Being an engineer, I always have suggestions for improvement when I first encounter a camera. Here are some that don’t change the basic gestalt of the M240.
UI changes requiring new hardware
ISO, exposure compensation, etc. buttons on the left top of the camera. There’s plenty of room. Combine with B&W reflective-mode LCD display a la Nikon, Canon. Use existing thumbwheel to change.
Show only the finder frame lines appropriate for the attached lens. Move the finder lines to compensate for parallax using the information from the rangefinder cam.
Support the Olympus VF4 EVF. I hope this can be done with firmware, but I’m putting it here because I don’t know that’s true.
Press to the focus magnification button to engage central area magnification in the built in optical finder if the EVF is not active. Press the shutter release lightly to disengage magnifier.
Variable diopter view/rangefinder correction. The screw-in add-ons are Mickey Mouse.
Faster startup.
Faster EVF refresh and/or lower latency
Move the displayed area in magnified live view
Continuously variable focus peaking threshold
Shorter EVF black out after shot
Firmware mods
I think these could be done without changing any of the hardware. They are mostly aimed at minimizing the use of the display on the back of the camera, and making it faster and easier to use in bright light.
Option to disable the video button
Turning off the camera disables long-exposure noise reduction. A little background might be necessary to see why this is an improvement. Image that you’re sitting around with the camera on a table and you see something happening that demands to be photographed. You pick up the camera which is in aperture preferred mode, frame the shot in the auxiliary optical finder, and trip the shutter. You hear it open, but it doesn’t close. You immediately know why; you forgot to remove the lens cap. You rip it off, and shut down the camera to close the shutter. When you turn it back on again, it won’t let you take a picture until it does a dark exposure every bit as long as the first one. By the time it will let you take a picture again, the moment is over.
If you turn the camera on while the buffer is still partially full, allow images to be added to the buffer.
Option to reprogram the video button to ISO, exposure compensation, etc. Make it modal until the shutter release is pressed to disable it; don’t make the user hold down the button. Alternately (or in addition, since it’s just a user choice), allow the C and Self-timer positions of the off/on switch to be ISO and exposure compensation.
When changing ISO, have the setting appear in the red LED display in the finder.
When you first turn on the camera, the ISO setting appears in the red display in the finder (it works that way already). When the camera’s in that mode, allow the user to update the ISO setting with the thumbwheel, and show the updated value.
When changing exposure compensation, have the setting appear in the red LED display in the finder.
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