Q3 viewfinder blackout is a pain

[geesbert]

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I find it really hard to get used to the Q3's long blackout time. I'd estimate it is about three times as long as on the Q2. It makes the shutter lag feel much more than it is.

 

Do you think there is room for improvement by firmware or do I have to learn to live with it?

 

 

 

[criogenics]

Yeah, I'm also having a hard time with the blackout time. It's hard to adjust to fast-changing scenes, like events or kids. I'm actually returning my camera because of this one reason. It really is a bummer because I love everything else about it.

[Olaf_ZG]

1 hour ago, geesbert said:

I find it really hard to get used to the Q3's long blackout time. I'd estimate it is about three times as long as on the Q2. It makes the shutter lag feel much more than it is.

 

Do you think there is room for improvement by firmware or do I have to learn to live with it?

 

 

 

I never experienced it on the q2, so 3x zero isn’t that bad. But then, i might photograph in a slower pace and don’t have preview on…

[Ingo]

vor 17 Stunden schrieb geesbert:

I find it really hard to get used to the Q3's long blackout time. I'd estimate it is about three times as long as on the Q2. It makes the shutter lag feel much more than it is.

Do you think there is room for improvement by firmware or do I have to learn to live with it?

I'm not a technical expert but I don't think this can be significantly improved. 

vor 17 Stunden schrieb criogenics:

Yeah, I'm also having a hard time with the blackout time. It's hard to adjust to fast-changing scenes, like events or kids. I'm actually returning my camera because of this one reason. It really is a bummer because I love everything else about it.

Same here, although I will not returning my copy but will not use it for critical jobs and for private use only.  

[geesbert]

It actually bothers me much more than I thought it would. With the Q2 I never use anything other than single drive mode. If I need to capture something fast, I kind of wiggle my finger on the shutter release and the it get's acceptable fast, but I can still see some frames inbetween. With the Q3 it stays completely black.

 

I think there might be room for FW improvement, because when you set the Q3 to anything higher that 2frames per second, the blackout time gets much shorter. at 9 frames/s it is nearly gone and at 15Frames /s it is gone, but then it is electronic shutter only anyway.

 

I think it is such a shame, as the Q for me is the perfect camera for fast paced, spontaneous photography, kind of the counterpoint to the M, like shooting children or people on the move. As of now, it feels a bit like shooting a SLR, not Hasselblad 500 or Mamiya RZ slow, but rather 90ties Canon or so. Some people might go for that vintage vibe, I myself am so happy, that those days are long gone...

[criogenics]

I actually measured the blackout time using my iPhone's slow-motion camera and a timer. It seems that in single photo mode, the blackout on the Q3 averages to 0.4 seconds. My X-T4 is 0.15 seconds. It sounds like a small difference but it makes tracking things so much harder when your screen is blacked out.

I feel like it can be improved in the Leica, because if you shoot in 4fps mode it DOES give you a tiny glimpse between shots that's really fast. I'm not sure why it's so slow on single. Also, the blackout exists in electronic shutter mode as well, which makes no sense to me.

[Aram Langhans]

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This thread is interesting and timely.  I got my Q3 a week ago and today was the first time I had to go shoot a bunch of photos.  A friend had my Q2.  I was noticing that there seemed to be quite a lag when I hit the shutter and did not remember that in my Q2.  I grabbed the 2 back from him and shot a few and I see what you mean.  Kind if disturbing.  I am wondering, is this just a viewfinder thing as in it blacks out and takes too long to light up again, or is there really a shutter lag after you press the shutter and then it takes the picture?  I hope it is the former but did not have time to test this. Any of you have an idea where the lag is?

[SAronian]

Since setting the Drive Mode to Continuous - 15 fps / 12 bit can shoot with zero blackout but still a similar image pause between shutter releases, it would seem like there’s room for adjustment in firmware.

[Daniel C.1975]

Hi, 

 

got my Q3 yesterday and still have the Q2. And yes, there is a noticeable difference between the two, which I imagine can be disturbing for some. While I would prefer the shorter blackout time, it is of no importance for my style of photography. I usually also have the preview "while shutter button is pressed down" turned on. 

 

According to Scott's statement, I also believe that there is a some room for improvement in future FW-updates. We'll see. 

 

 

[thighslapper]

4 hours ago, Aram Langhans said:

I am wondering, is this just a viewfinder thing as in it blacks out and takes too long to light up again, or is there really a shutter lag after you press the shutter and then it takes the picture?  I hope it is the former but did not have time to test this. Any of you have an idea where the lag is?

well.... you are throwing 60mpx at a 5.76m dot display rather than 47mpx at 3.7m dot display for a start and that takes more processing power at the same time as the camera reading more data from the sensor and writing larger RAW files (and JPGs) to the card. It's also not clear whether the camera is displaying a rendered RAW file or a JPG .... and if so at what resolution. It's also not clear whether the data being shunted uses a common or separate bus and whether things are being processed in parallel with different chips or all in series with a single processor. Adding any of the more exotic AF options as well hogs more processor as well. 

Firmware is often refined and tweaked resulting in more efficient data processing so things may improve (start up time is usually faster). Having said that similar issues have occurred with previous digital Leicas where it's clear the processing power is inadequate for what the camera is being asked to do. If we are lucky it may be due to some redundant bit of coding adding unnecessary delay in the processing cycles and that could be improved. 

Taking multiple photos rapidly has never been a priority for Leica ...... and I suspect video is only there to keep up with the competition in terms of features.

Edited September 5, 2023 by thighslapper

[mholeica]

I shoot a lot of kids and family candids. I have to set 2fps, preview off and it is just about acceptable to me, at 4fps I find it difficult to control the number of photos I take in one go. What holds me back with kids and moving people is the auto focus, sometimes the shutter won’t release because it doesn’t find focus on moving children!

Edited September 5, 2023 by mholeica

[Daniel C.1975]

Hi, 

 

coming back to the topic. As I still have the Q2 here, I did some comparison. And yes, the black out time of the Q3 is kind of a pain in the butt. 

But I believe I have found the possible reason. 

Overall the Q3 is much more quirky than the Q2. Yesterday I had my first time more intense outing and there was some odd behaviour. For example, when turning on the camera and very shortly after press the play button, the camera shows the picture but with the overlay as if taking a picture (parameter, focus point etc.) and is hanging in this view (not reacting to any button) for a few seconds and than jumping into the normal playback view and behavior. 

 

But that's not the point for this threat: I've tested the Q2 and Q3 against each other to estimate the focus improvements etc. . While doing so I've recognized, that the the audible shutter sound on the Q3, at same shutter-speeds, is much slower compared to the Q2. 

The normal sequence to my knowledge when pressing the shutter button on an ILC with live view should be (simplified):

-> shutter open -> shutter closing -> reset of sensor -> first curtain / second curtain -> open the shutter for live view. 

Possibly the sensor resets nowadays already upfront so the sequence is more like: -> reset of sensor -> first curtain / second curtain -> open the shutter for live view. This would be more logical as you can hear to ticks from the shutter. The first would be first and second curtain and the second one opening the shutter again.  

 

However:

On the Q2, this results in an audible tick-tick sound with a fraction of a second in between the two ticks (at 1/50s), and immediately after the second tick the live view is back. 

On the Q3 there is a big pause in between the two ticks (also at 1/50s). So more like tick - - - tick. But as with the Q2, the live view is immediately back after the second tick. 

 

So my conclusion is, that the camera just has an odd unnecessary pause before opening the shutter again. And this should have nothing to do with readout speeds. It is just wonky programming. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

Another interesting finding: When putting the camera into burst-mode with e.g. 4 frames/second, there is no pause at all after the last picture. Meaning: This problem is solvable. I am just wondering how this could have past all the tests and pre-reviews and testimonials upfront. Because it is the most obvious difference and experience compared to other cameras. 

 

At the moment the Q2 is the more fluent experience. But especially at challenging light-situations, the Q3 IQ is superior. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Daniel C.1975

[Voxen]

There are some issues in this camera that make me wonder about quality control. I know Leica is a much smaller company than Nikon/Canon/Sony, but still there are bugs that should have been found during quality control stage.

Fortunately Leica do release multiple firmware updates through the life of Q, but at a 6000 euros ticket for this camera I would expect software to on par with build quality. It looks like early adopters are some kind of beta testers for the company.

 

[LocalHero1953]

21 minutes ago, Daniel C.1975 said:

Hi, 

 

coming back to the topic. As I still have the Q2 here, I did some comparison. And yes, the black out time of the Q3 is kind of a pain in the butt. 

But I believe I have found the possible reason. 

Overall the Q3 is much more quirky than the Q2. Yesterday I had my first time more intense outing and there was some odd behaviour. For example, when turning on the camera and very shortly after press the play button, the camera shows the picture but with the overlay as if taking a picture (parameter, focus point etc.) and is hanging in this view (not reacting to any button) for a few seconds and than jumping into the normal playback view and behavior. 

 

But that's not the point for this threat: I've tested the Q2 and Q3 against each other to estimate the focus improvements etc. . While doing so I've recognized, that the the audible shutter sound on the Q3, at same shutter-speeds, is much slower compared to the Q2. 

The normal sequence to my knowledge when pressing the shutter button on an ILC with live view should be (simplified):

-> shutter open -> shutter closing -> reset of sensor -> first curtain / second curtain -> open the shutter for live view. 

Possibly the sensor resets nowadays already upfront so the sequence is more like: -> reset of sensor -> first curtain / second curtain -> open the shutter for live view. This would be more logical as you can hear to ticks from the shutter. The first would be first and second curtain and the second one opening the shutter again.  

 

However:

On the Q2, this results in an audible tick-tick sound with a fraction of a second in between the two ticks (at 1/50s), and immediately after the second tick the live view is back. 

On the Q3 there is a big pause in between the two ticks (also at 1/50s). So more like tick - - - tick. But as with the Q2, the live view is immediately back after the second tick. 

 

So my conclusion is, that the camera just has an odd unnecessary pause before opening the shutter again. And this should have nothing to do with readout speeds. It is just wonky programming. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

Another interesting finding: When putting the camera into burst-mode with e.g. 4 frames/second, there is no pause at all after the last picture. Meaning: This problem is solvable. I am just wondering how this could have past all the tests and pre-reviews and testimonials upfront. Because it is the most obvious difference and experience compared to other cameras. 

 

At the moment the Q2 is the more fluent experience. But especially at challenging light-situations, the Q3 IQ is superior. 

That reads convincingly to me.

I look forward to seeing your other performance comparisons between the Q2 and Q3, especially on low-light/high-ISO colour/noise, and AF with Face Recognition. (I suspect you are an experienced enough digital photographer to take a more rational/analytical/practical view of behaviour than those who have spent a large sum on their first Leica and expect it to be perfect.)

[thighslapper]

42 minutes ago, Voxen said:

There are some issues in this camera that make me wonder about quality control. I know Leica is a much smaller company than Nikon/Canon/Sony, but still there are bugs that should have been found during quality control stage.

Fortunately Leica do release multiple firmware updates through the life of Q, but at a 6000 euros ticket for this camera I would expect software to on par with build quality. It looks like early adopters are some kind of beta testers for the company.

 

Leica has a long and illustrious history of firmware glitches that only become apparent when the camera is released in the wild. From my experience of beta testing for Leica in the past the numbers of folk testing and the duration of the tests are very modest so it's not surprising things slip though.

Their firmware department has always given me the impression (when I've had dealings with it) that relatively few people are involved which probably explains why firmware revisions take so long. I've reported a number of issues in the past and found it exceptionally difficult to get them to understand what I was getting at ..... almost to the point where I did wonder if any of them had actually used the camera for photography. 

If the blackout time isn't actually a finite problem with processing and shoving data about it's probably due to the the firmware engaging in some redundant cycling in some software loop till it times out. Most things speed up with firmware revisions as these sort of things and inefficient coding are eliminated. 

[geesbert]

Daniel, that sound reasonable

 

The on thing I cannot understand is, why none of the reviewers and youtubers out there mentioned this in their raving reviews. When I unpacked my Q3 and took literally the first picture I realised something was odd. I thought I had missed a setting. I know I am an idiot for buying something like that unseen, but I was so happy with both the Q and the Q2, what could go wrong?

Those programmers at Leica probably have a reason why the camera is behaving like this. But as it is now it spoils the shooting experience quite a bit. With my Q2 I hardly ever reviewed the pictures in camera, as I most of the time knew whether I got what I wanted because I could see what happened just after the shot, but with the Q3 it feels like I miss the action because I close my eyes. 

Colors, High iso, AF is well improved with the Q3, but this is a major step backwards

[geesbert]

Daniel, that sound reasonable

 

The one thing I cannot understand is, why none of the reviewers and youtubers out there mentioned this in their raving reviews. When I unpacked my Q3 and took literally the first picture I realised something was odd. I thought I had missed a setting. I know I am an idiot for buying something like that unseen, but I was so happy with both the Q and the Q2, what could go wrong?

Those programmers at Leica probably have a reason why the camera is behaving like this. But as it is now it spoils the shooting experience quite a bit. With my Q2 I hardly ever reviewed the pictures in camera, as I most of the time knew whether I got what I wanted because I could see what happened just after the shot, but with the Q3 it feels like I miss the action because I close my eyes. 

Colors, High iso, AF is well improved with the Q3, but this is a major step backwards

 

Does anyone with a Q3 have an original Q at hand? I can't remember that there was this issue when they nearly doubled the resolution from Q to Q2, so the file size can't really be the problem

Edited September 8, 2023 by geesbert

[SrMi]

49 minutes ago, geesbert said:

The one thing I cannot understand is, why none of the reviewers and youtubers out there mentioned this in their raving reviews. When I unpacked my Q3 and took literally the first picture I realised something was odd. I thought I had missed a setting. I know I am an idiot for buying something like that unseen, but I was so happy with both the Q and the Q2, what could go wrong?

Probably because they, like me, do not mind the slightly longer blackout.

[adrianh]

2 hours ago, geesbert said:

The one thing I cannot understand is, why none of the reviewers and youtubers out there mentioned this in their raving reviews. When I unpacked my Q3 and took literally the first picture I realised something was odd. I thought I had missed a setting. I know I am an idiot for buying something like that unseen, but I was so happy with both the Q and the Q2, what could go wrong?

Those programmers at Leica probably have a reason why the camera is behaving like this. 

Because most of those so called reviewers are afraid they might take a back seat at the next product presentation, therefore loosing revenues. The issue with magazines beeing dependant on ad revenues from big companies and therefore judging new products of those companies a lot more gracious has now shifted to the content creators and their "reviews". It's just market economy. 

I don't think the programmers had any reason to have the camera behave like this other than they could not fix the issue in time for release. Or as someone mentioned before, the processor is not powerfull enough.  Sony moves  a 9,44MPIX EVF without lag, but then again they have access to IT resources Leica can only dream of.

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by adrianh

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[CalStanford]

5 hours ago, adrianh said:

Because most of those so called reviewers are afraid they might take a back seat at the next product presentation, therefore loosing revenues. The issue with magazines beeing dependant on ad revenues from big companies and therefore judging new products of those companies a lot more gracious has now shifted to the content creators and their "reviews". It's just market economy. 

I don't think the programmers had any reason to have the camera behave like this other than they could not fix the issue in time for release. Or as someone mentioned before, the processor is not powerfull enough.  Sony moves  a 9,44MPIX EVF without lag, but then again they have access to IT resources Leica can only dream of.

 

And yet they put a 2000s era 2.36 million dot (not pixels) EVF into their new A7CR. So there's that.