Leica SL Lens "Latency" After FW 4 Update

[LBJ2]

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3 hours ago, JeffWright said:

Confirming this is an actual thing. Occurs on all of my Summicron L lenses (confirmed on 35, 50, 75 and 90, don't own the 28). when stopped down 2.8 or smaller. Does not occur on any of the Leica SL zooms (I own all 3). It does not occur on my Sigma L mount 100mm.

Briefly have tried all focusing modes as well as in manual, aperture, and shutter priorities, and it seems to be independent of this as well. I did a full reset of the camera after the upgrade. Use camera exclusively in single shot mode...but of course that gives me something else to try. Will update later.

 

THE NOT MUCH LATER UPDATE: HOLY CRAP THIS IS TERRIBLE. On continuous low or medium speed the blackout in the viewfinder makes the camera almost unusable. Hybrid shutter setting. On continuous high/very high, it functions OK after an initial blackout.

Also, don't waste your time with multiple resets. That does not fix the problem.

Definitely something to report to Leica tech team for review. 

I was able to replicate the same stopping down the SL 50/2 v3.0 on the SL2 v 4.0. The problem exacerbates by F8 e.g., F2 seems very useable. 

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[jrp]

This sounds very like what I had on my 24mm f3.5 Sigma before Sigma updated their firmware. 

Unfortunately I am indisposed so cannot investigate further, but I did have some oddities when updating the lens firmware after updating to 4.0 on an SL2: the firmware wouldn’t update until I’d reseated the lens, whereupon it updated very quickly. 

[beewee]

8 hours ago, LBJ2 said:

Definitely something to report to Leica tech team for review. 

I was able to replicate the same stopping down the SL 50/2 v3.0 on the SL2 v 4.0. The problem exacerbates by F8 e.g., F2 seems very useable. 

Thanks for pointing this out. I just tested my SL2-S with the 28 APO SL and compared it against the 16-35 SL and I notice the same issue on the 3.0 SL2-S FW + 28 APO but not on the 16-35 SL with shutter speed and aperture being the same.

It seems like it happens only on the APO while stopped down and in single shot mode. I didn’t really notice the lag when in high speed continuous but I also didn’t try testing medium or low speed continuous.

I’m starting to wonder if it’s related to stopping down the aperture of the lens and in high speed continuous, maybe the lens stays at the shooting aperture the whole time.

Edited May 15, 2022 by beewee

[beewee]

8 hours ago, LBJ2 said:

Definitely something to report to Leica tech team for review. 

I was able to replicate the same stopping down the SL 50/2 v3.0 on the SL2 v 4.0. The problem exacerbates by F8 e.g., F2 seems very useable. 

I’ve messaged an admin here that has direct contact with folks at Leica and drew his attention to this thread. Hopefully, we’ll see a firmware update that fixes this issue. 

[MrFriendly]

I had more time to play around with the new update, and as others have stated, it happens as you stop down, and there is no workaround.  It's easier to reproduce on the APO Summicrons SL, but it also happens on the  Summilux SL.

Another issue I've noticed with the new firmware is that disconnecting from the FOTOS app or the bluetooth will lock up the camera.

Leica needs to fire their head of software division.  Until then, i'm boxing everything up and getting rid of all my SL gear. Life is too short to dick around with these kinds of BS, specially when you're paying 3-4 times more than other brands.

The hardware might be Made in Germany, and people get excited over that, but the software is definitely Made in DumbPhuckistan.

[Malabito]

Same here, sl2s + 35mm sl apo, terrible black out when shooting  with smaller apertures.

 

Incredible that they can release a firmware with such bug.

 

Doesn't happen with none leica lenses. 

[efeist]

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I've also experienced the behavior described above with my Summicron SL 35 and 90.  I haven't found a resolution and have contacted Leica support in USA.

[LocalHero1953]

I have posted about my similar experience in the other (firmware) thread: lags with Summicrons at all apertures that can be corrected by resetting, and lags when stopped down that cannot.

I have reported it via the Fotos app. I hope everyone else is doing the same (via Fotos or directly). No point in making a noise here without reporting it as well (unless you're intending to sell anyway).

FWIW I have been using the SL2-S with 24-90, 90-280 and, wide open, the 90 for the last 10 days without noticing any problem - I only found it today after reading these threads. So for me it hasn't been a big deal so far.

Edited May 15, 2022 by LocalHero1953

[LocalHero1953]

There has been another behaviour with the new firmware that made me wonder if it was real or not: waking up from sleep seems to take longer than I remembered - but I could be just misremembering. I have been shooting a lot with the 90-280 where I have noticed it, but can't yet confirm if it shows up on any other lens.

Anyone else think the same?

[MediaFotografie]

vor 47 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

There has been another behaviour with the new firmware that made me wonder if it was real or not: waking up from sleep seems to take longer than I remembered - but I could be just misremembering. I have been shooting a lot with the 90-280 where I have noticed it, but can't yet confirm if it shows up on any other lens.

Anyone else think the same?

I think the same - and maybe that's normal because the new FW is "much more software" than previous versions. 

[KenTanaka]

FWIW I can confirm that this shutter latency is indeed a function of aperture. With my Leica SL lenses on my SL2, wide-open = normal shutter action. The lag increases quickly as aperture increases. By 5.6 it seems to be at full “click click”.

(Single frame drive, single frame af.)

Grrr. (Did I already say that?)

Edited May 15, 2022 by KenTanaka

[Stuart Richardson]

I did not really notice until today (or at least, it had not reached a critical level yet), but when giving it a try to see if I had the problem, I did find it. I also noticed that the aperture seems to be stopping down very slowly and gradually, and that seems to be the issue. The camera will not take a picture until the aperture is stopped down, but the stopping down action is super slow. I made a quick video and have linked it here.

The good news is that since this is so obvious, I am sure Leica will have a fix for it. But it is surprising and disconcerting that this did not come up in testing.

slow aperture stop-down

P.S. I contacted Leica Support in Germany with a copy of the video, the explanation and a link to this thread. 

I also tried this on the Q2, and the Q2's aperture stops down instantly and has no delay.

Edited May 15, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[beewee]

21 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I did not really notice until today (or at least, it had not reached a critical level yet), but when giving it a try to see if I had the problem, I did find it. I also noticed that the aperture seems to be stopping down very slowly and gradually, and that seems to be the issue. The camera will not take a picture until the aperture is stopped down, but the stopping down action is super slow. I made a quick video and have linked it here.

The good news is that since this is so obvious, I am sure Leica will have a fix for it. But it is surprising and disconcerting that this did not come up in testing.

slow aperture stop-down

Nice video clip. It totally illustrates the issue and explains why high speed continuous doesn’t appear to be impacted while other modes like single shot and low/medium speed continuous is impacted. I do expect Leica to address this unless they did it for some reason, for example to prolong the life of the aperture mechanism because of some known deficiency  - hopefully not!

With the APO SL primes sharing similar components between each other to reduce development cost, one down side is that problems that pop up on one focal length will likely show up on others in the family. At the same time, it’s a lot quicker to catch such issues like this since all APO SL prime users are experiencing it so hopefully this will get addressed quickly.

My guess is that this issue is coming from the lens firmware and not the camera firmware, this was not noticed during camera firmware beta testing and the pool of lens firmware beta testers are small to non-existent. Having participated in camera beta testing in the past, the pool of camera firmware beta testers are fairly large so issues do get raised fairly quickly. I expect camera and lens firmware beta testing are separate events and this is why the issue slipped through. Hopefully, Leica’s Software QA team (if it exists) will build new test cases for this issue so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Edited May 15, 2022 by beewee

[Stuart Richardson]

13 minutes ago, beewee said:

My guess is that this issue is coming from the lens firmware and not the camera firmware, this was not noticed during camera firmware beta testing and the pool of lens firmware beta testers are small to non-existent. Having participated in camera beta testing in the past, the pool of camera firmware beta testers are fairly large so issues do get raised fairly quickly. I expect camera and lens firmware beta testing are separate events and this is why the issue slipped through. Hopefully, Leica’s Software QA team (if it exists) will build new test cases for this issue so it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Yes, I just tried with my 90-280mm, and it does not have the problem to the same degree. I only have three SL lenses, the 35, 50 and 90-280. The 50mm and 35mm have the slowed aperture. It is hard to see in the 90-280, as it is much further in the lens, but I did not notice the same slowing. I also tried a Sigma lens and its aperture was quicker.

Finally, I tried the SL summicrons in M mode, versus A, and they were a bit faster. Basically, in A mode the iris is slow to stop down, and slow to open up after taking the picture. In M mode, the iris is stopped down already to the taking aperture, but when you take a photo the iris slowly opens up to fully open, and then slowly closes back down to the taking aperture. So it is slightly faster than A mode, but still slow. So this clearly seems to be related to the speed at which the iris is moving, so it makes a lot of sense that this is lens firmware related, since it only seems to be affecting the SL summicrons.

[LocalHero1953]

I've tried it with all three zooms, and see no problem. It happens with all three of my Summicrons (35, 75, 90)

[beewee]

1 minute ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Yes, I just tried with my 90-280mm, and it does not have the problem to the same degree. I only have three SL lenses, the 35, 50 and 90-280. The 50mm and 35mm have the slowed aperture. It is hard to see in the 90-280, as it is much further in the lens, but I did not notice the same slowing. I also tried a Sigma lens and its aperture was quicker.

Finally, I tried the SL summicrons in M mode, versus A, and they were a bit faster. Basically, in A mode the iris is slow to stop down, and slow to open up after taking the picture. In M mode, the iris is stopped down already to the taking aperture, but when you take a photo the iris slowly opens up to fully open, and then slowly closes back down to the taking aperture. So it is slightly faster than A mode, but still slow. So this clearly seems to be related to the speed at which the iris is moving, so it makes a lot of sense that this is lens firmware related, since it only seems to be affecting the SL summicrons.

Interesting. I haven’t tested in A mode; only M mode testing here. This was mainly because my test scene was too dark and I didn’t want shutter speed to be a factor so I just purposely kept the shutter at 1/250s and higher.

I do have the 16-35, 24-90, and 90-280 SL zooms, but the 28 APO SL is my only Leica SL prime. I also have a few Sigma lenses as well so I can try some comparisons between the SL zooms and Sigma.

[SoarFM]

Same issues here.. SL2.

APO 35 SL is affected.

24-90 and 50 SL-Summilux not affected.

Went to Leica Store DC today and tried my APO 35-SL (with updated firmware) on an ver3 SL2 and it still had the aperture latency. They had a 28 SL that worked perfectly before the update on the same v3 camera and when they did the update, the 28-SL which then updated exhibited the same latency.

It’s a lens firmware issue. 

[beewee]

2 hours ago, SoarFM said:

Same issues here.. SL2.

APO 35 SL is affected.

24-90 and 50 SL-Summilux not affected.

Went to Leica Store DC today and tried my APO 35-SL (with updated firmware) on an ver3 SL2 and it still had the aperture latency. They had a 28 SL that worked perfectly before the update on the same v3 camera and when they did the update, the 28-SL which then updated exhibited the same latency.

It’s a lens firmware issue. 

Glad that you were able to demonstrate the issue at a Leica Store. Hopefully this gets escalated pretty quickly.

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[jplomley]

3 hours ago, beewee said:

Interesting. I haven’t tested in A mode; only M mode testing here. This was mainly because my test scene was too dark and I didn’t want shutter speed to be a factor so I just purposely kept the shutter at 1/250s and higher.

I do have the 16-35, 24-90, and 90-280 SL zooms, but the 28 APO SL is my only Leica SL prime. I also have a few Sigma lenses as well so I can try some comparisons between the SL zooms and Sigma.

Curious how the 28 APO compares to the 24-90 and 16-35 at comparable apertures. Do you note a difference in resolution between f-5.6 or f-8? Been thinking of adding this FL since I'm sure it will be several years, if ever that we see the 21/24 APO SC's.

[beewee]

1 hour ago, jplomley said:

Curious how the 28 APO compares to the 24-90 and 16-35 at comparable apertures. Do you note a difference in resolution between f-5.6 or f-8? Been thinking of adding this FL since I'm sure it will be several years, if ever that we see the 21/24 APO SC's.

I’ve posted some of my thoughts on the 28 APO thread below so rather than discuss that here, I’d recommend going there.