mboerma Posted September 6, 2009 Share #1 Posted September 6, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I really hope Leica will provide new firmware for their loyal M8.x customers with the features of the M9. For example the pulled ISO 80 or the manual lens selection or the exposure bracketing. This will also help Leica sell the M9 as a camera for life as they state in the Leica M9 PDF. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 6, 2009 Posted September 6, 2009 Hi mboerma, Take a look here New Leica M8.x firmware??!!. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
tollie Posted September 6, 2009 Share #2 Posted September 6, 2009 I hope so as well. I enjoy HDR landscape photography and it would be so much better to have an automatic bracketing function. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHAG Posted September 6, 2009 Share #3 Posted September 6, 2009 I was about to post on the subject. I concur. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cam2000 Posted September 6, 2009 Share #4 Posted September 6, 2009 Leica does not have to do everything free but they could offer us future up-grades at a fair price. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bo_Lorentzen Posted September 6, 2009 Share #5 Posted September 6, 2009 Agree... The 80 pull and exposure bracketing would be a very meaningful firmware upgrade. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted September 7, 2009 Share #6 Posted September 7, 2009 Leica has been listening to the complaints in which M8, M8u and M8.2 owners grumbled about the artificial differentiation between those models' functions. For example, the discreet mode magically appeared in all three, one firmware release after the upgrades started. I'd hope once the M9 is moving into the stores, and upgrades are more trouble for Leica than they are worth in extra revenue, that all three would offer the same functions, such as thumbwheel exposure shifting. Then six months down the road, it would be lovely to get some of the M9 firmware functions, like auto bracketing, released for the M8s. I don't expect we'll ever see manual lens setting in firmware, despite what some are reading into the wording of one leaked menu item. scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rami G Posted September 7, 2009 Share #7 Posted September 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) I really hope Leica will provide new firmware for their loyal M8.x customers with the features of the M9. For example the pulled ISO 80 or the manual lens selection or the exposure bracketing. This will also help Leica sell the M9 as a camera for life as they state in the Leica M9 PDF. I really hope they will allow non-compressed 14-bit raw files for the M8 in a firmware upgrade. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 7, 2009 Share #8 Posted September 7, 2009 They won't. The camera is too slow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oronet commander Posted September 7, 2009 Share #9 Posted September 7, 2009 They won't. The camera is too slow. I wouldn't mind waiting... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mboerma Posted September 7, 2009 Author Share #10 Posted September 7, 2009 I don't expect we'll ever see manual lens setting in firmware, despite what some are reading into the wording of one leaked menu item. scott Scott, I was reading it into the wording of the leaked menu shots in the Youtube movie, and it was "confirmed" by the microsite. In one of the screenshots of the microsite of the M9 with the title "Menu" it is says: "..for example automatic lens recognition by 6-Bit coding, or manual lens selection.." So if the microsite was not a fake then the M9 will have Automatic and manual lens selection and I really hope this will be made available to M8.x users. But I for me exposure bracketing would be the more important option and the ISO 80 possibility. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozkar Posted September 7, 2009 Share #11 Posted September 7, 2009 I really hope Leica will provide new firmware for their loyal M8.x customers with the features of the M9. For example the pulled ISO 80 or the manual lens selection or the exposure bracketing. This will also help Leica sell the M9 as a camera for life as they state in the Leica M9 PDF. The M8 is discontinued. I imagine Leica will not release any further firmware updates. I could be wrong but I can't think of any manufacturers that continue developing new firmware for obsolete products. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHAG Posted September 7, 2009 Share #12 Posted September 7, 2009 The M8 is discontinued. I imagine Leica will not release any further firmware updates. I could be wrong but I can't think of any manufacturers that continue developing new firmware for obsolete products. Apple did (and does) so since years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adli Posted September 7, 2009 Share #13 Posted September 7, 2009 The M8 is discontinued. I imagine Leica will not release any further firmware updates. I could be wrong but I can't think of any manufacturers that continue developing new firmware for obsolete products. Leica have good tracking for servicing their old products. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 7, 2009 Share #14 Posted September 7, 2009 I would not be surprised if there were an update towards the end of the year. There is still some fiddling with the shutter timing in C mode to be done. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosuna Posted September 7, 2009 Share #15 Posted September 7, 2009 They won't. The camera is too slow. The only problem is in writting 20MB DNG files vs 10MB files, and building JPG files from the 16-bit DNG. The second problem is easy to solve: allow JPG only from 8 bit DNG files (DNG-8 + JPG, yes; DNG-16 + JPG no). Fast cards and single shot operation make the fist problem not so hard to avoid. Menu selectable lenses would be great as well. Some reduction in noise is my third wish for a firmware update. The DMR had improved noise from a firmware update. I don't know how, but they did it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted September 7, 2009 Share #16 Posted September 7, 2009 The M8 is discontinued. I imagine Leica will not release any further firmware updates. I could be wrong but I can't think of any manufacturers that continue developing new firmware for obsolete products. Why not? Leica itself released software version 1.3 for the DMR after it had ceased production and removed it from the catalogue. Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 7, 2009 Share #17 Posted September 7, 2009 The only problem is in writting 20MB DNG files vs 10MB files, and building JPG files from the 16-bit DNG. The second problem is easy to solve: allow JPG only from 8 bit DNG files (DNG-8 + JPG, yes; DNG-16 + JPG no). Fast cards and single shot operation make the fist problem not so hard to avoid. The original beta M8 were 16 bits. Leica dropped that and went to great lengths to create the current compression as the camera was too slow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozkar Posted September 7, 2009 Share #18 Posted September 7, 2009 Apple did (and does) so since years. I was referring to camera manufacturers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozkar Posted September 7, 2009 Share #19 Posted September 7, 2009 I would not be surprised if there were an update towards the end of the year. There is still some fiddling with the shutter timing in C mode to be done. I hope you're right. But I'm not holding my breath. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted September 7, 2009 Share #20 Posted September 7, 2009 The only problem is in writting 20MB DNG files vs 10MB files, and building JPG files from the 16-bit DNG. JPEG files aren’t derived from DNG files, unless you are talking about a raw converter on your PC. DNG is just some specific file format for raw data and it isn’t involved in the processing from 14 bit raw sensor data to JPEG output. Most importantly, there is no compression step involved, other than JPEG compression as such. Reducing the raw data to 8 bit along the way would be completely unnecessary as for any real image processing, the data would have to be expanded to 14 bits again. It would mean throwing away information for nothing and would actually increase processing time. Furthermore, processing data that was originally compressed to 8 bits would lead to a deterioration of image quality which is why compression is always applied as the very last step in the processing pipeline – sqrt compression in the case of DNGs and JPEG compression in the case of JPEG files. And it is a matter of either/or – only one of these two lossy compression methods will ever be applied. So, JPEG processing time in no way depends on whether raw files are stored in compressed or uncompressed form. Storing raw data in uncompressed form would double DNG saving times and double the file size, for no real tangible gain. In all those years, no one has ever successfully made the case for an uncompressed raw format, either theoretically or practically. Yeah, some people want it just for the heck of it … Btw, I don’t quite get the attractiveness of ISO 80 either. Reducing the sensitivity setting below a sensor’s native sensitivity amounts to overexposing it. ISO 80 costs you one f-stop of dynamic range due to overexposure, without any significant reduction in noise. Now if it’s a bright day, 1/4000 or 1/8000 s doesn’t cut it, and you don’t have an ND filter handy, an ISO 80 setting might be useful. But chances are you will then be missing the 1 EV of dynamic range lost to overexposure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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