highdesertmesa wrote:
What I don't get is why Canon and Nikon limit focus confirmation for manual focus lenses to electronically connected/chipped ones. Right now you can work around that with certain adapters, so surely that's an artificial limitation and not a requirement for PDAF to work.
I've been scratching my head about this too. My current explanation is conservatism of their firmware engineering.
The code path for focusing surely involves subject distance, because predictive AF requires it. Therefore they have a chain of function calls where the current distance reading on a lens is a mandatory parameter. Yes, you can add a special case for unchipped lenses + manual focus and pass a faux value of, say, 50mm to those functions. But that's bad engineering: keep doing this and your codebase becomes a nightmare to test and maintain.
A more robust solution is to redesign the internal AF APIs to treat manual focus with unchipped lenses as a first class citizen. But this would require more engineering+testing time. Perhaps then we can get focus-triggers-shutter behavior too!
RomanMF wrote:
Interesting tidbit from David Imel’s hands on write up:
“I tested this mode pretty extensively during my time with the camera, and half the time the would freeze up, forcing me to take the battery out and put it back in, and the other half of the time it would store the images but the screen would be black and unusable for multiple seconds. There's a long delay while it moves the data from the buffer to storage, but nothing on screen tells you that's happening or how long it'll take.” https://www.davidimel.com/newsletter/testing-leicas-new-sl3-p/
I’ve had Q3s freeze up on me a bunch. I hear M11s are notoriously freeze-prone too. What is up with this generation of cameras from Leica? ...Show more →
To be clear, he was specifically talking about using it in burst mode. Not that it should be doing that.
old-gregg wrote:
I've been scratching my head about this too. My current explanation is conservatism of their firmware engineering.
The code path for focusing surely involves subject distance, because predictive AF requires it. Therefore they have a chain of function calls where the current distance reading on a lens is a mandatory parameter. Yes, you can add a special case for unchipped lenses + manual focus and pass a faux value of, say, 50mm to those functions. But that's bad engineering: keep doing this and your codebase becomes a nightmare to test and maintain.
A more robust solution is to redesign the internal AF APIs to treat manual focus with unchipped lenses as a first class citizen. But this would require more engineering+testing time. Perhaps then we can get focus-triggers-shutter behavior too!...Show more →
But the problem with saying distance is required is folks are using chipped adapters to bypass the chipped lens requirement. These adapters are not passing on distance information, yet users are reporting accurate focus confirmation. Or maybe accuracy does suffer compared to chipped lenses, IDK.
rscheffler wrote:
40ms is still very slow. It needs to be down in the teens or lower to be competitive with Canikony options.
I'm just catching up on the some of the articles:
DPReview reports "approximately 20ms (1/5 [1/50] sec) readout rates in 12-bit mode" Better than 14-bit 40ms. But 20ms is still too slow for very fast subjects. *see sample image posted
highdesertmesa wrote:
But the problem with saying distance is required is folks are using chipped adapters to bypass the chipped lens requirement. These adapters are not passing on distance information, yet users are reporting accurate focus confirmation. Or maybe accuracy does suffer compared to chipped lenses, IDK.
It would be good if someone made an M adapter to whatever mount, L would be a good place to start, that used the lens cam with a roller, like an M body to read the distance and transmit it to the body. Leica can read the 6 bit coding and send it to L mount cameras, why not distance too?
I just looked at Jono's thread, as my interests lie heavily with wildlife and landscape photography. Based on the images posted, I would say that either the SL3-P or the 100-400 Leica (or both) is/are not ready for serious wildlife photographers. Almost all of the subjects that are in motion lack the acuity and detail one should expect from a modern camera and lens. The bird stills look very very good, so it is clear that the issue may relate to either the AF in the body, the motor in the lens, or both.
I know that Jono is a Leica guy, but if one wants to test the AF capabilities of the camera on wildlife, it might be better to use one of the following.. the 70-200 f/2.8 Leica or Sigma, Sigma 500mm f5.6, &/or Sigma 300-600mm f/4. You'll note that I omitted the very sharp 90-280mm f/2.8-4 APO lens. While that latter is absolutely stunning when it comes to rendering details, the af motor is old tech in today's standards and may not be as responsive as some of the newest L-Mount telephoto lenses.
I suspect that more firmware updates are on the way, and I'm hoping that a dedicated nature photographer is given an opportunity to run the camera through its paces...
I have a soft spot of Leica, and if they can become a bit more competitive when it comes to AF responsiveness, I'd begin shifting away for Nikon towards a Leica/Sigma system.
LBJ2 wrote:
I'm just catching up on the some of the articles:
DPReview reports "approximately 20ms (1/5 [1/50] sec) readout rates in 12-bit mode" Better than 14-bit 40ms. But 20ms is still too slow for very fast subjects. *see sample image posted
20ms in 12-bit mode is pretty awesome for a full-frame 44MP sensor. It's not a sports camera in electronic shutter mode, but it can definitely handle moving subjects. By comparison, I believe the 24MP Nikon Zf has a sensor readout of around 50–55ms in stills, despite having a lower-resolution sensor.
Well Sigma lenses are on special here. Picked up an L mount 300-600 for usd 5k, new. Should have that and my SL3P when I get home in a week. I have the E mount version so will test against my A1ii. And S1Rii
What I expect isn’t the sensor read out speed to be an issue most of the time. It’s that the lack of a blackout free viewfinder will make tracking a moving subject more difficult. There’s no pre capture. And for f**** sake still no EFCS!!!! for mechanical mode.
I think it’ll be more than fine most of the time but I also ordered a 100-400 f4.5 GM because I know that’ll be spectacular on safari next year.
It’ll be nice to have native TCs on the Sigma though.
LBJ2 wrote:
We now have three SL models in one generation-I think that's a first for the SL system. Also, clearly Leica is very aware that some want a small, smaller SL camera body and lenses as we see by their SL downsizing actions these last few years. Personally, I wouldn't rule out a smaller SL camera body at some point as the SL system continues to progress. I mean, who could have believed Leica would offer an M-EV1 just a few short years ago?
Personally, I feel a small SL camera body variant would be welcome and sell relatively well.
I asked the question to Jonathan Slack on another platform...
"Hi Jonathan, thanks for the review! It looks like this is the most versatile SL body yet. Is there in your opinion any chance we will ever see a smaller and lighter SL body? On LUF a while ago you said the following: “But I would really like to see a new and much smaller SL with the 60mp sensor and a decent EVF – and I think there is a big market for that.”. I agree with you. Do you have any indication this will ever materialize?"
"Hi there – glad you enjoyed it, and yes, it is versatile. . . . . . . I don’t know the answer to your question. I do know that there are people at Leica who would like it, but the danger is always cutting into other sales. I’d love to think it would come, but looking at the sizes of cameras in general, nobody seems to be trying to make premium cameras smaller. One can but hope though!
Perhaps the appearance of the diminutive summilux is a good sign?"
