Rant on Firmware Updates

[Kent10D]

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Anyway, hope 1.1whatever comes out this week. I give it 5 minutes before someone starts another the next round of "ways which Leica has hurt me". As a wise someone said earlier in the thread, we're our own worst enemies.

 

I agree.

And I think that's at least part of the reason Leica haven't made beta firmware more widely available. As soon as they did there'd be a hue and cry about how it doesn't do this or that or is worse than the previous version ... the same old "come on Leica!, give ME what I want NOW!" stuff. I think all the noise damages our relationship with Leica more than it helps, and the more noise there is the less forthcoming they're likely to become. It's a simple matter of self preservation. It's not as though they're sitting on their collective a** ignoring the problems. They're working on it, and I'd be prepared to wager that they're working damn hard on it. If it was just a matter of satisfying one set of criteria I'm sure it would be a lot easier, but there are a lot of different Leica users with a hugely varied list of wants and needs (and lots of wailing and hair-tearing and garment-rending going on). Sorting out priorities looks like a monumental task in itself.

 

I'd prefer to think of it all as just part of the Leica experience. Keeps me sane.

[Dan States]

This is not true! A reliable working WB is not something undoable and has to be expected from a camera in that price range. SDHC card support does not improve the image quality, but it improves my user satisfaction significantly.

 

And last but not least a decently working CS is also good for my satisfaction.

 

A camera is not just about being able to take excellent pictures, it is also about the supprt behind it. And this support really sucks - at least for the moment.

 

IS there a camera that doesn't require WB adjustment when creating a fine quality print? I haven't owned or found one yet. I pretty much always tweek the WB on any image regardless of camera unless it just by chance was what I was looking for. The problem with the Leica is that it's SO far off that it draws lots of attention during the work flow. I don't think it actually adds much in the sense of time spent.

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[delander †]

 

So there it is. As far as firmware goes, there really isn't a lot for them to fix,

 

If that is true what is stopping them getting on with it?

 

Guy Walder summed it up in nutshell "Why cant it just work properly for goodness sake?"

 

Jeff

[hankg]

If that is true what is stopping them getting on with it?

 

Guy Walder summed it up in nutshell "Why cant it just work properly for goodness sake?"

 

Jeff

 

I've never owned a camera that was flawless and designed exactly as I would have it designed with all the features I want.

 

Why can't the M8 work properly? It does. I define working properly as delivering what I intended day in and day out and making it easier for me to get there then other cameras I could be using in the same price range. If it's not doing that for you -maybe your using the wrong camera.

 

I never buy a piece of equipment with the hope that the manufacturer will fix it at some ill defined future date. Either it suits my needs before I plunk my money down or I get something else. The sort of miniscule incremental changes that usually come with firmware updates are not going to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.

[scott kirkpatrick]

With respect to SDHC card support

 

As a nice to have, I want it more for speed than

capacity...

 

I don't think that is what SDHC is giving so far -- although I haven't bought any to find out. My impression is that the sweet spot for price and the fastest cards available are still the 2GB SanDisk X IIIes and other peoples' 150Xes.

 

Exposing the estimated aperture is not difficult. It's only concealed because it is sometimes inaccurate, but the information is presently in every file.

 

Providing AWB which varies more gradually with scene content would make most users more comfortable, simply because this would remove the distraction of looking at thumbnails which fluctuate from orange to grey within a series of similar shots. It's more of an embarrassment than a problem.

 

One stop higher usable ISO (as claimed by the Dale labs group) will be big news, but I want to see if it has required some reduction of detail rendering.

 

I'm still waiting to hear if the green streak can be solved, but that's really rare in practice, and takes an expert to induce it.

 

scott

[Maggie_O]

So, are most M8 shooters using Auto White Balance?

 

That would surprise me.

[Shootist]

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So, are most M8 shooters using Auto White Balance?

 

That would surprise me.

I use AWB as the default setting and I do take a lot of images with it set to AWB. If I know I'll be outside or in one type of lighting for most of what I'm shooting I will either set it to one of the presets or use a ExpoDisc to get the WB correct, or should I say close.

I don't find the AWB all that bad most of the time. Sometimes it is way off but as I shoot DNG it's not hard to correct. If it is I go B&W.

[robertwright]

So, are most M8 shooters using Auto White Balance?

 

That would surprise me.

 

I use it all the time, can't be bothered to switch it. from what I can see the camera only has two "auto" settings, 3900 and 5900K anyway. Wb in Lightroom is easy.

 

I think Sean has mentioned this before, but I don't necessarily want "correct" colour out of the camera to begin with. None of the traditional materials I have worked with, polaroid, color negative, slide had "correct" colour. The colour that we "can" get out of digital is noting short of miraculous-highly accurate, neutral and balanced. Often times that bores me.

The recent purchase of the cv12 got me shooting without a filter, and it intrigues me to want to test a week without Ir filters on any of my lenses. After seeing what Jamies v1 profile can do, and knowing I can fix magenta blacks if they really are an issue, I am tempted to see just what the colour really is out of the camera. Maybe it is not that different, but it is worth a try: when I got the camera I put filters on all the lenses and that was that. So I never really "saw" what it could look like.

I do miss the "look" of fuji nph, or nhg, kodak portra 400, kodak EPL400x, films like that always interrested me. Not very "neutral" films to begin with.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I use it all the time, can't be bothered to switch it. from what I can see the camera only has two "auto" settings, 3900 and 5900K anyway.

 

Me, too, since I'm going to stop at the color balance stage in C1 for a quick adjustment anyway. And the M8 presently knows three "auto settings," when you include 7400K for daylight.

 

scott

[barjohn]

I find it interesting that there are so many personal attacks. It's ok not to agree with my views by why all of the personal attacks? I haven't personally attacked any of you. Why do any of you that are satisfied even bother to read or respond to this thread?

 

As to why complain: If no one complains nothing ever gets fixed, it's human nature. It is also the nature of most companies to fight the fires that burn brightest. You may think Leica ignores such rants but I don't. No company wants customers ranting negatively about their products no matter how arrogant the management might be and I am NOT saying Leica management is so don't go there. I frankly hope not and the jury is still out for me.

 

So, those of you that are perfectly content should ignore such threads, DON'T upgrade to any new firmware because you are already happy with a perfect camera and whatever you do, don't thank those of us that tried to get Leica to make this a better product.

[erl]

All you guys & gals are beginning to worry me! Even IF the camera had perfect (in your dreams) AWB, I wouldn't know what to do with it. All the stuff I shoot is so "non" neutral I have to "add in" the character of the light anyway. I do shoot a wide variety of subjects under an even wider light range. I tried shooting with various colour temp setting discs etc and they were not "right." Usually too cold. I get far better results by individually assessing images in C1 and 'mini batch' processing similar pics. That, I find is necessary regardless of what initial colour setting may be used on the camera. Perfecting camera AWB seems to me to almost awaste of time. It goes without saying, I only shoot DNG.

 

As a long time darkroom addict (col & B/W), I must say processing DNG's is god's gift to me for ease of work.

[marknorton]

If the Dale Labs thread is anything to go by, a new firmware update is imminent, so meeting the expected November date which is all I've ever heard.

 

As for White Balance, I think the various presets are a waste of time. I'd be happy with 3 settings - Auto, Manual and Kelvin. I find AWB is normally fine outside but in difficult lighting situations, I use a colour temperature meter to dial in the value, without being obsessive about accuracy, then fine tune in post.

[guidomo]

Yes Mark, I was going to post that as a reference for all those "ranting" here:

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/37714-leica-demo-day-dale-labs.html

[sean_reid]

I use it all the time, can't be bothered to switch it. from what I can see the camera only has two "auto" settings, 3900 and 5900K anyway. Wb in Lightroom is easy.

 

I think Sean has mentioned this before, but I don't necessarily want "correct" colour out of the camera to begin with. None of the traditional materials I have worked with, polaroid, color negative, slide had "correct" colour. The colour that we "can" get out of digital is noting short of miraculous-highly accurate, neutral and balanced. Often times that bores me.

The recent purchase of the cv12 got me shooting without a filter, and it intrigues me to want to test a week without Ir filters on any of my lenses. After seeing what Jamies v1 profile can do, and knowing I can fix magenta blacks if they really are an issue, I am tempted to see just what the colour really is out of the camera. Maybe it is not that different, but it is worth a try: when I got the camera I put filters on all the lenses and that was that. So I never really "saw" what it could look like.

I do miss the "look" of fuji nph, or nhg, kodak portra 400, kodak EPL400x, films like that always interrested me. Not very "neutral" films to begin with.

 

Hi Robert,

 

I have, indeed, written about that and I do sometimes let the M8 "have its head" for color work (though never with color work I do for clients). Of course, I rarely work in color unless I'm being paid (directly) to do that. And setting WB during RAW conversion (which is what I always do) simply ties that wild, IR-induced kind of color to reference neutral, a cornerstone, of sorts, even if its a cornerstone for a kind of wildness.

 

If you don't have it already, I'd highly recommend Robert Bergman's monograph "A Kind of Rapture". His philosophy is to "print the negative", ie: let the color go where it wants to go and see what happens. Needless to say, this approach has nothing to do with color accuracy, per se, and much more to do with the power of color as color, of color combinations as chords, etc. As Meyer Schapiro wrote in the book's afterward, Bergman's use of color is far more effective and powerful than one normally finds in photographs

 

-----------------------------------------------.

 

I appreciate that more accurate AWB is important to some people. I myself, very nearly, could not care less about AWB because I never let any camera's auto system choose my WB. But that's just me, I, again, understand that it does indeed matter for some people and (for their benefit) I hope it's improved. But it isn't holding back my work with the M8 at all.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[barjohn]

On the issue of AWB, my concern isn't that it be perfect though it should be able to beat a $500 camera ,but rather that it be consistent. It still misbehaves and when shooting the same scene with the same lighting it will suddenly change the WB without anything else being changed. I too shoot almost exclusively DNG though it would be nice if JPGs were of better quality for the occasional use as a P&S. I just thought I would clarify what I meant.

[robertwright]

Hi Robert,

 

I have, indeed, written about that and I do sometimes let the M8 "have its head" for color work (though never with color work I do for clients). Of course, I rarely work in color unless I'm being paid (directly) to do that. And setting WB during RAW conversion (which is what I always do) simply ties that wild, IR-induced kind of color to reference neutral, a cornerstone, of sorts, even if its a cornerstone for a kind of wildness.

 

If you don't have it already, I'd highly recommend Robert Bergman's monograph "A Kind of Rapture". His philosophy is to "print the negative", ie: let the color go where it wants to go and see what happens. Needless to say, this approach has nothing to do with color accuracy, per se, and much more to do with the power of color as color, of color combinations as chords, etc. As Meyer Schapiro wrote in the book's afterward, Bergman's use of color is far more effective and powerful than one normally finds in photographs

 

-----------------------------------------------.

 

I appreciate that more accurate AWB is important to some people. I myself, very nearly, could not care less about AWB because I never let any camera's auto system choose my WB. But that's just me, I, again, understand that it does indeed matter for some people and (for their benefit) I hope it's improved. But it isn't holding back my work with the M8 at all.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

I'm on amazon right now gettin' a copy...

 

when I look at evelyn hofer or saul leiter or early helen levitt, early colour photographers using soft lenses, I get misty eyed:)

 

sometimes I see hints of that in my dng's-times where the exposure is a little thin. and of course the wb is wacky. maybe this is the week for the NO-Ir-filter Challenge!

[marknorton]

John, I agree with both of those points. In situations where the AWB is tolerably accurate, it should definitely not vary between seemingly identical shots shot seconds apart which it clearly does at the moment. Ultimately though, I wonder whether it's ever possible to establish correct WB based on the analysis of the image content alone.

As for JPEG, more work is definitely required, and if Leica are not committed to providing the best possible JPEG quality from the camera, they should remove it. Quite a few simplifications could be made to the user interface if it was DNG only.

[grduprey]

So, are most M8 shooters using Auto White Balance?

 

That would surprise me.

 

Yes, I use AWB all the time. I don't worry about the thumbnails on the screen one tiny bit. It takes only seconds to correct in post processing, and I use RAW (DNG) exclusively, so no big deal at all.

 

Gene

[sean_reid]

I'm on amazon right now gettin' a copy...

 

when I look at evelyn hofer or saul leiter or early helen levitt, early colour photographers using soft lenses, I get misty eyed:)

 

sometimes I see hints of that in my dng's-times where the exposure is a little thin. and of course the wb is wacky. maybe this is the week for the NO-Ir-filter Challenge!

 

Hi Robert,

 

Helen was a friend of mine when I lived in NYC and she helped me to edit the subway pictures. The muted color we see in her work comes mostly from older, lower contrast lenses. For some prints, during some periods, the printing method itself also tended to yield a more muted print.

 

About the Bergman's book...let me know what you think.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

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[guywalder]

I just don't get the point of such posts, yours or others. Sure, I think you have every right to rant, but really, what do you get out of it?

 

such posts have exactly as much and as little point as posts along the lines of 'I love my M8' or 'look at all the great lenses I've got'. Its simply part of human nature to want to let of steam, be it in frustration or in joy.

Personally I find it interesting, and sometimes very helpful to see how other people use their camera, sometimes it is very different to how I use mine and I learn from that. On the other hand I havnt learnt anything yet from any of the 'I am so happy' threads. YMMV