M11 LCD flicker but not what you think

[hdmesa]

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My M11 LCD is rapidly flickering in the following specific circumstances.

• Using LCD/live view
• Exposure preview is off (set to preview with half shutter press, which is the default)
• Aperture set to wide open on a lens that has heavy vignetting
• A bright scene in bright daylight (in shade or indoors does not flicker)

If I stop down the lens to remove the vignetting, the flickering becomes less noticeable. By f/5.6 the flickering stops.

Half-press of the shutter button turns on exposure preview, which locks the exposure and stops the flickering.

Setting exposure preview to permanent greatly reduces the flicker, but it's still there to a small extent and not too distracting (usually flicker is caused by exposure preview – this is the opposite)

Changing shutter mode doesn't affect the flickering (hybrid versus mechanical versus electronic)

What is odd is my M11M doesn't have this flickering with the same lens, aperture, scene, and camera settings, so I'm wondering if it's just my copy of the M11 or do all M11s do this?

Can anyone else test to confirm? Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

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[hmzimelka]

Is this perhaps related to the old metering mode flickering when Multi-Field is selected?

I still get occasional flickering under high contrast scenes where the exposure can vary by almost a stop depending on when I press the shutter. I've reverted back to centre-weighted again since Leica clearly can't get the many issues with this camera under wraps. 

I recall my last issue was taking the image below... it may not look high contrast but I'm using a flat tone curve here. The dark areas were rather dark and the sky was evening sunset sky with the sunset just off the right half over the horizon. The camera was flickering badly with Multi-Field metering and I just switched over to Centre-Weighted and no more flickering. (Image shot at f/4 or f/5.6 even if exif says f/16)

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Edited August 25, 2023 by hmzimelka

[jakontil]

2 hours ago, hdmesa said:

My M11 LCD is rapidly flickering in the following specific circumstances.

• Using LCD/live view
• Exposure preview is off (set to preview with half shutter press, which is the default)
• Aperture set to wide open on a lens that has heavy vignetting
• A bright scene in bright daylight (in shade or indoors does not flicker)

If I stop down the lens to remove the vignetting, the flickering becomes less noticeable. By f/5.6 the flickering stops.

Half-press of the shutter button turns on exposure preview, which locks the exposure and stops the flickering.

Setting exposure preview to permanent greatly reduces the flicker, but it's still there to a small extent and not too distracting (usually flicker is caused by exposure preview – this is the opposite)

Changing shutter mode doesn't affect the flickering (hybrid versus mechanical versus electronic)

What is odd is my M11M doesn't have this flickering with the same lens, aperture, scene, and camera settings, so I'm wondering if it's just my copy of the M11 or do all M11s do this?

Can anyone else test to confirm? Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

My m11 produces the same result with its LCD, it gives weird color too when preview is off, it’s like trying to over expose or something or shutter not half pressed, i dont notice the flicker but it’s probably there, or may be from the slow response time hence the flickering 

[hdmesa]

14 minutes ago, hmzimelka said:

Is this perhaps related to the old metering mode flickering when Multi-Field is selected?

I still get occasional flickering under high contrast scenes where the exposure can vary by almost a stop depending on when I press the shutter. I've reverted back to centre-weighted again since Leica clearly can't get the many issues with this camera under wraps. 

I recall my last issue was taking the image below... it may not look high contrast but I'm using a flat tone curve here. The dark areas were rather dark and the sky was evening sunset sky with the sunset just off the right half over the horizon. The camera was flickering badly with Multi-Field metering and I just switched over to Centre-Weighted and no more flickering. (Image shot at f/4 or f/5.6 even if exif says f/16)

Aren't metering mode issues only a problem when in exposure preview mode? I'm using the default setting, which is exposure preview only happens on shutter half press, and that stops the flickering because of course the half press locks the exposure.

Even still, I did try every metering mode – same issue. It was a scene with very bright land (desert tan) and vivid blue sky with white clouds. It's only provoked by harsh vignetting that can be easily seen on a solid background like blue sky. By f/5.6, which is where the vignetting is eliminated by stopping down, the flickering stops.

[hdmesa]

29 minutes ago, jakontil said:

My m11 produces the same result with its LCD, it gives weird color too when preview is off, it’s like trying to over expose or something or shutter not half pressed, i dont notice the flicker but it’s probably there, or may be from the slow response time hence the flickering 

Interesting, good to know it's not just mine. Have you noticed it's worse if you're wide open and there is more visible vignetting? Mine flickers so fast wide open it's like a party strobe light on the fastest setting.

Looks like the sampling rate of the image in the LCD is happening about 10 times a second when it should be only changing every one or two seconds. It's not normally an issue unless it's a complicated, contrasty scene, then the camera can't decide between two very different values for what to display. Leica fixed Highlight Weighted metering for something similar, it was constantly flickering because it was adjusting exposure too fast when the camera was being moved around. I think that problem still lingers in the default way the LCD tries to evaluate and spit out a normal looking preview. Basically, even though the preview is not based on the exposure settings, it's based on some sort of similar logic.

I will submit a request to Leica to see if they can duplicate the issue, and if so, send it over to the engineers to fix in firmware.

Edited August 25, 2023 by hdmesa

[hmzimelka]

16 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Aren't metering mode issues only a problem when in exposure preview mode? I'm using the default setting, which is exposure preview only happens on shutter half press, and that stops the flickering because of course the half press locks the exposure.

Even still, I did try every metering mode – same issue. It was a scene with very bright land (desert tan) and vivid blue sky with white clouds. It's only provoked by harsh vignetting that can be easily seen on a solid background like blue sky. By f/5.6, which is where the vignetting is eliminated by stopping down, the flickering stops.

Right, I missed that... 😆      but the exposure for the LCD preview is still adjusted even though it may not represent the final exposure. So the issue may still be related perhaps? I don't pretend to know Leica's logic with some things. 

Even if I were to disable exposure preview, my M11 would still cause inconsistent sequential exposures in situations where flickering would occur due to exposure preview. This is extremely hard to replicate though. 

Perhaps it may be worth trying changing the metering mode?

At this point, many people are scratching their heads with the M11 series. The only consistency is there is no consistency. 

Edited August 25, 2023 by hmzimelka

[hdmesa]

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4 minutes ago, hmzimelka said:

Right, I missed that... 😆      but the exposure for the LCD preview is still adjusted even though it may not represent the final exposure. So the issue may still be related perhaps? I don't pretend to know Leica's logic with some things. 

Perhaps it may be worth trying changing the metering mode?

At this point, many people are scratching their heads with the M11 series. The only consistency is there is no consistency. 

We're thinking alike here – I just posted that it reminds me of the exposure preview issue we had at first with highlight weighted metering. Even though exposure preview is off, what I see on the LCD is technically still an "exposure" that is designed to present a consistent image. When the scene gets too complicated, it rapidly bounces back and forth between two different "exposures" it wants to display. If I have the info bars on, I can see at the same time it's flickering super fast between two different shutter speed choices.

Metering mode changes didn't help – it was schizophrenic in all modes. The best solution was to turn on permanent exposure preview. I had been leaving exposure preview off because it can cause flicker with LED lighting indoors, but it seems they've improved that since the early firmware.

Edited August 25, 2023 by hdmesa

[hmzimelka]

1 minute ago, hdmesa said:

We're thinking alike here – I just posted that it reminds me of the exposure preview issue we had at first with highlight weighted metering. Even though exposure preview is off, what I see on the LCD is technically still an "exposure" that is designed to present a consistent image. When the scene gets too complicated, it rapidly bounces back and forth between two different "exposures" it wants to display. If I have the info bars on, I can see at the same time it's flickering super fast between two different shutter speed choices.

I only read your reply to Jakontil after I replied already. Yeah, seems so... 

Leica have been silent on the M11 firmware front now for a while... hope that means they are legitimately "working on it"

[jakontil]

53 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Interesting, good to know it's not just mine. Have you noticed it's worse if you're wide open and there is more visible vignetting? Mine flickers so fast wide open it's like a party strobe light on the fastest setting.

Looks like the sampling rate of the image in the LCD is happening about 10 times a second when it should be only changing every one or two seconds. It's not normally an issue unless it's a complicated, contrasty scene, then the camera can't decide between two very different values for what to display. Leica fixed Highlight Weighted metering for something similar, it was constantly flickering because it was adjusting exposure too fast when the camera was being moved around. I think that problem still lingers in the default way the LCD tries to evaluate and spit out a normal looking preview. Basically, even though the preview is not based on the exposure settings, it's based on some sort of similar logic.

I will submit a request to Leica to see if they can duplicate the issue, and if so, send it over to the engineers to fix in firmware.

Hi mate, my case scenario was indoor with lowlight situation and yet a few LED’s that created constrasty scenes

 

like the scenario i attached (sorry deleted the image, it was frm film), it was very frustrating since i dont put auto preview on with the lcd liveview, but when i under expsosed and set it preview on, the weird color cast and flickering is less i mean much less noticeable to none but then it’s close to pitch dark, while when i pointed to other scenes like windows light, it was normal

i suspected the response or refresh rate of the lcd is bad, i forgot how it behaves with the visoflex st that time though

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by jakontil