Leica SL3 Firmware Update / Bug Fix

[jaapv]

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5 hours ago, SrMi said:

Because multishot increases the real resolution only by a little, mainly by removing any false colors (moire). Moire is is more of a problem with 24MP than with 60MP sensors, especially when no AA Filter is used.

Actually I don’t see much difference to Gigapixel which works well for me on crops. But I rather doubt that pixel shifting works the way that you describe. Less moiré is a result, not the cause. 

[Baxter0733]

On 7/18/2024 at 4:48 PM, Baxter0733 said:

I installed the new firmware and got the screen prompt to restart the camera. Following the Release Notes, I turned the camera off and then it would not restart. Has anyone else had this issue of the camera not restarting after updating? 

Just a quick update… after the camera would not restart after the firmware update I waited for several hours and continued to try to restart with no luck. I eventually removed/reinstalled the battery and the camera restarted. Whew!

[BlackDoc]

So far so good. Did the update "classical"- via SD card.... everything works...

[scott kirkpatrick]

Won't rain on the parade yet, but I put one of the new super batteries, fresh from the charger (I thought), into my new SL3, took a few shots in the garden to check everything, and when I got to the event I took one shot, which was successful,  sorta, and then nothing but an error message saying that my battery was uncharged and nothing could be done.  Came home without any more pictures, battery shows a blinking one dot on the charger when it had all three lit the day before.  So it's not that the camera is rejecting a perfectly good battery.  But the new extra-power batteries supplied with my SL3 now come under suspicion.  @elmars is this what you were testing?

[SrMi]

7 minutes ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Won't rain on the parade yet, but I put one of the new super batteries, fresh from the charger (I thought), into my new SL3, took a few shots in the garden to check everything, and when I got to the event I took one shot, which was successful,  sorta, and then nothing but an error message saying that my battery was uncharged and nothing could be done.  Came home without any more pictures, battery shows a blinking one dot on the charger when it had all three lit the day before.  So it's not that the camera is rejecting a perfectly good battery.  But the new extra-power batteries supplied with my SL3 now come under suspicion.  @elmars is this what you were testing?

A new battery may be confused about its status. I did experience it  with non-Leica cameras. Give it a couple of recharges and always carry a spare.

[blakley]

1 hour ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Won't rain on the parade yet, but I put one of the new super batteries, fresh from the charger (I thought), into my new SL3, took a few shots in the garden to check everything, and when I got to the event I took one shot, which was successful,  sorta, and then nothing but an error message saying that my battery was uncharged and nothing could be done.  Came home without any more pictures, battery shows a blinking one dot on the charger when it had all three lit the day before.  So it's not that the camera is rejecting a perfectly good battery.  But the new extra-power batteries supplied with my SL3 now come under suspicion.  @elmars is this what you were testing?

I've had issues with the BP-SCL6 batteries losing charge relatively quickly while not in use too.  This doesn't happen with the BP-SCL4, though the SL3 complains if I use one of these (I've never encountered an actual issue, just a warning message).

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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7 hours ago, jaapv said:

Actually I don’t see much difference to Gigapixel which works well for me on crops. But I rather doubt that pixel shifting works the way that you describe. Less moiré is a result, not the cause. 

No. He’s correct. The main advantage of high res shot isn’t *actual* extra data. There is some but not masses of it. But if you remove false colour information by sampling each colour with the appropriate colour filter then you get more perceived detail and an elimination of artifacts from interpolation. High res shot is basically mimicking what a Foveon or scanning sensor does.

What you don’t get is 187MP of actual data from the SL2 or 96MP from a SL2-S. My side by side testing found that I got about the same results with my SL2 in high res shot as my X2D or GFX100’s. That’s still a solid bump. And better colour, less noise thrown in for free. I also find it’s harder to get that in the real world than one might think. Even with the Olympus system, which is the best, it’s not that easy to get a perfect pixel shift. Sometimes upressing with software works as well or better. But usually there’s nothing better than actually more pixels.

Not stuff that can eat you but in October I’m driving across Oz (twice) over three weeks, to a Leica workshop in W.A. I’m taking various long glass. Sony A1 and 200-600 (as a benchmark), SL3 with 60-600 and 500/5.6 plus TC and my GFX100II and 500/5.6 plus TC.  May even take an OM-1. It’ll be interesting to see how the different systems fare against a 7 foot Skippy going 40kmh. Or with a wedge tail eagle. The 4th largest in the world. I do know the GFX will have more data. It’s just how easy it is to use against the others in the real world. Using the drive to inform what I’m taking to Chobe next year.

Gordon

[jaapv]

I’ll be doing Cheetahs ( hopefully) @ 110 kph at the same time 😉

S5ii, SL 601, 70-200 DG DN 150-600 Sports TC 1411 CL 18-56 ad 55-135. Olympus EE 1 dot sight.  And a couple of M lenses. 

[SrMi]

1 hour ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

No. He’s correct. The main advantage of high res shot isn’t *actual* extra data. There is some but not masses of it. But if you remove false colour information by sampling each colour with the appropriate colour filter then you get more perceived detail and an elimination of artifacts from interpolation. High res shot is basically mimicking what a Foveon or scanning sensor does.

What you don’t get is 187MP of actual data from the SL2 or 96MP from a SL2-S. My side by side testing found that I got about the same results with my SL2 in high res shot as my X2D or GFX100’s. That’s still a solid bump. And better colour, less noise thrown in for free. I also find it’s harder to get that in the real world than one might think. Even with the Olympus system, which is the best, it’s not that easy to get a perfect pixel shift. Sometimes upressing with software works as well or better. But usually there’s nothing better than actually more pixels.

Not stuff that can eat you but in October I’m driving across Oz (twice) over three weeks, to a Leica workshop in W.A. I’m taking various long glass. Sony A1 and 200-600 (as a benchmark), SL3 with 60-600 and 500/5.6 plus TC and my GFX100II and 500/5.6 plus TC.  May even take an OM-1. It’ll be interesting to see how the different systems fare against a 7 foot Skippy going 40kmh. Or with a wedge tail eagle. The 4th largest in the world. I do know the GFX will have more data. It’s just how easy it is to use against the others in the real world. Using the drive to inform what I’m taking to Chobe next year.

Gordon

I am looking forward to your report. By the way, the new Leica store in Melbourne looks magnificent!

[jaapv]

4 hours ago, FlashGordonPhotography said:

Using the drive to inform what I’m taking to Chobe next year.

You won't need much special for Chobe. The most interesting part is the drive on the bank along the river. You'll see elephants, elephants and elephants. Along the river and on the floodplain  you'll see the usual riparian stuff: crocs, birds, waterbuck, etc. And elephants.  Game is quite habituated due to the number of visitors and easily spotted in the open landscape.. I liked the Linyanti area, plenti of game and less busy. The inland of the Chobe river is a bit of an arid wasteland, with nearly all trees destroyed by the elephants.
Any standard Safari long zoom will do. The same when you take a river cruise. Most safari vehicles will have charging facilities on board.
Have a beer at the Old House, in front it is on a busy road, walk through to the back and be in a peaceful bush garden  and bar with a plunge pool with that lovely river at the bottom. They do Pontoon trips into the park.

On the main Highway from Kasane we had a pack of Wild Dog crossing at their leisure, bringing all traffic to a standstill. Two sentinels stood guard in the middle of the road with the rest crossing between them. 

[algrove]

For the moment Leica's actions of late have convinced me to skip their next models in favor of my new Fuji GFX 50SII and 100SII cameras and my HB 100C. If there are bugs in those three models I have not noticed them.

That said I have not had problems with my SL3, but it has been Leica's blasé response that irritates me to no end plus the M11 issues which have seldom happened to me, but have continually plagued others for 2 years.

Agree with someone who said Leica only took seriously the SL3 problem after it went viral on YouTube postings. Shame on them.
 

[Jim B]

22 hours ago, scott kirkpatrick said:

Won't rain on the parade yet, but I put one of the new super batteries, fresh from the charger (I thought), into my new SL3, took a few shots in the garden to check everything, and when I got to the event I took one shot, which was successful,  sorta, and then nothing but an error message saying that my battery was uncharged and nothing could be done.  Came home without any more pictures, battery shows a blinking one dot on the charger when it had all three lit the day before.  So it's not that the camera is rejecting a perfectly good battery.  But the new extra-power batteries supplied with my SL3 now come under suspicion.  @elmars is this what you were testing?

I’m not elmars, but I can tell you my sl2 shipped with a poor performing battery. I contacted customer service and they sent me a new one, no charge! 

[scott kirkpatrick]

3 hours ago, Jim B said:

I’m not elmars, but I can tell you my sl2 shipped with a poor performing battery. I contacted customer service and they sent me a new one, no charge! 

I've had several BP-SCL4 bastteries used in my SL2 (now sold on) and SL2-S, with no problem.  I don't even recall having to charge them a few times to get reliable performance  Since one of my BP-SCL6's ran down much too soon, I have run each for several charges and don't seem to be having any further trouble.  (fingers crossed)

[jonoslack]

7 hours ago, algrove said:

For the moment Leica's actions of late have convinced me to skip their next models in favor of my new Fuji GFX 50SII and 100SII cameras and my HB 100C. If there are bugs in those three models I have not noticed them.

That said I have not had problems with my SL3, but it has been Leica's blasé response that irritates me to no end plus the M11 issues which have seldom happened to me, but have continually plagued others for 2 years.

Agree with someone who said Leica only took seriously the SL3 problem after it went viral on YouTube postings. Shame on them.
 

I saw how seriously Leica took the SL3 problem as soon as it was reported - of course you are entitled to think that it's shame on them . . . . but I watched how hard they tried to get it sorted - it took a few weeks indeed, but you really do need to be careful you aren't breaking anything else when you issue rushed firmware updates. 

Skip their models - buy something else (I used an OM-1ii for my biggest gig of the year as a result of the problem). But I promise you they are taking this stuff very very seriously and working as hard as they can to sort it. 

As you say yourself - you haven't noticed problems with your M11 or SL3 personally . . . do you frequent forums where similar issues would be so clearly defined for other camera manufacturers for which you haven't noticed bugs? 

This stuff is really important, and Leica's responses aren't always perfect, but I can personally say from my own experience that they are anything but blasé about them 

Just Sayin'

[Simone_DF]

10 hours ago, jonoslack said:

But I promise you they are taking this stuff very very seriously and working as hard as they can to sort it. 

Are they also working hard at preventing these situations from happening again in the future? Like a revision of their processes, maybe an expanded software team? Because to me that’s what matters the most. 

[JTLeica]

1 hour ago, Simone_DF said:

Are they also working hard at preventing these situations from happening again in the future? Like a revision of their processes, maybe an expanded software team? Because to me that’s what matters the most. 

You are better off writing them a letter or an email, though, than moaning on here, as that isnt going to get you very far. I am sure they are working on improving things in future, but with every camera comes more technology and that in itself will lead to more possible bugs, being a smaller unit vs the likes of Sony canon etc they are bound to find less of these bugs, but hopefully with the help of Panasonic this will be ironed out. It's a never ending circle. And as the SL system grows I am sure they will invest more into testing and software elopement.

But, all in all, they admitted an error, worked hard to fix, issued a statement through dealers about a month ago and gave some workarounds.

Yes there was an issue, but that doesnt take away from everything they do very well.

[Simone_DF]

3 minutes ago, JTLeica said:

being a smaller unit vs the likes of Sony canon etc they are bound to find less of these bugs, but hopefully with the help of Panasonic this will be ironed out.

Not my problem. I want results, not excuses.
Two weeks ago I got a S5II to replace my SL2-S. 

Next year I will consider the SL3-S, if and when it will come out. I’ll wait at least 6 months, if the camera is another shitshow like their recent releases, I’ll keep the Panny and call it a day, no big deal. 

[Stuart Richardson]

Just a very quick note regarding multishot, so as not to derail. If they can implement that in firmware, it would be quite nice. I realize not everyone here finds it useful, particularly if they are not working a studio environment or in large prints of landscapes. For me both of those areas are my main areas of photography. Multishot is, for me at least, the most useful in camera scanning of film and artwork, which is something I do fairly regularly. I reproduced an artist book for a facsimile edition (basically reproduced the entirety of the one-off artist book as a print edition, so photographing all pages, the spine and covers etc) New Directions using the SL2 and multishot. I have also found it to be a noticeable increase in resolution for landscape work. In particular, it is helpful for situations where you have maxed out your lenses and would like to crop more. Or when you are producing a truly large print. The lack of it in the SL3 was one of the reasons, though not the only, that I chose not to upgrade. So if Leica can offer it, I think it would be great if they could.

[jonoslack]

3 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

Are they also working hard at preventing these situations from happening again in the future? Like a revision of their processes, maybe an expanded software team? Because to me that’s what matters the most. 

Hi there

Well, I'm sure they are working hard on it, but it isn't the sort of thing they are likely to share with me, and if they did, then I wouldn't be able to share it with you 😂. But they are clearly taking it very seriously - it's cost them money and reputation, so they're bound to.

best

Jono

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[jaapv]

1 hour ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Just a very quick note regarding multishot, so as not to derail. If they can implement that in firmware, it would be quite nice. I realize not everyone here finds it useful, particularly if they are not working a studio environment or in large prints of landscapes. For me both of those areas are my main areas of photography. Multishot is, for me at least, the most useful in camera scanning of film and artwork, which is something I do fairly regularly. I reproduced an artist book for a facsimile edition (basically reproduced the entirety of the one-off artist book as a print edition, so photographing all pages, the spine and covers etc) New Directions using the SL2 and multishot. I have also found it to be a noticeable increase in resolution for landscape work. In particular, it is helpful for situations where you have maxed out your lenses and would like to crop more. Or when you are producing a truly large print. The lack of it in the SL3 was one of the reasons, though not the only, that I chose not to upgrade. So if Leica can offer it, I think it would be great if they could.

It is useful, and the counterargument that it is not a full increase in resolution is incorrect. As opposed to a native full-resolution shot the pixel number will not be doubled by the software algorithms in uniform areas that have no detail to enhance, making a multishot image equal to a full- resolution one with a smaller data size.