Leica has published a firmware update for its SL3 mirrorless camera that adds the ability to record in Cinema 4K and Cinema 6K in ProRes 422 HQ internally to a CFexpress card.
ProRes 422 HQ recordings in both Cinema 6K and 4K — which are also both new video aspect ratio options in the SL3 — use the full width of the sensor and triples the output resolution of ProRes workflows with the camera compared to launch, as it was only released with support for ProRes in 1080p Full HD.
“To shoot 4K and 8K video, a heavy 1.3x crop factor is applied, and rolling shutter is rampant due to a relatively slow-scanning sensor. Full HD 1080p is the only record mode where the whole width of the sensor is being used and it is also the only mode where ProRes recording is enabled,” Jordan Drake mentioned as part of PetaPixel‘s review of the camera last year.
That changes today, however, and the high-resolution SL3 is now a significantly more useful camera for video.
While that is the only new feature, Leica improved a host of others.
Access to the function “Headphone Volume” is now additionally available via the menu Audio in the Video section, and via the FN button. The function “Magnification” can now be activated and deactivated by pressing the joystick. When making changes to the icon assignments in the Control Center, the function assignment list will open with the currently assigned option presented in the list as the starting position.
The former menus “Film Style” and “Video Style” (accessible via “JPG Settings”) were integrated into the Leica Looks menu, and their menu items will now be accessible via the Main Menu.
Additionally, the electronic shutter speed 1/16,000 second has been made available for P/A mode, and the function AF-ON can now be combined with the functions Eye/Face/Body Detection and Animal Detection.
Leica also smoothed out the firmware update process. Following a firmware update, all previous settings will remain unchanged, and the dialogue “Do you want to save profiles on SD card?” will no longer be displayed. Finally, firmware can now be updated without a fully charged battery; Leica says around 25% will now suffice.
There are also two bug fixes: an icon with an asterisk will be displayed alongside the User Profiles icon in the Control Center and the sidebar, if settings were modified after profile activation, and in case of a joystick assignment, the function AF-ON will now be saved to the user profile.
Leica’s firmware update version 3.1.1 is free to download and is available now.
