Hacking the M8

I have not handled an M8. Can someone who knows tell me how firmware updates

are made with that camera?

 

Are they downloaded then loaded to the camera via a cable? Is it a proprietary

cable, or a common digital plug?

 

If I can plug into the device, I can imagine some very interesting hacks to be

explored.

 

Oh my, I hadn't considered: Does the M8 come with a ULA? :(

I imagine it would be like other digicams.

 

anyway, I want to be photographer, not computer hacker.

 

cheers,

<i>anyway, I want to be photographer, not computer hacker. </i><p>

Well, I spend half my waking hours on computers for a living.<p>

But updating firmware is no more difficult than opening your web browser, which you obviously do regularly.

Well, it has a USB plug. Presumably firmware is either updated via a direct USB connection, or by putting the update on a media card and loading it (like Nikon does).

It's just as well Leica took their time in developing the M8 and didn't rush it into production rather than making sure it was fully up to Leica standards before they released it. Just think of all the fun you'd have had if they'd done that...

 

Maybe they should sell it as a kit of parts with a firmware prototying board so you could do it all yourself?

<i>Maybe they should sell it as a kit of parts with a firmware prototying board so you could do it all yourself?</i><p>

I'm going to bet that you are an Olde Pharte like me. We don't do prototyping boards anymore. They would be huge in comparison to the unsophisticated boards we used to put together. When I say huge, I mean as big as a wall.<p>

But I mean if Leica wants to give us the code, I'd be very happy to look under the hood. :)

The update is a bag of filters. Contraty to a time when you didn\'t filter a Leitz lens there is now a recommended stack of screw-ons.

Isn't the answer for Leica to redesign the sensor cover, recall all the M8s delivered, and replace the sensor cover free of charge? To me, that's the only way to salvage the situation, which has the stink of corporate death all over it.

<i>anyway, I want to be photographer, not computer hacker.</i><p>

 

When I started in photography, I wanted to photograph, not be a chemist. I hated chemistry and later (I started in the darkroom around 12 or 13), I barely got through high school and then college because I hated chemistry. But I found that if I wanted to be a good photographer, I had to be a chemist, and I learned to be a good chemist, at least in the pactical sense.<p

 

Learning the computer to do photography is exactly the same thing, it's learning the essential skills to being a photographer. It doesn't matter if you like it or loathe it, as we go forward it is necessary to be a good photographer. Otherwise, you're just a picture taker, unless you're an incredible chemist.

Frederick,

 

While that is the right thing to do it probably would make Leica go under. When Sony put 10 million potentially defective sensors on the market, the companies they sold them to engaged in a "silent recall" performing courtesy repairs when requested. Even those courtesy repairs have resulted in huge costs, even though Leica's volume is greatly reduced, I'd venture a guess that they wouldn't be able to absorb the cost. This whole thing is potentially disastorous, however they handle it.

Pico: The firmware is upgraded by downloading a file from Leica's server to your computer,

copying it to a fully blank SD card, and putting the SD card in the camera. When the camera is

turned on, it can recognize by its initial check of the SD card (the one all cameras do to see

how much space is available) that there is an upgrade on it, and takes it from there.

 

The camera also has a USB connection for a) downloading pictures without a card reader, or

b) shooting "tethered", with the camera's pictures being fed directly to a computer as they are

taken (as in a studio setting). There is some kind of proprietary software for tethered capture,

but I don't know about the cord - the camera has a standard "mini" USB connection.