M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[colint544]

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Taking some pictures on the M11 this morning - aperture priority - and they were very dark on the screen. Realised that the exposure compensation was dialled away down to minus one and two thirds of a stop. Dialled it back up to minus one third of a stop, where I always leave it. Shot some more pictures. Very dark on the screen again. It had gone straight back down to minus nearly two stops again. 

This is a new one to me. The fault is endlessly reproducible with any lens fitted, and a battery and card pull aren't solving it. Maybe a reset will fix it. A reset is annoying because you lose all your settings and your manually entered uncoded lenses.  And I'm still getting occasional wildly overexposed frames in a sequence.

Really losing confidence in this camera. You just want to be able pick it up and create images, not fiddle around with it, pull the battery, do resets all the time. My almost eleven-year-old M Monochrom never misses a beat. I trust it completely because it just works. Every time.

*edit*  Reset the camera, and that's cured the problem for the time being.

Edited July 21, 2023 by colint544

[lct]

46 minutes ago, don daniel said:

[...] Since I don't like the lens profile of the Apo-Summicron 35mm for the M11, I tape off the 6-bit sensor and choose the profile of the Summicron 35mm asph. in the camera. This does not affect my M11 in any way. I have also used uncoded lenses from Voigtländer without any problems, with the manual profile activated and with the profile deactivated. [...]

Not sure what you mean by taping off the 6-bit sensor but in both cases, you are not under lens detection auto anymore, but lens detection manual if i understand well, or am i missing something? 

Edited July 21, 2023 by lct

[lct]

13 minutes ago, colint544 said:

Taking some pictures on the M11 this morning - aperture priority - and they were very dark on the screen. Realised that the exposure compensation was dialled away down to minus one and two thirds of a stop. Dialled it back up to minus one third of a stop, where I always leave it. Shot some more pictures. Very dark pictures again. It had gone straight back down to minus nearly two stops again.

You may wish to check if the minus one and two-thirds of a stop setting makes part of a user profile you would have registered on purpose or unwillingly.

[don daniel]

vor 33 Minuten schrieb lct:

Not sure what you mean by taping off the 6-bit sensor but in both cases, you are not under lens detection auto anymore, but lens detection manual if i understand well, or am i missing something? 

That is correct. I should say: I put an adhesive strip over the 6-bit code of the Apo-Summicron 35mm so that the M11 does not automatically recognise the Apo-Summicron as such, because I think the profile is faulty. I have described my reasons in the thread linked below. But I would like to use a profile already in the camera so that the vignetting is reduced. That's why I don't simply switch off the profile detection, but manually select the profile of the 35mm asph Summicron. But I have tried all variations of profile settings. I have run coded lenses under automatic profile detection, non-coded lenses as well, and I have also selected manual profiles for non-coded lenses. In addition, I have now just tricked the camera not to apply an automatically recognised profile. I can say that none of these manipulations triggered the camera to freeze. I've only had the M11 a few months, but I use it intensively and I've only had a handful of freezes.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by don daniel

[colint544]

31 minutes ago, lct said:

You may wish to check if the minus one and two-thirds of a stop setting makes part of a user profile you would have registered on purpose or unwillingly.

Would be great if it were something like that, i.e. operator error, and not a bug in the software. I've never bothered with the profiles, or with the Photos app, or the wi-fi, any of that stuff. I just shoot the camera more or less as I would an M7, with a bit of live view from time to time. However, I suppose I can't be 100% certain that I haven't unwittingly created a profile with minus one and two thirds of a stop exposure compensation, and I've somehow activated that. Although, surely I'd have been able to override that? The camera was having none of it, it wouldn't let me alter the compensation back up. I'll never know now anyway I guess, since I've reset the camera.

I'm still hoping that this 1.6.2 software update might fix whatever issues my M11 has. I get these massively overexposed frames in a sequence when shooting on aperture priority sometimes, and I've had a couple of freezes requiring a battery pull. It's a fabulous camera otherwise. And, to be fair, from memory I think my M9M might have had a bug or two in the system back when it was brand new, and these were ironed out with firmware updates, so hopefully they will fix the M11 in the same way.

Edited July 21, 2023 by colint544

[lct]

9 minutes ago, colint544 said:

[...] I suppose I can't be 100% certain that I haven't unwittingly created a profile with minus one and two thirds of a stop exposure compensation, and I've somehow activated that. I'll never know now I guess, since I've reset the whole camera [...]

You may wish to set up one or several user profiles with your preferred settings then, this way you can retrieve them easily.

[elmars]

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vor 13 Minuten schrieb colint544:

I get these massively overexposed frames in a sequence when shooting on aperture priority sometimes

I have this from time to time and it is very annoying. Leica can't get a grip on it.

[colint544]

Just now, lct said:

You may wish to set up one or several user profiles with your preferred settings then, this way you can retrieve them easily.

I might look into that, cheers, although I frankly don't really understand, or possibly want to understand, the profiles. I'm either in full manual, or aperture priority with minus 1/3 of a stop. That never changes. I don't use flash, or a Visoflex, I have the auto review switched off, it's set to just take a single shot when I press the button. If I want to use the camera quickly, without using the rangefinder, I'll turn the shutter speed to 1/1000th, set F8 on the lens, and turn the ISO dial to 'A', and  scale focus. I mostly stay out of the menus.

I'm not really sure what I might need a profile for. I am a bit of a dinosaur, to be fair, and I'm likely missing a trick?

 

[colint544]

20 minutes ago, elmars said:

I have this from time to time and it is very annoying. Leica can't get a grip on it.

Agree it's very annoying. It feels as though it's often the best frame in the sequence!

[lct]

17 minutes ago, don daniel said:

That is correct. I should say: I put an adhesive strip over the 6-bit code of the Apo-Summicron 35mm so that the M11 does not automatically recognise the Apo-Summicron as such, because I think the profile is faulty. I have described my reasons in the thread linked below. But I would like to use a profile already in the camera so that the vignetting is reduced. That's why I don't simply switch off the profile detection, but manually select the profile of the 35mm asph Summicron. [...]

This way you managed to transform a coded lens into an uncoded one in order to make good use of the lens detection manual features of the camera. I see no problem with that. Issues could arise if you had selected lens detection auto instead.  

[don daniel]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb lct:

This way you managed to transform a coded lens into an uncoded one in order to make good use of the lens detection manual features of the camera. I see no problem with that. Issues could arise if you had selected lens detection auto instead.  

How is that possible? If a lens code is not recognized by the camera, it automatically switches to a manuel profile. I can no longer choose auto. 

[lct]

19 minutes ago, colint544 said:

I might look into that, cheers, although I frankly don't really understand, or possibly want to understand, the profiles. I'm either in full manual, or aperture priority with minus 1/3 of a stop. That never changes. I don't use flash, or a Visoflex, I have the auto review switched off, it's set to just take a single shot when I press the button. If I want to use the camera quickly, without using the rangefinder, I'll turn the shutter speed to 1/1000th, set F8 on the lens, and turn the ISO dial to 'A', and  scale focus. I mostly stay out of the menus.

I'm not really sure what I might need a profile for. I am a bit of a dinosaur, to be fair, and I'm likely missing a trick?

Haha from a dinosaur to another one  what you're missing is perhaps that your preferred settings won't be kept if you don't register them in a user profile because the camera will revert to the default profile otherwise. Once you set up a user profile it will be easy to use with a bit of habit.

 

[colint544]

32 minutes ago, lct said:

Haha from a dinosaur to another one  what you're missing is perhaps that your preferred settings won't be kept if you don't register them in a user profile because the camera will revert to the default profile otherwise. Once you set up a user profile it will be easy to use with a bit of habit.

 

Thanks, I'll have a look at that. I've only had to do two restarts on the camera, but I'm pretty sure there's a prompt when you restart it to not wipe the profiles, so perhaps that might be useful. Cheers.

[jakontil]

I have used my nikkor with KnF adapter when scanning my negs, and with liveview, i havent had any lock ups during the process been through plenty of rolls i never realised this

but i dont have a profile in my M, and lens detection always set manual though as i have a couple uncoded lenses 

[lct]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:57 PM, don daniel said:

How is that possible? If a lens code is not recognized by the camera, it automatically switches to a manuel profile. I can no longer choose auto. 

I never tried to put an adhesive strip over the 6-bit code of a lens, as you managed to do it, but lens detection auto is not greyed out nor disabled when an uncoded lens is mounted. Selecting it is then possible, which allows users to give contradictory orders to the camera. If the camera behaves normally, it will correct these orders itself, either by choosing the "uncoded" status, or the last lens profile entered manually. It is at this level that freezes can occur as i understand it. Some ways to avoid this could be for users to abstain from selecting lens detection auto when an uncoded lens is mounted or, preferably, for Leica to disable or grey out lens detection auto in such situations.

[don daniel]

vor 14 Stunden schrieb lct:

I never tried to put an adhesive strip over the 6-bit code of a lens, as you managed to do it, but lens detection auto is not greyed out nor disabled when an uncoded lens is mounted. Selecting it is then possible, which allows users to give contradictory orders to the camera. If the camera behaves normally, it will correct these orders itself, either by choosing the "uncoded" status, or the last lens profile entered manually. It is at this level that freezes can occur as i understand it. Some ways to avoid this could be for users to abstain from selecting lens detection auto when an uncoded lens is mounted or, preferably, for Leica to disable or grey out lens detection auto in such situations.

You're right. The automatic profile setting is not disabled, but still selectable. The last manually selected profile is then simply active. This is the case with a non-coded lens as well as with my Apo-Summicron 35 with the unrecognizable 6-bit code.

[lct]

31 minutes ago, don daniel said:

You're right. The automatic profile setting is not disabled, but still selectable. The last manually selected profile is then simply active. This is the case with a non-coded lens as well as with my Apo-Summicron 35 with the unrecognizable 6-bit code.

Yes in both cases the lens is treated as uncoded but the "uncoded" status is only adopted when there is no lens profile in memory, typically after a camera reset. Otherwise, as you say, the last manually selected profile is activated. It is a good solution when it works but lens detection auto should not remain selectable when an uncoded lens is mounted.

[don daniel]

vor 25 Minuten schrieb lct:

Yes in both cases the lens is treated as uncoded but the "uncoded" status is only adopted when there is no lens profile in memory, typically after a camera reset. Otherwise, as you say, the last manually selected profile is activated. It is a good solution when it works but lens detection auto should not remain selectable when an uncoded lens is mounted.

In my case the manual selection should also be available when a coded lens is mounted. That would save me from having to trick the camera into activating a better correction profile for the Apo-Summicron. But that is another topic.

[lct]

Indeed the only alternative for coded lenses is lens detection auto or off. I guess Leica doesn't like the idea of its own lenses being used under a false identity. However, some DIY enthusiasts may be tempted to erase the paint of the coding pits and replace it with that of a lens they prefer without prejudice to the legality of the process. 

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[bkphoto]

Had another freeze today…I was going back and forth between shooting with the rangefinder and playback. SD card, not on internal storage.