Why is my M11 randomly, drastically overexposing?

[elmars]

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vor 18 Minuten schrieb Harpomatic:

I’m not sure why this thread died: I have firmware 1.6 installed, shooting a wedding yesterday, firing several shots in a row when needed, using single shot mostly.

Auto Review was set on shutter press, A shutter, A ISO, Highlight Weighted metering, exposure compensation as needed.

I definitely had quite a few white frames, overexposed by 4-5 stops at lease.

No user error, they were in a series of shots within 2-3 seconds.

 

Anyone seeing this issue still?

I see it and Leica sees it too - finally, one should say. I know they are working on it. 

[geotrupede]

I had this issue a while back and was recommended to do a camera reset by the Leica service. Since I did that no more odd frames, but also did not use much the burst lately. You may want to try saving profiles and run a camera reset. It is a nasty bug as makes picture taking totally unreliable

on a side note, the meter is using sensor readings so it suffers from flicker the same way the electronic shutter does.  in some situation this could confuse the autoexposure, especially the spot mode but I have never used much to tell

we are getting there, one update at a time

😉 

G.

PS in the meantime it seems the odd B intermediate position on the shutter wheel is fixed. or so it looked like last week... anyone same good news to confirm?

[ELAN]

1 hour ago, Harpomatic said:

Anyone seeing this issue still?

Yes, I see it almost every day.  Exactly as you describe it.  Very annoying.

My M11 is from the first batch and it has always been this way through every firmware release.

[Harpomatic]

Thanks for your answers!

Good to know I’m not the only one, but it’s infuriating when you need reliability from your camera.

It’s just great: I’m experiencing the same but with black, massively underexposed frames on the M10r, but it’s much less frequent. Still, it’s there and it’s undermining my trust in the cameras. 

my M240 and then the M-P240 were freezing at times, I needed to pull the battery out and restart the camera - needless to say, losing the shot I had just tried to take.

My Sony A9s never let me down once in tens of thousands of frames.

It really makes you wonder: the M series is so much simpler in firmware, but so much more unreliable and buggy.

Maybe Leica needs to realise that this is absolutely unacceptable on a professional grade tool we are paying a huge premium for. Maybe there is some incompetence somewhere in their IT department and it needs to be rooted out!

Edited December 18, 2022 by Harpomatic

[lct]

May i ask if you're using UHS-II cards? Just curious.

[Harpomatic]

9 minutes ago, lct said:

May i ask if you're using UHS-II cards? Just curious.

Hi lct,

I’m using SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB, 200MB/s, UHS-I.

They are the same I use on the M10R, in theory the best ones to use on that.

[lct]

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55 minutes ago, Harpomatic said:

Hi lct,

I’m using SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB, 200MB/s, UHS-I.

They are the same I use on the M10R, in theory the best ones to use on that.

Thank you @Harpomatic. I use the same cards in 64GB and 256GB with no problem at all but i shoot rarely in C mode. Only problems i got were with UHS-II cards BTW and i still had them after the last firware update. Don't ask me what i think of Leica in matter of cards. It is the only camera brand causing me such issues in 20 years. I don't care much as i would never use anything Leica for pro needs anyway. Nothing negative, it's just me and my job (lawyer).  

Edited December 18, 2022 by lct

[Harpomatic]

12 minutes ago, Artin said:

let’s face it we don’t buy into the M system to make a living with.

Not to be offensive, but that’s just defending your brand mindlessly if you ask me. I do make part of my living with it and I do expect reliability from it. It’s a very, very expensive piece of precision equipment and it should work as expected.

By your reasoning if you bought a £5000 handmade messenger bag and the strap came off occasionally you’d justify it by saying that you didn’t buy it to use it seriously anyway?

[Photoworks]

17 minutes ago, Artin said:

Yup that is exactly what I am saying, Lol. I am not defending the brand what I am saying is just the opposite, What I am saying is that I would not depend on a Leica M digital camera if I was in a situation where every shot was a potential pay check. Just like I would not depend on a Louis Vuitton backpack on a trip to Patagonia, or wear a Zegnia coat on an Arctic expedition. Let’s face it it’s a luxury Camera that happens to take great pictures, feels good in the hand, looks great but it is not on the cutting edge in the industry. Their software and firmware will never be as reliable as Sony or Canon because they simply do not have the resources of those other companies. 

come on that is bull!

professional use Leica for years. just because you shoot family photos it does not mean the M or SL can be dependent on.

[lct]

Just a love affair. Keep it as is or leave it for ever .

[Jipster]

1 hour ago, Artin said:

Yup that is exactly what I am saying, Lol. I am not defending the brand what I am saying is just the opposite, What I am saying is that I would not depend on a Leica M digital camera if I was in a situation where every shot was a potential pay check. Just like I would not depend on a Louis Vuitton backpack on a trip to Patagonia, or wear a Zegnia coat on an Arctic expedition. Let’s face it it’s a luxury Camera that happens to take great pictures, feels good in the hand, looks great but it is not on the cutting edge in the industry. Their software and firmware will never be as reliable as Sony or Canon because they simply do not have the resources of those other companies. 

Have you heard of the SONY firmware update fiasco? Or Canon overheating? Or Samsung’s troubles? Software and hardware issues? Now, it’s frustrating with something as expansive as a Leica, but it’s not specific to Leica. People bash Nikon for its conservativeness, but there is a reason for it. As to professionals using M, you may want to watch some videos of some of the best creative photographer using Leica Ms.

[elmars]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Harpomatic:

Maybe Leica needs to realise that this is absolutely unacceptable on a professional grade tool we are paying a huge premium for. Maybe there is some incompetence somewhere in their IT department and it needs to be rooted out!

If nobody complains, Leica will not realise it as a (big) problem. So everybody should tell them. 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Ah, I remember this bug.  I tried setting my M11 to autoreview OFF, highlight weighted exposure, LV on and swinging around the room with slightly varying light shooting rapid single shots  Sure enough there were some inexplicable exposure jumps, but only by a stop or two.  I have an event to shoot tomorrow, and I'll stick to center weighted...

[Eugene Young]

On 5/23/2022 at 8:29 PM, cbgrey said:

I've noticed since I've had it that my M11 will seemingly randomly overexpose by a massive amount. The frequency has gone up and down but while out yesterday it happened so frequently that it's very worrisome. 

I've been chalking it up to it being a new camera and that future firmware updates will fix the metering but on closer analysis of what happened yesterday, I think it's not the metering and something else. 

The shots in the attachment were taking seconds apart from each other. 

All base iso 64. All with Multi-Field metering.

The correctly exposed first shot is 1/500 @ f/5.6 (?) according to the EXIF. 

The overexposed shots are at 1/200 @ f/8 (?) according to the EXIF. 

If my math is correct those should roughly be the same exposure. 

The last (correct) shot is 1/4000 @ f/2.0. 

Any thoughts on what's happening here? I'm shooting this the same way I shot an M240 and an M10 and didn't have these issues so I don't think it's the photographers fault but who knows. 

Really appreciate any thoughts and opinions. 

 

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I had the same experience sometimes as you did. Not as often as you did. 

[elmars]

vor einer Stunde schrieb scott kirkpatrick:

I'll stick to center weighted.

This will not reliably help. I had overexposure with all metering methods. Only Spot I have not tried.

[ELAN]

I think the problem is related to quick successive shots in single-shot mode.  When subjects enter my pre-focused plane I sometimes fire 3-4 frames quickly and it’s always the middle frame that gets overexposed. Usually the best frame.  Sure seems like the timing of re-metering in between shots occurs with the shutter partially closed. That would explain why some shots are 4-5 stops overexposed and others are overexposed by 2-3 stops. 

[cbgrey]

Since I kicked off this thread...thought I'd give an update. After (I think) 2 firmware updates since I posted I don't see this happen anymore. I didn't change anything about my setup in terms of metering modes or frame speeds. 

Not suggesting the problem is "solved". Just sharing my experience. 

[Sjz]

39 minutes ago, cbgrey said:

Since I kicked off this thread...thought I'd give an update. After (I think) 2 firmware updates since I posted I don't see this happen anymore. I didn't change anything about my setup in terms of metering modes or frame speeds. 

Not suggesting the problem is "solved". Just sharing my experience. 

This matches my experience too.

[Harpomatic]

23 hours ago, ELAN said:

Sure seems like the timing of re-metering in between shots occurs with the shutter partially closed.

That seems one of the most plausible explanations! 

It happened to me in single shot mode. I was releasing the shutter repeatedly but following a rhythm that would let the camera keep up with my finger, I wasn’t mashing it as fast as possible. 

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[Harpomatic]

21 hours ago, Musky said:

Then definitely related to the new “metering off the sensor” thing then. I like it the old way as it is in my M10R. Predictable and it works. 

And you get the black frames instead…