Leica M10 OVF dim LEDS

[zinofeed]

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Hi there,

Recently purchased a used and fully serviced Leica M10 and its been great. However, I started to notice an issue with the LED brightness as it gets quite dim and hard to read/see in certain tricky situations.

I'm on the latest firmware, made sure the brightness sensor is cleaned and also tried enabling/disabling the LED options inside the menu and the problem is still there. Not sure if any other users have a way around to fix this?

LINK TO VIDEO EXAMPLE:
https://we.tl/t-2emYGSp4fy

Cheers.
zk

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[jaapv]

Could you please upload your file as MP4 instead of the complicated link to WeTransfer? 

[zinofeed]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Could you please upload your file as MP4 instead of the complicated link to WeTransfer? 

Sorry about that. Uploaded the MP4 here.

[kgs]

What I can see in the video is a completely normal behavior of the camera.
When the VF is completely dark, the LEDs dim but are still visible. If it becomes bright in the VF (the lamp appears), the LEDs shine brightly again. In my opinion this is a correct behavior.

Greetings
George

[mujk]

This is normal M10 behaviour caused by a small design flaw. In certain lighting situations the brightness sensor is fooled to produce either too bright or too dim framelines and LED display. And there is no setting or other practical way to manually override this behavior. Over time you will get used to it.

[mort linder]

i have noticed the same problem . the leds dim as the scene gets darker and brightens as the scene gets brighter . this seems counter intuitive to me .

this is more of a problem indoors in low light . no problem outdoors . can leica change the software ?

[zinofeed]

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50 minutes ago, mort linder said:

i have noticed the same problem . the leds dim as the scene gets darker and brightens as the scene gets brighter . this seems counter intuitive to me .

this is more of a problem indoors in low light . no problem outdoors . can leica change the software ?

Yeah, outdoor in general is fine for me as well unless its really dark.
Hopefully a firmware update can fix and force the LED to be bright and always on

[zinofeed]

5 hours ago, mujk said:

This is normal M10 behaviour caused by a small design flaw. In certain lighting situations the brightness sensor is fooled to produce either too bright or too dim framelines and LED display. And there is no setting or other practical way to manually override this behavior. Over time you will get used to it.

Well, kind of disappointing in my opinion as the cost of the camera is still quite high.
Will try and check out if the M11/M11-P have this issue. 

[zinofeed]

14 hours ago, kgs said:

What I can see in the video is a completely normal behavior of the camera.
When the VF is completely dark, the LEDs dim but are still visible. If it becomes bright in the VF (the lamp appears), the LEDs shine brightly again. In my opinion this is a correct behavior.

Greetings
George

Hey George,

Thanks for getting back to me. Seems like the behavior is indeed as intended, just curious why the LEDs isn't that bright, could it be a design/hardware flaw or people moved to shooting digital don't really care about it since they can check the screen and take another shot?

[jaapv]

 

1 hour ago, mort linder said:

can leica change the software ?

No. I think it is quite logical to lower the intensity in low light to avoid blinding the viewer and to brighten them in bright light to keep them visible. This is an optical viewfinder, remember? No way of keeping its brightness constant like an EVF.

[zinofeed]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

 

No. I think it is quite logical to lower the intensity in low light to avoid blinding the viewer and to brighten them in bright light to keep them visible. This is an optical viewfinder, remember? No way of keeping its brightness constant like an EVF.

Just trying to understand the logic, coming from M6, M7 and the MP, the bright LED is quite enjoyable so I figured the digital M must be the same. Even the SS readout on the M7 is bright and easy. If this is how Leica decides it for the digital M, I can't do much anyways

[mujk]

11 hours ago, zinofeed said:

Just trying to understand the logic, coming from M6, M7 and the MP, the bright LED is quite enjoyable so I figured the digital M must be the same. Even the SS readout on the M7 is bright and easy. If this is how Leica decides it for the digital M, I can't do much anyways

Film Ms do not have a brightness sensor so they don't adjust led brightness according to environment illumination. However, framelight brightness is dependent on the amount of external light falling on the frosted glass framline illumination window. This is the case also for early digital M models (M8 and M9 families), which also have a brightness sensor used for guessing aperture. Even though e.g. the M9 manual states that the sensor is used also for led brightness control, this seems to be much less aggressive than in later models like the M10, where the sensor is used also to control framline brightness.

[zinofeed]

UPDATE:

So I went down to Leica Mayfair and talked to the sales rep, we compared the issue of the LED with their M10-P which is the same body and my friend's M10. My M10 LEDs are dimmer by say 10-20%. 

Staff told me for the price I got if for, it's not quantified to return it but if I want to get it fixed, I can opt to do so down the line. For now, I'll keep using it till I sell it and get the M11-P down the line in 2 years time. Also, hopefully Leica can get their priority right in shorten the amount of time for repairing their camera.

I'm also open to any 3rd party repair companies in the UK that can have a look at maybe fixing the LEDs issue on my M10. If anyone got any recommendation, do give me a shout!