I took a risk (I was not completely familiar with the camera yet) and used the EV1 as my only body on a trip to Bavaria. I learned a few things about it and would happy to hear other users' experiences so far.
- The camera is off course basically an M11 from the sensor and electronics perspective. So, it underexposes some by default. That was familiar to me and created no issues.
- Focusing turned out to be interesting. I had a few shots comes out in less than perfect focus and couldn't figure out why. I started paying attention to every step I took and realized that I had focused a few times with the aperture stopped down, then opened up the aperture prior to exposure. That's a recipe for less than stellar focus.
If you focus stopped down, much more of course will be in focus and you aren't achieving critical focus on desired elements if you open up the aperture. So I started making sure I was wide open when I focused and then everything was fine. With the 35 and 50mm Summiluxes I can still likely get better focus with my rangefinder bodies, but that's due to inexperience with the EV1, not a limitation.
- I remain irritated with the startup time of the EV1. I happened to visit the Munich Leica Store when I was there and mentioned it to them. They asked about speed of SD cards, so we swapped out the card for a fast one, and no change. My camera takes a few seconds to boot up from off and even they noted it seemed excessive. Since most of the camera is the same as the M11, I'd bet it has to do with the EVF startup time and not the body proper. Hope they improve that with firmware updates.
- For the trip I took my 18 SEM, 35 and 50 Luxes, and my 135 APO. It was quite pleasant seeing the actual image with the 18 and 135 lenses. I also consistently got good, sharp focus with the 135, which as many know can be challenging.
- I mentioned in another post that the white balance seems better by default and as a result the colors to my eye are better than my M11 by default.
- Battery life is nowhere near as good as the M11, but I never had an issue. But whereas I could shoot a few hundred photos in one day with my M11 and still have tons of juice left, the EV1 is dipping well into the battery for the same or fewer shots. Take an extra battery...
Quick summary is I enjoyed using it but it is in addition to my rangefinders, and will not replace them. I still enjoy the rangefinder experience. But it sure is nice to have an option where focal length has no bearing on use of the body.
crf59 wrote:
- I remain irritated with the startup time of the EV1
This has been Leica's problem since the M8 at least. I'm do not remember if I had this issue with the DMR.
Over the years, the issue has been raised again and again and when it comes to digital M used as street cameras, this is more than an annoyance but something hardly believable.
I wonder sometimes if they use their cameras because the ergonomics are great but they will not fix something like this.
Thankfully, you can just leave that camera on and not worry about start up time...probably not as good of an option with a digital camera.
pmeheut wrote:
This has been Leica's problem since the M8 at least. I'm do not remember if I had this issue with the DMR.
Over the years, the issue has been raised again and again and when it comes to digital M used as street cameras, this is more than an annoyance but something hardly believable.
I wonder sometimes if they use their cameras because the ergonomics are great but they will not fix something like this.
pmeheut wrote:
This has been Leica's problem since the M8 at least. I'm do not remember if I had this issue with the DMR.
Over the years, the issue has been raised again and again and when it comes to digital M used as street cameras, this is more than an annoyance but something hardly believable.
I wonder sometimes if they use their cameras because the ergonomics are great but they will not fix something like this.
With the new firmware on the SL3 startup either from shut off or sleep is almost instantaneous. The SL3 has almost the same sensor as the M11 family of cameras. It seems to me that the SL3 having EVF, AF, IBIS and other more complex features has more work to do when starting up than an M11. Start up was greatly improved with the 4.0 firmware. I am guessing the SL3 processor is much more powerful than the one in the M11. Still, I would hope improvement in startup could be made with M11 unless the processor is really cheap and slow.
Come on Leica, fix this in your flagship product. I am tired of missing shot over this issue.
Thankfully, you can just leave that camera on and not worry about start up time...probably not as good of an option with a digital camera.
Yeah never turn the M7 off. The system is only charged when the shutter is cocked.
The reason not to turn it off is the switch is poorly designed and can/will eventually cause the shutter button rod/plunger to warp requiring repair.
Don (DAG) gave me the heads up.
The startup solution I used with the M9 and M240 that mostly eliminated this problem, was to disable auto-sleep. Yes, you burn through batteries faster this way, but on the flip side, you also don't miss shots waiting for the camera to wake or start up. IMO it's a good solution if you're covering an event and always need to be ready. It's less ideal for casual strolls around the city, for example. But even here things can happen quickly and it sucks to miss those because the camera wasn't ready; I had my share of those experiences. So I disabled sleep and always brought along extra batteries. 4-5 for the M9 (yup, because later on in the M9's lifecycle/firmware versions, Leica stated performance with battery SOC below 50% was not guaranteed, or something like that) while the massive M240 battery was very welcome in comparison. With the M240 it also helped to turn off 'advanced' metering in favour of classical metering (not using the sensor). Unfortunately this is not an option with the M11, and obviously also not for the EV1.
Start up time will also be extended if your memory card contains a lot of images. It appears one of the start up processes is to read the contents of the card to figure out what is on it and how much space is still available, etc. So while it's tempting to stick a huge card in there and just leave it for an entire trip, with many thousands of images, it will gradually worsen start up time as it fills.
In any case, if Leica (maybe with Panasonic's help) can figure it out through a FW fix for the SL3, it would be great to see similar happen for the M series.
