M9 & Possible Serious Shutter Problem?

[Guest Bernd Banken]

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Could it be a sensor for the horizontal/vertical position of the camera. Something with a tiny mercury bubble which needs too much time to send datas to the board?

[thrice]

NZ in October average range is 7 to 19 © so unless you're going up some mountains, you'd expect that to be well within operating range of any camera.

 

I will be in the mountains I'm staying in Castle Hill near Christchurch and will be in the mountains and on the glaciers daily.

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[vanhulsenbeek]

IMHO: temparature gives no worries; humidity and rain will be your primary concern!

Enjoy

Edited February 26, 2010 by andybarton

[D&A]

****** I had a typo in my previous post listing observations I and some others have meade regarding shutter hiccup, as described (in #4)

 

I originally wrote ..."Does seem to be temperature dependent"...what I meant to type is "it does not appear to be temperature as described by those reporting their observations. Thanks.

 

Dave (D&A)

[k-hawinkler]

My M9 has had the following problems:

 

• Locked up completely a few times when shooting focus tests and changing aperture from wide open to stopping all the way down, using wire release.

 

• Shutter misfired about 5 times (black images) in about zero Celsius temperatures, again using the wire release. Taking out battery didn't solve the problem. Switching camera on/off or shutter speed selector on/off A may have helped. Worked fine afterwards in the same temperature with the same battery.

 

Wondering whether use of the wire release may cause problems by slightly moving the on/off switch when the wire release is just dangling? Need better observation in the future to make more precise statements.

 

Has anybody else had similar experiences? Thanks for a reply.

 

With best regards, k-hawinkler

Edited February 6, 2010 by k-hawinkler

[neli]

hi

 

i had the same problems, but no wire release. i was coming in from about -4°C to a heated bus. I used the camera after about 30 minutes in the warm and i got the misfires.

could be condensation related.

 

best

 

cornelius

Edited February 26, 2010 by andybarton

[250swb]

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Reading through this again I wonder if the common problems are a relatively new camera in cold weather and the reported gritty feel to the shutter release that some people have reported with the M9 (theres a thread about rough shutter releases on the M8 forum)?

 

I had a black frame when the camera was only a few days old, and the shutter release wasn't smooth at all. It got in the way of locking the exposure it was so rough. But I soon put a lot of shutter actuations on the camera and the shutter release has bedded in and become very smooth, and since the early black frame I have had no more at all, not even in colder weather, or at times the buffer has been full etc. I have also used the camera many times using a cable release and perhaps this also helped bed the internal components together. It would be interesting to know if people have continued to have random black frames after the camera has been used for a while?

 

Steve

[meino]

While reading this thread. I saw a few problems mentioned that I have also experienced, a long delay or hesitation before the M9 takes a picture and the occasional black images.

For my own situation I know what caused these problems and it has nothing to do with a failing M9.

A little background, until the M9, I used an M6, so I am not used to a camera with an on/off switch. Further to save the batteries, I have set the M9 to auto shutoff after 1 minute.

Because I am used to the M6, I often forget to check if the camera is on before taking a picture. So often the camera is shutdown and whenI try to make a picture, it hesitates because it has to startup first, and after it is awake, the shutter fires.

The black frames are related to my use of the M6, because that lacks a on/off switch, I forget almost always to switch the camera off when I put it in my bag (A billingham small hadley), This bag has a tight fit, so I discovered a time ago that sometimes when I put the camera back in the bag, the shutter fires inside the bag creating a black image.

[dwind]

I shot an indoor ice hockey game from the bench the other day with an m9 and 35 cron.

The first period and a half the shots were very good, the white balance was right on - I was using auto - the I'd get maybe 9 or 10 good ones and a yellow one stuck in. After a bit the yellow ones became more prevalent and by the end of the game every picture was yellow. They were all easily correctable. When the camera warmed up white balance was back t normal. I had no shutter problems at all.

Dennis

[Stevez4]

My M9 delivered Dec. 2009 is now at Solms for shutter among other issues. It had been twice in NJ.

[SJP]

I shot an indoor ice hockey game from the bench the other day with an m9 and 35 cron.

The first period and a half the shots were very good, the white balance was right on - I was using auto - the I'd get maybe 9 or 10 good ones and a yellow one stuck in. After a bit the yellow ones became more prevalent and by the end of the game every picture was yellow. They were all easily correctable. When the camera warmed up white balance was back t normal. I had no shutter problems at all.

Dennis

Curious, so you are suggesting it was the cold? Could it be due to condensation on the sensor? If you check the EXIF data you can extract the temperature of the camera at the time of the shot.

 

Possibly the RGB sensitivity of the sensor changes slightly with temperature. OTOH there are plenty of well WBed shots taken at very low temperatures.

[sanyasi]

I am new to Leica Rangefinders. I have found that putting a new lens in place is a little tricky in terms of getting the click. Sometimes, I think the lens is properly in place, but the info doesn't show the type of lens despite six-bit coding. The camera still takes the photo. I take the lens out and reinstall it, hear the click, and then the six-bit coding is detected. Bottom line: You might try reinstalling the lens to make sure it is locked and properly in place.

 

Jack Siegel

[jaapv]

Curious, so you are suggesting it was the cold? Could it be due to condensation on the sensor? If you check the EXIF data you can extract the temperature of the camera at the time of the shot.

 

Possibly the RGB sensitivity of the sensor changes slightly with temperature. OTOH there are plenty of well WBed shots taken at very low temperatures.

There is another explanation. I'm sure the lighting was some kind of sodium or whatever - and the lamps heat up and change color temperature over a period of time - discontinously.

[250swb]

If you check the EXIF data you can extract the temperature of the camera at the time of the shot.

 

.

 

Can I ask which EXIF viewer are you using to do that??

 

Steve

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped}

It may just be the cameras processing portion is getting confused as its processing large # of shots and sort of instructing the camera to "wait" or not accept additonal files added by firing more...but then after thinking or doing something (the cameras processor)..it goes ahead and lets the shutter fire! As to whether the frame is usable or a black one may depend on a number of factors. Likewise the phenominon may just be mechanical in nature....or thirdly something else..which maybe just be an inherient gremlin that may or may not be necessary to be looked at by Leica. For now, its just about being aware that its there and doesn't seem to change or get worse, I suppose.

 

I think you've got it, at least, based on my M8's performance and on the long write times of the M9.

 

I think there's a weird race condition or something similar when the Ms process larger amounts of RAW data. In some ways, this has been optimized on the M8; it writes a RAW file apparently much more speedily to a card than the M9 currently (though I have no doubt Leica are working on a fix). But there are still "blank frame issues"

 

On the M8, this has nothing to do with the shutter as far as I can tell. But every now and then, set on Single shot, when shooting fairly quickly (nothing like machine gunning, but certainly filling the buffer, which isn't hard to do on an M8!) my M8 will produce a blank frame and lock up: the write LED will continue and I have to remove the battery to get it to continue working. This doesn't appear to be card or battery power related either.

 

It wouldn't surprise me at all if these two issues on the M8 and M9 are related and both in firmware. Hopefully, Leica knows about this and will fix both reliability when approaching buffer maximum and write speed in the next M8/M9 sets of firmware.

[dwind]

There is another explanation. I'm sure the lighting was some kind of sodium or whatever - and the lamps heat up and change color temperature over a period of time - discontinously.

 

I'd shot the previous 2 days with nikons and the WB even though off was consistent.

But, I did kind of discover the problem. I was using a 35mm cron that I'd coded with a magic marker. The pictures that went bad all showed unknown lens. The good ones had 35mm f2.

[mhoersch]

So often the camera is shutdown and whenI try to make a picture, it hesitates because it has to startup first, and after it is awake, the shutter fires.

 

Yes, the M9 is probably the only digital camera in the universe which has no LCD display or LED that shows whether the camera is on or off. That's one of the many reasons why I'm not going to buy one.

[AlanJW]

Yes, the M9 is probably the only digital camera in the universe which has no LCD display or LED that shows whether the camera is on or off. That's one of the many reasons why I'm not going to buy one.

 

Your choice of course, but it is not so hard to see that the switch is in the "on" position. Some cameras have a pushbutton for on off, others a spring loaded lever, where you cannot otherwise tell if it is on or off. They need a visual reminder. I though I would miss the round window on the M8 that was omitted from the M9. After 3 months now, I don't

 

In any event, my main criteria for cameras is what kind of images they can produce.

[jaapv]

Startup time is 0.7 secs too - slightly quicker than it takes to focus (for which the camera needs not to be switched on). I"ve just been reading a review of the Canon 1.2L. That one takes up to a second to autofocus. Rather puts this kind of "problems" into perspective imo.

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[Stanleytam]

Nearly nothing. But it is the other way around. If the camera is cold and then you bring it into a warm moist environment it will then collect condensation.

 

As to the shutter problem I'd say it is the buffer getting full and the camera has to wait for it to clear for another image to be taken.

 

I do not believe it is the temperature issue.

 

My M9 just failed last night at home while I was changing from soft shutter release to Discrete mode so that I can freeze the exposure reading by slightly pressing the shutter release for composing. It works for a few shoots and suddenly, I got a message on the screen says "Shutter Fault" and the camera stopped working. I have tried removing the battery and reinstalling the current firmware etc. Nothing works. We have a 14 days cruise vacation coming up in 1 1/2 weeks and now no M9 for the trip. I contacted Leica USA this morning and they suggested me to send back for repair which I am going to do it to-day. I do not think it will be back in time for our vacation.

 

Any one has this same problem? I believe it is the software (when switching between different shutter release mode) problem. Need to have a new update to fix this problem. I heard M8.2 had the same shutter fault problem before and it was fixed with a new firmware (2.xxxx) a year ago.