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Leica M: Broken auto ISO in M mode

One of the things I loved about the M9 was that IMO Leica nailed auto ISO in Manual mode. You could set your shutter speed, the aperture and allow the camera to pick the ISO. You could bias the ISO using EC. Perfect. Exactly what I would expect and what I would want.

This is not the way it works with the new M. As far as I can tell if you set the camera to M and ISO to auto, it seems to just pick 200. WTF?

Between this and goofiness of requiring you to awkwardly press the little button on the front to set EC, my nerd rage wants to have the beta testers for this camera flogged. These are two important things that the M9 nailed that the new M botches.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
One of the things I loved about the M9 was that IMO Leica nailed auto ISO in Manual mode. You could set your shutter speed, the aperture and allow the camera to pick the ISO. You could bias the ISO using EC. Perfect. Exactly what I would expect and what I would want. ...
Never realized it could do that. It only works if you don't have the auto ISO function set to "lens dependent" .. Otherwise, Auto ISO is not available in manual exposure mode, far as I can tell. I have usually had my camera set to lens dependent on auto ISO so that it starts to push up the ISO setting as the AE system hit the limits of hand hold able shutter speed based on focal length.

I'll have to experiment and see how useful this is for me. Set up right, it could produce a range of two to three stops of exposure automation in manual exposure mode. A slightly strange concept.

I wouldn't call it 'broken' on the M, just not supported–unless there is some other subtlety in getting it to function. Personal bias here, but usually the last thing I want in Manual operation is some automation system tweaking the settings... :)
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Between this and goofiness of requiring you to awkwardly press the little button on the front to set EC, my nerd rage wants to have the beta testers for this camera flogged. These are two important things that the M9 nailed that the new M botches.
Nothing useful to contribute to you but loved those lines! Poetic! :)
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Leica listened to the wrong people in the beta phase. Some people, when shooting in what they call manual mode (i.e. manually operated shutter speed and of course aperture) like to use one or other, usually the shutter dial, to effect exposure compensation. For them, an automatically varying ISO would make that impossible.

However, those people have crippled the rest of us for little if any gain themselves. If they merely turned off Auto ISO, or learned to use exposure compensation like most people do, they would have no problem.

As it is, when you are set to Auto ISO and then start operating in 'Manual Mode' then the system is configured to ignore the Auto ISO setting and revert to manual ISO and that is where the stupidity lies: it selects the last used manually set ISO - which might have been days weeks or months ago - because it has to choose something.

I think most photographers regard Manual Mode as Manual Everything: however there is another way of shooting, being to treat Aperture, Shutter and ISO as the three full variables rather than just Aperture and Shutter, with ISO as semi-fixed. For people who shoot in the 'modern way' (and modern doesn't mean bad - the M was modern once) they want the option of letting the camera select all available variables or any two or any one. For me, Auto ISO, if selected, should always be active and therefore when shooting with manual shutter speed, should remain active rather than reverting to an almost random fixed ISO.

I am quite certain that Leica will soon realise that they took poor advice from a minority viewpoint and will revert to the old way.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
...I am quite certain that Leica will soon realise that they took poor advice from a minority viewpoint and will revert to the old way. ...
What makes you so sure it was a minority viewpoint? :)

Pentax cameras since the K10D have an explicit TAv mode which formalizes the 'set shutter and opening, let ISO float' operation, and they also have the Sv mode to lock sensitivity and let shutter and opening float to the Program line. Try as I might, I could not think of any real use for either. Neither could anyone else I knew, although I'm sure that having said that someone will come up with some rational use for these modes.

The auto ISO in manual was simply something I didn't even know the M9 supported. It's never been an issue for me to set the ISO when I switch to manual — when I switch to manual mode, I expect the camera to operate with all settings manually. Now that I know it's there, I'll think about it and see how to make use of it.

No need to intimate that those with one set of expectations, based on forty years of a word having one clear meaning, are somehow not "with it" in the modern world. ;-)
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
I am afraid I disagree.

There are very, very many situations whereby fixing shutter and aperture and allowing ISO to float is extremely useful and I shoot that way a lot on all the cameras I have that a) allow it and b) have good enough ISO performance to mean that it has little cost.

If I am photographing children, pets, leaves in motion, anything I want to freeze (or indeed allow to blur) then fixing my shutter speed along with my desired DOF via aperture means allowing to the ISO to take the strain. On cameras like the D800 or RX-1 and to a lesser extent the M, where ISO performance is so good, this is a great way of shooting.

IMHO, a lot of film-taught photographers have never come to see 'get' that ISO is a third variable as viable and flexible as aperture and shutter speed, and have not adapted their shooting styles to make use of it. It is entirely up to such people to shoot as they will, but allowing them to dictate terms to everyone else will likely prove a commercial mistake when their needs or preferences can equally well be accommodated by proper system design.

As to whether Leica listened to the wrong people, the great majority of complaints so far are about this feature and about the method of exposure compensation. The two are closely interlinked, and could both be 'fixed' in firmware so as to allow us all to do things the way we prefer.

I was raised on film, have shot if for at least forty years, and these are my expectations. And as per 'manual mode' - the Leica M has no such thing explicitly, though it does refer to it in the manual. No Mode dial, no Function designation. You and I agree that Manual is a good way of referring to a particular means of controlling shooting variables but it is not one that applies to Leica shooting other than by a particular convenient form of expression used by devotees...and though I appreciate the logical purity of saying 'manual means manual', it does lead to the logical impurity of having a menu selection of Auto ISO overridden/ignored. These confusions occur when some controls are set explicitly and some parametrically and this is at the heart of the confusion.
 
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Let me explain how I've usually worked with cameras I shoot hand held. For me I follow these general guidelines apply:

1. I can control aperture for creative purposes
2. I can control shutter speed for creative purposes
3. There is no creative purpose to controlling ISO for me. Without exception, I always want the lowest ISO I can get away with for a shot.

Thus on cameras where Auto ISO is implemented correctly (where the camera can set the ISO in any mode and can then be pushed either way with EC), I set ISO to Auto.

On the M I leave it on lens dependent because its a reasonable number for the camera to target its shutter speeds towards if you are on Aperture Priority.

Thus, in good light, when controlling DOF is most important, I leave the camera in Aperture Priority, allowing it to pick a reasonable shutter speed for the lens I'm using the lowest ISO needed for proper exposure.

If for some reason I need to control the shutter speed (either for a creative reason or because the light is getting really low and I can tolerate even slower shutter speeds than what the camera is picking) which a quick turn of the dial I can pick my shutter speed as well, now relying on the camera to only set the ISO. Since any camera decisions made using its on board meter is prone to error at times, compensating for that error does to be done with EC.

I've found this workflow to work very well for me. I understand that there are people that want to explicitly set the shutter speed, the aperture and the ISO (which I do too for my landscape work) and for those people, just shut off Auto in ISO and pick the shutter speed. Having the camera just ignore Auto in some cases is precisely the wrong thing to do.

Someone mentioned that this only happens if the min. shutter speed is set to 1/focal length. Just tried it and its not the case, this happens even if you explicitly set a min. shutter speed.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
..IMHO, a lot of film-taught photographers have never come to see 'get' that ISO is a third variable as viable and flexible as aperture and shutter speed, and have not adapted their shooting styles to make use of it. It is entirely up to such people to shoot as they will, but allowing them to dictate terms to everyone else will likely prove a commercial mistake when their needs or preferences can equally well be accommodated by proper system design. ...
What a condescending and sophisticated seeming way of saying "I'm right and if you don't agree with me, you're a git who doesn't understand."

Manual "mode" on the M or M9 is when you've not turned on exposure automation. That is, when you don't put the shutter speed dial on the 'A' position. When I set the exposure time that way, I expect the camera to do precisely what I tell it to do, and nothing else.

I'm perfectly comfortable with the concept of sliding the sensitivity around with a digital camera the same way I slide shutter speed and lens opening around. It's one of the things I've enjoyed a lot about using digital cameras.

This feature of allowing the Auto ISO function to operate in manual mode is not clearly articulated in the M9 manual, which implies Auto ISO is designed to be used with the auto exposure setting. Perhaps that it works the way it does is an accident not really intended by Leica, so the fact that it doesn't work on the new M is the rule and the M9 an aberration.

No matter. Now that I know it's there, I'll see if I can find some advantage with it.
Thank you, Aravind, for articulating how you make use of it.

No thanks to your condescension and attitude, tashley.
 
I am going to go out on a limb and say that the way the M9 has done it for the last 3 years and through numerous firmware updates was intentional mainly because it maintains consistency as you go from setting to setting. The beauty of the M interface is that is doesn't require the user to kick the camera into explicit Av and M modes, its implied by the shutter dial. If a user has ISO set to auto and the shutter dial set to A then the camera is picking the shutter speed and the ISO. Now then if the user constrains the shutter speed to a particular value (only only changing the shutter dial from A to something else, doing nothing else), the consistent thing and IMO the expected thing to do would be to have the camera then continue to select the ISO because the user still has the ISO set explicitly as auto. What would be inconsistent and unexpected would be to have the camera change the behavior for something else that the user didn't change (i.e. ISO).

I'm not sure I agree with Tim that this was intentional (unless he has more information from beta testers that I don't), the more I think of the inconsistency of it, it feels like a bug.
 

tele_player

New member
Never realized it could do that. It only works if you don't have the auto ISO function set to "lens dependent" .. Otherwise, Auto ISO is not available in manual exposure mode, far as I can tell.
On M9, Auto ISO definitely works in manual mode even when it's not set to lens dependent.
 
I discovered this feature, which is not documented by Leica, long time ago reading the M9 review on Luminous Landscape (M9 in Paris) and it is one of my favorite way of shooting since then.
I definitely would love to have it on the M as well, even if I do not have the M yet:(
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Specifically, it only works on the M9 if you don't have the lens dependent option set, by my experiments.

Reading the manual, I believe it was not a planned feature. The fact that it works is great. I'm experimenting with it. It kind of takes advantage of the M9 sensor's "ISO-less" quality, which may not be the same on the new M sensor.

G
 
When the nikon D3 came out, with it's extremely useable high iso range, I quickly made "manual" auto iso my method of shooting in low light. As said it allows keeping shutter speed where it needs to be for subject motion, etc, and aperture set for dof requirements. It helped that the VF tells you what iso it is setting in the nikon body, not so in the M9. I found the useable high iso range too limited in the M9 to employ this method so freely as I did the D3. However, the MM opens the useable iso range up very nicely and I do use this method with the MM in low light shooting.
 
Godfrey,
that looks strange, I have just checked again both on the M9 and on the Monochrom; coded lenses, lens detection auto, auto-iso set as lens dependent, max ISO 2500 (M9) and 10000 (Monochrom),shutter speed in manual mode: the Auto ISO works smoothly as described above. In both case the FW is the latest one.
 

jonoslack

Active member
The auto ISO in manual was simply something I didn't even know the M9 supported. It's never been an issue for me to set the ISO when I switch to manual — when I switch to manual mode, I expect the camera to operate with all settings manually. Now that I know it's there, I'll think about it and see how to make use of it.

No need to intimate that those with one set of expectations, based on forty years of a word having one clear meaning, are somehow not "with it" in the modern world. ;-)
HI Godfrey
The point is that a few people complained about the TAV mode which the M9 supported. But nobody exclaimed about how useful it is.

If you wanted to shoot fully manual with the M9 - you simply set a manual ISO - no problem.

But if you want auto ISO with a manual shutter speed on the M you can't have it - and there is no way around this.

It can be really useful - concerts, sports, shooting from a moving car, children - lots of situations with movement where you want to fix the exposure and allow the camera to sort the Exposure using the ISO.

Of course the correct answer is to have another setting in Auto ISO saying:
Use Auto ISO with manual shutter On/Off

Then everybody will be happy.
For me this is very very important - I used manual settings with Auto ISO a great deal on the M9 - and as far as I'm concerned the change doesn't make much difference to those who wanted it (after all, they could have set a manual ISO). But for those who wanted the feature, it's gone, and there isn't a substitute.

I M P O R T A N T.
 

tele_player

New member
Before writing my previous comment, I tried Auto ISO on my M9 (latest firmware), using both 'lens dependent', and the other settings for min speed and max ISO.

In all cases, with aperture at f/2 and shutter at 1/60, the camera adjusted the ISO to set the exposure as I took shots of varying brightness.

Personally, I find this behavior logical, and usable - though I usually don't use Auto ISO.

One thing we agree about - the manual doesn't accurately describe the behavior of the Auto ISO feature.

Specifically, it only works on the M9 if you don't have the lens dependent option set, by my experiments.

Reading the manual, I believe it was not a planned feature. The fact that it works is great. I'm experimenting with it. It kind of takes advantage of the M9 sensor's "ISO-less" quality, which may not be the same on the new M sensor.

G
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Snip:
What a condescending and sophisticated seeming way of saying "I'm right and if you don't agree with me, you're a git who doesn't understand."

No thanks to your condescension and attitude, tashley.
Frankly I think that is an unexpected response. You stated that:

'Try as I might, I could not think of any real use for either. Neither could anyone else I knew' and you also asked "What makes you so sure it was a minority viewpoint?" and I answered pretty clearly, I thought, with an explanation of why the function we were discussing is useful and why it is a minority viewpoint not to want the option to shoot that way. If you read all through the various discussion threads about the camera, you will find that this is one of the most frequently voiced complaints. The fact that you personally had never thought of a 'real use' for it does not, as Jono has so eloquently attested, mean that the rest of us should be hobbled when people such as yourself who prefer to shoot in the traditionally manual way merely have to turn off Auto ISO... if you read it as condescending, I apologise: that was not my intention, but I don't think it's cause to launch a personal attack.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
HI Godfrey
The point is that a few people complained about the TAV mode which the M9 supported. But nobody exclaimed about how useful it is. ..
To me, that's absurd. I simply didn't know about it, neither did any of my local friends who own M9s (none of whom are participants on this forum). Now that I know it's there, and see the manner in which it might be useful, I'll experiment with it.

To assign the some "minority" who didn't like it influenced Leica to remove it is equally absurd in my view. I've never seen it discussed elsewhere, and I certainly haven't read every message about the M9 on here (or elsewhere) either — so I hadn't seen a discussion of it here either until now. I haven't got time to waste in such pursuits, I read the manufacturer's instruction manual and then do my own experiments.

The presumption that I was knowingly advocating against a feature considered useful, by some, in a condenscending tone, is what irks me.

And again, the M9 manual does not indicate that Auto ISO in Manual is an intended feature. I suspect it was a side effect. And I suspect that the ISO-less nature of the M9 sensor is what makes it work. I don't know the the new CMOSIS sensor operates in the same way, as it is different technology, and the feature might not even be intentionally implementable there.

... Of course the correct answer is to have another setting in Auto ISO saying:
Use Auto ISO with manual shutter On/Off
Sure. That would clarify and articulate the function properly.

BTW, the M9 is the FIRST camera I've used that allows Auto ISO in Manual exposure mode. Never missed it on any other camera. Soon as I understand what value it has for my work, I'll see what a glory it is and whether it is important or not.

(Using only the M9 for a few weeks on this trip, I've become much more comfortable knowing what I can and cannot get out of it. For all the whinging and debates about it, and the new M for that matter, it is quite a marvelous camera just as it is. Happy I bought it. :)

G
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Before writing my previous comment, I tried Auto ISO on my M9 (latest firmware), using both 'lens dependent', and the other settings for min speed and max ISO.

In all cases, with aperture at f/2 and shutter at 1/60, the camera adjusted the ISO to set the exposure as I took shots of varying brightness.

Personally, I find this behavior logical, and usable - though I usually don't use Auto ISO.

One thing we agree about - the manual doesn't accurately describe the behavior of the Auto ISO feature.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I'm manually inputting the lens code, rather than using coding on the lenses.

All of these bits leads me to suspect more and more that this simluated "TAv" mode is a side effect, rather than a planned feature.

G
 
I dont understand how it works with Auto ISO (I have set max auto ISO to 3200) , I am using only manual mode and auto ISO is always on 200
 
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