Following firmware updates for the SL2 and SL2-S earlier in May, Leica users experienced some problems with APO-Summicron-SL primes, in particular, a significant delay when shooting these lenses stopped down. The company has now issued a revised set of firmware files to address the bug.
David Farkas of the Red Dot Forum covers the revisions in detail and provides download and installation instructions. Read his article here.
Here is a link to all recent Leica firmware updates, including the latest version 1.4.0.0 for the M11.
A cup of coffee works wonders in supporting Macfilos
Did you know that Macfilos is run by a dedicated team of volunteers? We rely on donations to help pay our running costs. And even the cost of a cup of coffee will do wonders for our energy levels.
Batteries, menus, firmware, software..the photographic demons of the 21st Century.
Another Firmware question – This time the M11. I tend to shoot wide aperture primes quite a bit, and often wide open. One of the things I really like with the M11 is the hybrid shutter, meaning I can now go up to 1/16000s if I need meaning I don’t need ND filters. I’ve noticed a few times now that when I play back an image shot at say 1/10,000th second, it just displays ‘1s’ on the screen for shutter speed. The EXIF data is correct when I import to Lightroom so it’s not a major issue but annoying that it doesn’t display properly. I was hoping this bug was fixed in 1.4 which I installed today, sadly it’s not and seems to still be there. Anyone else care to test this bug and see if it’s just me? I’m using a Noctilux f0.95, can’t say I’ve seen this happen on Summilux lenses but I will check.
So, on the subject of firmware updates:- Did anybody find a battery drain issue with the previous SL2-S firmware? I upgraded mine to v3.0 a couple of weeks back so the battery was 100% at the time. The only update of interest to me was the DoF preview, so I played around with that for a while after I did the update and checked everything else was still working according to my standard profile settings. I put the camera away and haven’t actually used it since that day. Yesterday I went to update to v3.1 and the battery is completely flat !! This is very odd, and I can’t recall another time ever when this has happened. I use all my cameras a lot, but sometimes it could be a few weeks between uses for one particular camera and I tend to put them away with fully charged batteries. The only thing I might have done different was to switch on DoF preview, signified by the little green symbol next to the f-stop in the EVF display. I remember going off to eat and coming back later to play some more before I put the camera away and the camera was definitely warm, I remember that and thought it was odd at the time… not understanding why, or thinking of a valid reason I dismissed it. I’ll keep an eye now, but wondered if anyone else has had such an experience? Was there a bug which left some electronics running in the SL2-S?
I luckily did not do my firmware update on my SL2 until last weekend and had not used it since. I cannot believe how poorly tested their firmware is – well actually I can based on experience. I guess Leica does not test their firmware with the lenses stopped down as you are supposed to shoot Leica glass wide open. I wonder how well the latest update was tested – please be patient as they are distracted putting resources on special editions coming to you soon.
As to why we never get a locking centre focus point, I suspect they do not have a firmware person that can figure it out.
My M11 would periodically freeze up when I got it but a firmware upgrade fixed that. I suppose I was using an incorrect operating mode – full manual mode. 🤣
However, I do love the rendering and haptics of my M and SL systems so I will be positive and look at the one third full glass.
There is also a fresh M11 update.