about continuous autofocus, and considering how bad the autofocus is already in the SL system, now imagine having the camera to focus continuously at f8 in very dim light. Also this closing down introduces slight delays and temporary changes of exposure in your evf.

Even in normal light situations, having the camera to keep up with focus at f8, f11 is a mess, even for phase detect systems. Therefore, focusing wide open, (not closing down), is a huge plus for many, except when you want to emulate DOF and in that case, is much better to just have a DOF preview button, that will close the aperture temporarily for the user to check the DOF.

 

 

Edited by Malabito
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Am 24.4.2022 um 14:04 schrieb LBJ2:

With mirrorless EVF we have WYSIWYG to include seeing whatever DOF with whatever aperture we select realtime through e.g., SL2 EVF. Why do we also need DOF Preview ?  

i need DOF preview for Product photography and portraits. i need to see how much is in focus without having to guess it. this is a very basic function all other mirrorless camera i used has. 

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