M11 intermittent over exposure

[PeterKelly]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Here is the overexposed one

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[marchyman]

7 hours ago, PeterKelly said:

here is the underexposed one

Underexposed?  What metering mode.  The color sampler eyedropper on my computer says there are two spots in that image where the highlights are blown, reporting pure white (255, 255, 255).  If you were trying to keep that from happening the image is OVER exposed, not underexposed.   That said, I expect those were specular highlights that were going to be blown regardless of the exposure.

[PeterKelly]

2 hours ago, marchyman said:

Underexposed?  What metering mode.  The color sampler eyedropper on my computer says there are two spots in that image where the highlights are blown, reporting pure white (255, 255, 255).  If you were trying to keep that from happening the image is OVER exposed, not underexposed.   That said, I expect those were specular highlights that were going to be blown regardless of the exposure.

That was worded badly I should have said deliberately underexposed (-2/3)to protect the sky and reflections. That is not the problem image but there to illustrate the strong overexposure on the next image where the iso randomly jumped to 2000

[crons]

On 6/15/2024 at 1:27 AM, PeterKelly said:

As I mentioned in another thread I have just bought a gently used M11 and I am spending time getting back into rangefinder shooting which I haven't done since the early M8 days.

I have shoot a couple of hundred images with the new (to me) camera and so far no freezing issues but I am experiencing intermittent and random overexposure images. There have been four or five examples of this. I was shooting in pretty bad, high contrast light with bright highlights and deep shadows. My settings were - Manual mode with Auto ISO, Highlight weighted metering, f5.6 to f11 shutter speed between 1/500 and 1/250 and Exposure compensation between 0 and minus 2/3. I have installed the 2.11 firmware.

I would guess the frames in question were at least one or two stops overexposed.

I was able to find a thread on this but it was a  couple of years old and seem to point to a firmware fix that was on the way but can't find any recent update on this.

Can anyone give me some advice or thoughts on how to solve this issue

Personally, I would get off any auto modes. Just set the ISO to work with your environment and forget it. Like film. 

[lct]

There is auto iso in M mode too. My favorite exposure mode by far. Did i say exposure? 😄

 

 

[PeterKelly]

3 hours ago, lct said:

There is auto iso in M mode too. My favorite exposure mode by far. Did i say exposure? 😄

 

 

I was shooting Manual mode with Auto ISO and the issue is the ISO jumped from 64 to 2000 shooting consecutive frames of the same scene.

[PeterKelly]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

3 hours ago, crons said:

Personally, I would get off any auto modes. Just set the ISO to work with your environment and forget it. Like film. 

I intend to mainly use this camera for candid street photography where I find you often don’t have the time to shoot in full manual mode. My settings with a 28 or. 35mm lens are usually shutter 1/250 or 1/500 aperture f 8 to f 11 Auto ISO limited to 6400 and the camera pre focused to about 1.5 meters 

These settings allow me to forget the camera and concentrate on catching the moment. I would be interested in other street shooter’s opinions on these setting

[lct]

14 minutes ago, PeterKelly said:

I was shooting Manual mode with Auto ISO and the issue is the ISO jumped from 64 to 2000 shooting consecutive frames of the same scene.

Makes one bad experience vs about 10,000 good ones  on my side. I would not worry too much as long as your experience doesn't repeat.

[PeterKelly]

14 minutes ago, lct said:

Makes one bad experience vs about 10,000 good ones  on my side. I would not worry too much as long as your experience doesn't repeat.

I’m  not very concerned but keeping an eye on the issue. It’s a bit more frequent than I like as it’s probable affected 5 images out of 300 so far. At least I seemed to have discovered the overexposure is caused by a sudden, seemingly random increase in the ISO when in Manual with Auto ISO enabled.

[SrMi]

2 hours ago, PeterKelly said:

I was shooting Manual mode with Auto ISO and the issue is the ISO jumped from 64 to 2000 shooting consecutive frames of the same scene.

Did you notice whether the aperture guess recorded in the DNG also jumped with ISO?

[PeterKelly]

Just now, SrMi said:

Did you notice whether the aperture guess recorded in the DNG also jumped with ISO?

Aperture (according to exif) remained the same

[ianforber]

On 6/18/2024 at 4:50 PM, PeterKelly said:

I intend to mainly use this camera for candid street photography where I find you often don’t have the time to shoot in full manual mode. My settings with a 28 or. 35mm lens are usually shutter 1/250 or 1/500 aperture f 8 to f 11 Auto ISO limited to 6400 and the camera pre focused to about 1.5 meters 

These settings allow me to forget the camera and concentrate on catching the moment. I would be interested in other street shooter’s opinions on these setting

Almost identical settings as mine, although I have the Auto ISO limited to 12000 on my b&w profile. 

[ColdShower]

I experience this as well and usually is when you half press the shutter. And you lock the exposure but the. You recompose to a darker area releasing accidentally and pressing it again resulting in an exposure shock. 
 

but I had this happened as well not doing the about. Like if the camera is constantly calculating exposure and glitched up right before pressing the shutter button. (This is just a theory) 

[crons]

On 6/18/2024 at 7:31 PM, lct said:

There is auto iso in M mode too. My favorite exposure mode by far. Did i say exposure? 😄

 

 

I used to use the screen to change the ISO and leave it on M but not I just set the ISO on the dial when I arrive where I'm going and leave it there. I go to the same place a lot so my dial is usually at ISO400. It's my favorite ISO. Good for dark spots and good for bright spots to freeze any movement like birds. Allows high enough shutter speeds. No wonder 400 film is so popular. 

[crons]

 

On 6/15/2024 at 8:28 AM, PeterKelly said:

I’ll keep an eye out for this 

I shot about 50 frames this afternoon and it happened once but this time it was user error - I inadvertently rolled the aperture dial from f9 to f2 which obviously overwhelmed the Auto ISO ability to adjust to a correct exposure.

Interestingly the dramatically over exposed frames from the previous shoot show the same EXIF data as the proceeding and following frames which are correctly exposed.

 

Keep in mind firmware v1.6.1 tried to fix this issue. So this is in fact a real issue with this camera. Yours is a case where the update didn't fix this problem. 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited June 21, 2024 by crons

[PeterKelly]

12 minutes ago, crons said:

 

Keep in mind firmware v1.6.1 tried to fix this issue. So this is in fact a real issue with this camera. Yours is a case where the update didn't fix this problem. 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Good to know I will keep monitoring and be sure to keep proof when and if this keeps happening.

[crons]

21 minutes ago, PeterKelly said:

Good to know I will keep monitoring and be sure to keep proof when and if this keeps happening.

These are the release notes in case you want to keep them:

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://leica-camera.com/sites/default/files/EN_M11%20FW1.6.1%20Release%20Notes.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj80vHf0u2GAxVaTmwGHYaiCFAQ6sMDegQIIRAB&usg=AOvVaw0iv-rZeqt3VqXHVq4zfgkd

Edited June 21, 2024 by crons

[Derbyshire Man]

Definitely happening on mine, both the M11P and M11M, not slightly like the shot at the beginning of the post but properly blown out. Not commonly but persistent. 

[SrMi]

In the 1,300 photos I took in the last six weeks, I had two overexposures. The scene was static, A mode with Auto-ISO, shot in single-shot mode with a 35mm steel rim wide open. After every shot, I reviewed the image. The first shot EXIF was ISO 12500, f/6.8, the second (slightly less overexposed) was ISO 1250 f/1.7, and the third (correctly exposed) was ISO 200 f/1.7.

My scene also contained water reflections.

I assume that the metering has a bug that occasionally computes wrong values.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[jaapv]

Possibly the overly bright reflections and deep shadows affected your exposure. The exposure meter has no mind It, only captures a limited field and calculates based on whatever is inside the field. In high contrast situations that is a game of chance. Far better to expose manually and “scan” your subject for exposure. Using Auto ISO only intensifies the effect by adding another mindless automation. 
I’m convinced that the overexposed shots resulted from measuring deep shadows.