One more bug

[Smogg]

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A factory reset didn't help. In fact, even with the Shutter button half-pressed LV setting, the same thing happens, but only if the exposure compensation is set to 0. If the exposure compensation is different from 0, everything works as expected. With the Permanent LV setting, nothing depends on the exposure compensation and doesn't work correctly.

Edited September 20 by Smogg

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[Chris W]

What makes you think the M12, with even more complex electronics, will be any better?

 

[fotofool]

4 hours ago, jaapv said:

It is just the consequence of dragging all this Rube Goldberg stuff into the M. It is a minimalistic camera and attempting to make it into a camera with as many 2025 bells and whistles as possible crammed in is a recipe for this kind of thing. It is teaching an elephant to walz by dressing it in a tutu and does indeed not bode well for a possible M-EVF. 

I don’t understand how it can be a consequence of adding the same functions other digital cameras have.  It is not an elephant, it is a camera with a digital sensor and a microprocessor.  The electronic and software engineering can be done well or it can be done poorly.  This is not a function of the history, legacy or brand.  It is not a function of the mechanical rangefinder focusing mechanism.  It is not a function of the flange distance or any other legacy constraint.  It is a function of the competence of the team that did it and the priorities of the management that guides them.

Leica’s choice to include the same simple functions other digital cameras have is not the cause of their growing track record of engineering failures.

[Smogg]

16 minutes ago, Chris W said:

What makes you think the M12, with even more complex electronics, will be any better?

 

To make something more buggy than the M11, they'd have to put in a lot of effort. 😄 I've handled a lot of digital cameras, but I've never encountered anything like this. I suspect an initial flaw in the design prevented all the bugs from being fixed with firmware, so Leica faced a dilemma: either discontinue the camera, which would have resulted in significant financial losses, or limit themselves to patching the obvious holes and "surviving" until the next iteration (the M12).
 

Ideally, if I were Leica, I'd do the following: buy a Sony RX1R III, disassemble it, throw out all the unnecessary components, and pack the rest into an M body with a rangefinder. The price difference would make this move economically justified.

[jaapv]

Because you are cramming 2025 technology into a 1954 design. 

[Elliot Harper]

3 hours ago, Chris W said:

I've recently used an m10 alot and now an M11. I almost never use Live View. I always use the rangefinder and judge my exposure by the red arrow indicators. That's how I always shot my M6. I agree with jaapv, it's like teaching an elephant to waltz. It isn't buggy camera, just not designed to be used like a Sony or Fuji.

when you put a function into a machine and that function doesn't work as it's intend to work, it is called a BUG!

I suggest Leica just update the firmware to take away the LV function, then everyone will be happy.

[pgh]

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2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Because you are cramming 2025 technology into a 1954 design. 

2017-2020 technology packed into a 1954 design works quite well though. Of all the flaws my stable of m10s have had, none have been firmware/software related. And since the initial issues with the ISO dial were rectified and sensor remapped, everything had been great on all bodies aside from the rangefinder needing some work and the LED display mask needing replacement because I dropped one. (Can’t pin that on Leica).

Whatever they do with an evf camera that apparently is a manual focus SL body without viewfinder bump or handgrip I hope they feel the liberty to design it in accordance with the tech, because it won’t be an M anyways and has no need to dress like one. 

[Smudgerer]

Ok, I have the M11-D and the M11-M, my last two digital Leica M's as I have sold the rest off as I return to working analogue more now.

I agree and disagree with the previous comments, it's difficult to know where to land in these disputes, but I will say this....Yes the digital M cameras have become way too complicated and looking back on the sad M11 sagas it's quite obvious that most of the blame goes to Leica's poor implementation of the driving firmware, it's been obvious for a long time even going back to earlier versions that Leica has a record of poor understanding of how to build safe functional firmware to drive their M products, they just have not appeared to have the skills in house and it's meant that early adopters of "the next M' have acted as "guinea pigs" until Leica some four years after launch "sort of" got the M11 versions "sort of" right........and that's just not acceptable, we are fools in fact to put up with it as we seem to do, many shrugging their shoulders and saying that they look forward instead to the M12.........Well good luck with that.

I bought my M11's earlier this year and thankfully benefited from the nearly complete firmware corrections that Leica has applied to the 11's over the past four years, so fingers crossed I have not had any adverse problems, however I do totally agree the the M has become unnecessarily complicated, it has been built to do too much for what a M camera should be, too many megapixels, weird unnecessary options to connect the camera to iPhones/iPads, complicated shutter dances, for what reasons?

I particularly like my M11-D, but I do wish it had less function options than it does, yes I do wish it was "purer", whatever the hell that means to any of us owners of the brand. A M11 / M6 would have been a no-brainier to many I believe, for me it would for certain. KISS.

Hopefully the now almost certain MV or whatever the fully digital M will be called will allow Leica to pull back on trying to stuff all kinds of unnecessary gizmo nonsense into a rangefinder M and step back to a simpler, saner, more solidly reliable platform and let the EVF M take those who wish for it to where-ever they want to go with such a camera, we can but hope I guess.

[jaapv]

14 minutes ago, pgh said:

2017-2020 technology packed into a 1954 design works quite well though. Of all the flaws my stable of m10s have had, none have been firmware/software related. And since the initial issues with the ISO dial were rectified and sensor remapped, everything had been great on all bodies aside from the rangefinder needing some work and the LED display mask needing replacement because I dropped one. (Can’t pin that on Leica).

Whatever they do with an evf camera that apparently is a manual focus SL body without viewfinder bump or handgrip I hope they feel the liberty to design it in accordance with the tech, because it won’t be an M anyways and has no need to dress like one. 

I'll raise my hat to them if they pull it off in a satisfactory manner. Consider the handicaps: A body too thin for the legacy flange distance plus sensor assembly, a mount too narrow and without space for electronic contacts, no data transfer from lens to body, no way for the body to control the lens, a body design with no thermal management in mind, legacy lenses with extremely wide incidence angles, an optical viewfinder/rangefinder to live up to, and I am sure that I missed a few headaches. 

[jaapv]

19 minutes ago, Smudgerer said:

Ok, I have the M11-D and the M11-M, my last two digital Leica M's as I have sold the rest off as I return to working analogue more now.

I agree and disagree with the previous comments, it's difficult to know where to land in these disputes, but I will say this....Yes the digital M cameras have become way too complicated and looking back on the sad M11 sagas it's quite obvious that most of the blame goes to Leica's poor implementation of the driving firmware, it's been obvious for a long time even going back to earlier versions that Leica has a record of poor understanding of how to build safe functional firmware to drive their M products, they just have not appeared to have the skills in house and it's meant that early adopters of "the next M' have acted as "guinea pigs" until Leica some four years after launch "sort of" got the M11 versions "sort of" right........and that's just not acceptable, we are fools in fact to put up with it as we seem to do, many shrugging their shoulders and saying that they look forward instead to the M12.........Well good luck with that.

I bought my M11's earlier this year and thankfully benefited from the nearly complete firmware corrections that Leica has applied to the 11's over the past four years, so fingers crossed I have not had any adverse problems, however I do totally agree the the M has become unnecessarily complicated, it has been built to do too much for what a M camera should be, too many megapixels, weird unnecessary options to connect the camera to iPhones/iPads, complicated shutter dances, for what reasons?

I particularly like my M11-D, but I do wish it had less function options than it does, yes I do wish it was "purer", whatever the hell that means to any of us owners of the brand. A M11 / M6 would have been a no-brainier to many I believe, for me it would for certain. KISS.

Hopefully the now almost certain MV or whatever the fully digital M will be called will allow Leica to pull back on trying to stuff all kinds of unnecessary gizmo nonsense into a rangefinder M and step back to a simpler, saner, more solidly reliable platform and let the EVF M take those who wish for it to where-ever they want to go with such a camera, we can but hope I guess.

The only thing: Originally Leica ordered the firmware from Zeiss Jena, who have vast (military) expertise, and it is unclear how much consultancy is still involved as they presumably built up their own department over the years. I blame the extreme difficulty of blending old and new technology rather than (assumed) incompetence. I mean: just try and adapt Jim Clark's F1 car to compete with Red Bull. 

[Smudgerer]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

The only thing: Originally Leica ordered the firmware from Zeiss Jena, who have vast (military) expertise, and it is unclear how much consultancy is still involved as they presumably built up their own department over the years. I blame the extreme difficulty of blending old and new technology rather than (assumed) incompetence. I mean: just try and adapt Jim Clark's F1 car to compete with Red Bull. 

Thanks jaapv, I didn't know about the Zeiss connection.............Interesting.

[o2mpx]

Quite a mark on Leica’s reputation with these never ending glitches. Perhaps the original circuit design was never optimal and further compounded with subsequent patches that addressed the symptoms but not comprehensively the root causes. Chose to keep the M10-R BP and added a SL-3 to get the 60mp for landscapes with M lenses. Have a trip planned to Wetzlar next summer and hope there’s a glitch free M11-V to pickup. 

[elmars]

The freezes were certainly a disaster – for us customers and for Leica. I also believe it is true that other camera manufacturers have greater software expertise: Leica is a very small company and is still in the process of developing in this area, while Asian manufacturers probably have hundreds of software developers and much larger budgets. 

Nevertheless, I doubt that it was incompetence that led to the freeze problem. The M11 was largely developed during the coronavirus pandemic. At that time, the usual opportunities for collaboration and for jointly discussing and reviewing work results did not exist. I always suspected that this played a significant role, especially for a manufacturer where everyone knows everyone else.

I also disagree with jaapv´s assertion that the M has become technically obsolete. The fact that it has a traditional body shape is certainly irrelevant; the technology inside has been completely revamped several times. This also applies to the rangefinder, which is only based on the principle of the 1954 model. It was redesigned for the M10 and there is further potential in the technology of the optical rangefinder (at least according to Leica experts).

Perhaps we should try not to forget the past (with the freezes), but also consider that it does not necessarily determine the future. In this respect, a new bug may be an expression of a general problem (which I do not believe to be the case here), but it may also simply be a bug.

[jaapv]

I never said that the M is obsolete, so I fail to see what you disagree with.
I said that the M is - or rather should be- a perfect tool to execute the essential functions of photography.  Nothing more.  Adding  ever more. (superfluous) functions beyond that concept will inevitably lead to problems. Such functions can be performed better by other tools designed for them from the beginning. There is always a point where evolution backfires. The trick is to consolidate your niche just before that point is reached. 

[LocalHero1953]

The Q and SL series have not been bug-free, but are certainly no worse than other brands. Clearly Leica knows how to write firmware for those product lines. That doesn't read like a corporate inability to write firmware (or get others to write it for them).

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

[didier]

19 minutes ago, jaapv said:

There is always a point where evolution backfires. The trick is to consolidate your niche just before that point is reached. 

That’s why I keep my M10M and haven’t pulled the trigger yet for a M11-D. Is the M11 beyond that point ? 

[Ne314satel]

On 9/20/2025 at 8:15 AM, Smogg said:

I've found another bug in the M11-P firmware. Sometimes it seems like they'll never end. When using highlight-weighted metering, I always used the Exposure preview - Shutter button half-pressed setting. With this setting, the bug isn't noticeable. However, if you change the setting to Permanent, you'll notice that when composing a scene and half-pressing the shutter button, it takes 1 to 5 seconds for the LCD and histogram to change to the correct values (the same as what you'd see in the final image if you fully pressed the shutter button). Slightly recomposing the scene often reduces this time. This indicates either a slow processor, poorly written software, or both.

The M11 doesn't have this issue with the latest firmware. Perhaps the M11 and M11P are slightly more different than I previously thought.

I still get the occasional freeze when using memory cards (even Leica-approved ones), but I switched to shooting only on internal memory a long time ago, and those issues have disappeared.

19 hours ago, Smogg said:

I no longer want to fight for the M11's survival. I hope it's not long before the M12 comes out, and then I'll forget the M11 saga like a bad dream.

For pure enjoyment, I still consider the M9P the best. But after color correction, my dislike of the M11 disappeared😀. The M11's undeniable advantage for me is the ability to shoot in color with older screw-on lenses and see the image from wide-angle lenses (like 15mm) on the screen with LV, which was impossible with my M9P.

Things change quickly in this world. Despite all the conveniences of the X2D2, many complain about the deterioration of color compared to the X2D. Perhaps in five years, we too will be nostalgic for the M11.

Edited September 21 by Ne314satel

[o2mpx]

It’s remarkable how much loyalty forum members have for Leica, despite the issues that have been plaguing M11 variant owners, however sporadic. 

Given Leica pricing, and subsequent firmware update (had there been only one? Or multiple?) that didn’t completely close the issue, and continue to drag, the only conclusion must be that the issues are so small that Leica doesn’t believe it’s representative of anything but outliers. 

Preferring to think glass is half full, presumably the M11 is a significant redesign from the M10-R, losing the bottom plate, different battery, menus, visoflex etc, that perhaps Leica underestimated the change impact; and Leica isn’t just sitting on the brand equity built over decades, as it’s a slippery slope once loyalty is taken for granted. 

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[Smogg]

25 minutes ago, o2mpx said:

It’s remarkable how much loyalty forum members have for Leica, despite the issues that have been plaguing M11 variant owners, however sporadic. 

Given Leica pricing, and subsequent firmware update (had there been only one? Or multiple?) that didn’t completely close the issue, and continue to drag, the only conclusion must be that the issues are so small that Leica doesn’t believe it’s representative of anything but outliers. 

Preferring to think glass is half full, presumably the M11 is a significant redesign from the M10-R, losing the bottom plate, different battery, menus, visoflex etc, that perhaps Leica underestimated the change impact; and Leica isn’t just sitting on the brand equity built over decades, as it’s a slippery slope once loyalty is taken for granted. 

Loyalty is easily explained by the lack of alternatives. No one makes rangefinders anymore. I don't use other Leica products because I consider them hopelessly inferior to the competition. But I need a rangefinder.

[costa43]

The M11 for me is the strongest M so far in digital. It has the best sensor and the USB, battery life and internal storage are enough evolution to keep things ticking. In use I just treat as a film M. Manual shutter and iso, set aperture and shoot. I feel it is no different to my M10R or previous Ms when used in this manner. I only go into the menu to change the lens selection on my non coded lenses.

My camera has been very reliable but there is definitely a variance across units and I do think that Leica have to get things aligned for the next M so it’s not repeated. Leica always felt like a camera/lens engineering company to me but the luxury/profit driven side is outweighing things now.

 

 

Edited September 22 by costa43