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Updated MM firmware; now have banding in every picture


skinnfell

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After I updated the firmware on my Monochrom, i now have the dreaded shadow banding in EVERY picture! Before, i never saw it in any of the rougly 5000 pictures i made with it. I use it professionally so this pretty much renders it useless for me.. Otherwise, discrete mode persists. I am using it for a book project and had looked forward to shooting lots this summer.

 

Anybody know how to roll back firmware?!

 

Help!

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After I updated the firmware on my Monochrom, i now have the dreaded shadow banding in EVERY picture! Before, i never saw it in any of the rougly 5000 pictures i made with it. I use it professionally so this pretty much renders it useless for me.. Otherwise, discrete mode persists. I am using it for a book project and had looked forward to shooting lots this summer.

 

Anybody know how to roll back firmware?!

 

Help!

Contact Leica CS Monday.
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This is just the kind of nightmare that made me hold back from immediately doing the firmware upgrade.

 

It would be useful if Leica could upload the original version of the firmware to their website so that users can revert to it if they experience any problems with the latest firmware.

 

Nick

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See sample below: my standard LR settings but brightwned two stops. Severe banding in the window beam and other shadow areas.

 

I have two identical 16Gb Extreme Pro 35mbs cards.

 

On jaap's suggestion i have made some tests, and it does indeed seem to be true that the banding only occurs on one of the cards( out of the fifty or so exposure i have done to test). However, they were both safe prior to the update.

 

So this raises several new questions:

- why does this happen?

- which garantee do I have that the MM will not take up a dislike to my remaining safe card?

- why does leica not advise about which cards can be used or not, or rather : supply safe and testes cards with the purchase of the camera?

 

In the meantime I will be doing my project with my trusty 5D3 and 40/2.8 (great lens).

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I have several cards, including the newest 32gb ones, but upon recommendations from this very forum, I stuck with the mentioned cards because I thought they were the least likely to develop this problem. However, both these cards work perfectly in my canons...

 

 

As I said, if the choice of cards is life or death for oue pictures, then Leica must issue a statement as soon as possible on what to do or not do with memory cards.

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This is really not a new issue. Some M9s have it.

The best course of action is to find out what works for your camera.

Then stick with that.

Only if you can't make it work reliably and dependably, then Leica is your last resort.

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Agreed ...... several threads with this over the years ...... often with card specific variation.

 

I recall somewhere someone mentioning that write times seemed to have changed with the new firmware ..... and it seems logical that the solution to the shutter problem lay with altering the writing process as the 'bug' seemed to be provoked by trying to write multiple large files (note that M file are 36mb) ......

 

There is card to card variation even amongst the same type within brand, and that probably explains why some cause trouble and others not. Manufacturers often make cards and then grade and label them dependent on actual performance.

 

I can't explain why a purely digital writing to memory process can generate banding though ..... that's one part of this phenomenon that no-one has yet to adequately explain ..... if it was analogue then multiple other factors could account for it ....:confused:

 

Anyway....... I never use the problematic shutter setting, so I won't be upgrading to swap one problem for another .....

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I can't explain why a purely digital writing to memory process can generate banding though ..... that's one part of this phenomenon that no-one has yet to adequately explain ..

 

It does seem bizarre but I think the consensus is that the banding is only indirectly caused by the card (the problem presumably related to the power being drawn) and that it occurs upstream of the card writing process. In other words, the banding cannot be created during the "digital writing to memory process" but must occur before the digital data is even placed in the camera buffer, presumably during the analogue to digital conversion.

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UPDATE:

 

I have examined all of the pictures I have shot since updating the firmware, and it seems that EVERY picture AFTER the first picture in a series of shots have progressively more banding.

 

Might C mode be the culprit??

 

And does this mean that the discrete mode bug is actually our friend?

 

Either way, I still think it is bizarre that neither of this happened on either card before I updated. As a curiosity, the card that is causing issues is the same one I used to update the software.

 

Tomorrow when I get to the office I will try one of my 95mbs cards and see if the issue persists. If not, it goes to leica.

 

Scott997: problem occurs at at every ISO I have tried, but only on pictures shot when another picture is being written.

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I can't explain why a purely digital writing to memory process can generate banding though ..... that's one part of this phenomenon that no-one has yet to adequately explain ..... if it was analogue then multiple other factors could account for it ....:confused:

.....

 

In a real sense this "digital" information exists only in an analog form. Physical transfer of the data to and from the card is done with alternating voltage and/or current, which is also analog. So, the concept is digital, but the reality is analog (or a hybrid depending on definitions).

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