Leica SL3 problems

[Photoworks]

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On 5/12/2024 at 12:24 PM, Mikko Kankainen said:

I tried to make a video but I would need an assistant. But how it goes:

1. Take let say 10 photos in your house of 3 things. I took A: fireplace B: piano C daughter
2. Put camera to suspend (dont turn off). Wait until top screen goes blank=images written and camera is in sleep. 
3. Take battery out

Keep doing that, it took my 5. attempt to succeed. I saw earlier when using playback that I had pictures from fireplace, piano, daughter. But fireplace and daughter was missing (if I remember wich were but you get the point) when I turned camera back on after battery was taken out. And images were not in card when watching in computer. I took battery out right after screen went blank when entering suspend.

I have done the test on SD cards and CF express cards, repeated it 5 times with 10 images,
and I can NOT reproduce your issue.

I repeated it 3 more times and I get 50 images on both cards all the time.

I see the camera takes longer to Suspend if the images are still saving and it takes a few seconds for the screen to turn off from just being black.  Pulling the battery after that every time.

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[Mikko Kankainen]

Thanks for trying! 

This is an image I shared in another thread. See timestamp between 932 and 933 images. This was the case where camera overwrote images. It's all messed up. 

It's clear that this is a rare case and when I tried to reproduce it took many times to make it happen again. And indeed maybe there is a combination of card, unit etc. I could try to capture this with something, if I succeed again. Gopro to head? 😄

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[Mikko Kankainen]

I tried about 20 times and could not get it either this time. There must be something more than what I wrote to reproduce. But that's what I did earlier. Tried with Sandisk card. Will continue to try, it just feels like a wasted summer night try to make Leica loose photos 😄

[DirkZ]

I've also had lots of issues with my SL2-S (weird benavior of electronics and broken shutter box after one year). I've never had so many issues with one camera as with the SL2-S. At the end Leica replaced the camera but I sold it and switched over to Panasonic. Now I am using a Lumix S5 II and I am happy with it - no issues at all, good price, great image quality and performance, well built, no complaints.

[pf4eva]

On 5/9/2024 at 6:52 AM, Jim B said:

Umm, they actually are designed for professionals. If you take into consideration the metal build quality, the weather sealing, and the image quality. Decades of professional and iconic work have been created using Leica cameras. 

Not quite, they not as reliable, AF doesn't stack up to other brands in pro segment, they do not have professional support services etc etc.

[Ejh]

Hope that I am posting within the correct topic …

I just purchased my first „real“ digital camera, the SL3, coming from the analogue world of Nikon F2 and shooting a lot of mobile phone pics to continue  my passion for photography.

So far the issue with the Leica SL3 is that it freezes up, quite regularly, when syncing with Leica FOTO over wifi. The only remedy is to dislocate the battery…

Otherwise, I still am getting used to AF and trying to configure my preferred profile.

Ejh

[Photoworks]

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55 minutes ago, Ejh said:

Hope that I am posting within the correct topic …

I just purchased my first „real“ digital camera, the SL3, coming from the analogue world of Nikon F2 and shooting a lot of mobile phone pics to continue  my passion for photography.

So far the issue with the Leica SL3 is that it freezes up, quite regularly, when syncing with Leica FOTO over wifi. The only remedy is to dislocate the battery…

Otherwise, I still am getting used to AF and trying to configure my preferred profile.

Ejh

make sure all firmware and FOTOS app is up to date, and create a new connection.

the SL3 and FOTOS app is very stable for me.

[Ejh]

31 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

make sure all firmware and FOTOS app is up to date, and create a new connection.

the SL3 and FOTOS app is very stable for me.

Thanks for your immediate input. I have the latest firmware on my SL3 and even deleted an re-installed FOTOS on my iPad Pro, but still get the issue, i.e., sometimes the message that FOTOS cannot connect and other times that not all pictures are shown in FOTOS (before importing). I might just re-install everything again.

[Photoworks]

9 hours ago, Ejh said:

Thanks for your immediate input. I have the latest firmware on my SL3 and even deleted an re-installed FOTOS on my iPad Pro, but still get the issue, i.e., sometimes the message that FOTOS cannot connect and other times that not all pictures are shown in FOTOS (before importing). I might just re-install everything again.

before you add the camera back to FOTOS remove the camera from iPad BT setting and in the camera Pair and every should be good

[pf4eva]

22 hours ago, Ejh said:

Hope that I am posting within the correct topic …

I just purchased my first „real“ digital camera, the SL3, coming from the analogue world of Nikon F2 and shooting a lot of mobile phone pics to continue  my passion for photography.

So far the issue with the Leica SL3 is that it freezes up, quite regularly, when syncing with Leica FOTO over wifi. The only remedy is to dislocate the battery…

Otherwise, I still am getting used to AF and trying to configure my preferred profile.

Ejh

FOTOS app is extremely unreliable. It is hit and miss when it works. When you actually need it - it doesn't work  So don't rely on it.

[Photoworks]

3 minutes ago, pf4eva said:

FOTOS app is extremely unreliable. It is hit and miss when it works. When you actually need it - it doesn't work  So don't rely on it.

I have been using it with 4 cameras and it works stable. if you have a problem it is usually the BT on the device.

for sure FOTOS can be improved with useful features.

[pf4eva]

1 minute ago, Photoworks said:

I have been using it with 4 cameras and it works stable. if you have a problem it is usually the BT on the device.

for sure FOTOS can be improved with useful features.

I dunno, Have 2 cameras now and 4 other Leicas previously, every one of them had issues with the app, and it is not device related, I tried different phones and tablets. It is really useful, but extremely unreliable. Maybe I'm just unlucky or maybe you're lucky, who knows.

 

[Ejh]

Thanks everyone for the useful suggestions. Photoworks‘ suggestion to erase the BT listings (my iPad was listed about 10 times) on the SL3 seems to have solved the problem, at least for one trial, thanks! 

[davidmknoble]

Just a note on the SL3 and SD cards.  I have used several brands of SD Cards.  The Sony tough cards were thicker and I frequently had trouble removing the cards, so I do not use those anymore.  I also used some higher capacity cards (128gb) but slower write speeds thinking it was ok, I’d just wait and they were less expensive.

I didn’t lose an entire image, but I had many that the JPEG looked fine, but the DNG was only half written.  There was no consistency, sometimes it was after 10 images, sometimes less, sometimes more.  So, I tried the same brand, but 64gb and faster and have not had any issues since.

The answer seems to be faster is better on the SL3 (I use backup so the images are written on both cards).  I have used SanDisk since the M8 and never had an issue.  With other brands, I have had issues.  I have also not had any issues with Lexar.

SD cards and CF cards are not the same and even with the same brand and type of card, they are produced in such mass that they can much more easily have problems over time.

Just my thoughts.

[algrove]

No problems with my SL3 with SanDisk SD Extreme Pro 512GB R280/W150 and their Cf Express Type B Extreme Pro 256GB R1700/W1200.

[beewee]

Similar data loss issue reported in an SL3 review: https://www.slashgear.com/1588786/leica-sl3-review-flawed-masterpiece-full-frame-l-mount-camera/

This doesn’t look good for Leica.

[frame-it]

12 minutes ago, beewee said:

Similar data loss issue reported in an SL3 review: https://www.slashgear.com/1588786/leica-sl3-review-flawed-masterpiece-full-frame-l-mount-camera/

This doesn’t look good for Leica.

"This is clearly a camera which would benefit from some serious software development and firmware updates to address autofocus and bring it more in line with what may be found in a camera like the Nikon Z8. The issue with disappearing photos appears to be experienced by other users, and also certainly needs to be addressed."

 

[LeicaR10]

Beewee,  All my former M11s lost files.  But that might have been fixed per the lastest firmware update from two days ago.  If Leica fixed the file loss in the M11s, maybe it will carry over to the SL3.  Fingers crossed for those users.  Thanks for the link.  r/ Mark

Edited May 25, 2024 by LeicaR10

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[beewee]

43 minutes ago, LeicaR10 said:

Beewee,  All my former M11s lost files.  But that might have been fixed per the lastest firmware update from two days ago.  If Leica fixed the file loss in the M11s, maybe it will carry over to the SL3.  Fingers crossed for those users.  Thanks for the link.  r/ Mark

I haven’t been following the M11 forum so this is quite surprising to me. I had the M8.2, M10, SL2-S, and Q3 and have never experienced any lost files. To hear that the M11 is/was still losing files 2+ years after it was initially released is quite ridiculous.  

[Mikko Kankainen]

Great review, just as I feel. AF is too bad, it just needs to get better. Images cannot dissapear.

With M11 at least I get corrupted images, not the same that I got with SL3 when I can loose hundreds of photos. Let see if they fixed it.

One thing that troubles me. Only in this forum there are photographers that reported this issue like week after they got the camera. Why dont Leica use more photographers as a tester that uses their camera in a different way. I find it strange that this issue did not show up in testing.

But firmware update is needed and quickly. Camera is quite buggy, it's laggy, it feels like alpha/beta product. Difference is clear when you pickup SL2-S and start shooting. Everything is instant (playback, menu, camera startup...). I bought a Lexar CF card, it did make camera to operate a little bit faster but the SD is a bottleneck still.