Test days with the Leica
Between lines of code and AI architecture
There’s been considerably less photography lately, but all the more building of plugins and themes for my WordPress site.
It’s easy to get swept up in the AI world, and honestly Claude is a little too much fun to play with.
In that collaboration I’m the architect; I spell out exactly how and what I want, and then Claude builds to my instructions.
But of course it takes a fair bit of back-and-forth before you’re completely happy, because I’m constantly finding something new I want to add or remove along the way.
Leica Camera News
Mari Amman is an American-Italian contemporary artist who works across disciplines — photography, installations, video, poetry, painting, sculpture, textiles and design.
She describes her own work as research-based and uses concepts such as Geological Empathy and Sublime Rheology to explore the relationship between humans, nature, technology and the built environment.
Young, Inspiring and International: LOBA Emerging Talent
The German photographer Serghei Duve also won the 2025 Newcomer award with the photo series “Bright Memory”.
In the project he explores his family’s connection to Transnistria.
📷 LEICA M11-P · Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. · f/4 · 1/750s · ISO 64 · 50mm · 2026-06-19
Test days with the Leica
The patience test with Wetzlar
When it comes to the Leica, I went into this with fairly high hopes that it would all sort itself out easily enough.
Right now I have a direct line to Leica in Wetzlar to get the problems sorted.
My strategy going forward is to try to bite my tongue, stay friendly throughout and nicely do exactly as support tells me.
We’ll see how long I manage to behave — it’s not exactly my usual signature. 😂
📷 LEICA M11-P · Summilux-M 1:1.4/50 ASPH. · f/2.8 · 1/2000s · ISO 64 · 50mm · 2026-06-19
Overpriced beta testers
Overpriced beta testers
At the same time, plenty of theories are circulating online — among them that Leica’s memory controller simply can’t keep up.
You also stumble across advice that the very first thing you should absolutely not do is format the SD card in the camera.
Some users have described carefully setting up their profiles for street photography – with auto-ISO, a specific metering mode and the screen switched off – only to discover the next day that the profile icon is flashing red while the camera has reverted to factory settings.
As Macfilos so aptly summed it up: “We pay to be beta testers” 🙈.
I’ve even run into a freeze myself when using nothing but the internal memory.
For those who want to dig deeper
For those who want to dig deeper
If anyone fancies searching further on their own to see how widespread this actually is, here are some good search phrases to start from:
01 › “Leica M11 freezing/lock-up” site:l-camera-forum.com
02 › “firmware update tackles the freezing problem” site:macfilos.com
03 › “Leica M11 user profiles reset to factory settings” forum
04 › “M11 SD card compatibility” site:l-camera-forum.com
05 › Leica M11 firmware 2.2.1 startup shutdown freeze
06 › Leica M11 firmware 2.6.0 lens detection six-bit
A Bulletin plugin – the latest from my workshop.
See the moment in the Bulletin →
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