Is this a shutter fault? Not like the others.

[Gotham Historian]

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I was playing around with my M8 and used the C mode and took a series of 4 shots, then the camera stopped working. When I turn it off and then back on, the little red light on the bottom R hand of the LCD blinks and the screen does not turn on and the camera does not fire.

 

I did the battery out and back in after several minutes but no success. The camera is now on with the battery out for the night to see if it will reset by the morning but I'm not hopeful.

 

Is this the shutter fault? My LCD is off the whole time so other than that flashing red light, I'm getting no fault message.

[jsrockit]

Charge your battery before putting it back in the camera and it should be ok.

[ho_co]

GH--

This is an M8, not upgraded?

 

Try a fully charged battery.

 

Look at the shutter to see if it's wound (white stripe visible).

 

Here I'm getting on thin ice: I believe that in Mark Norton's anatomy of and subsequent comments on the M8, he says there's a kind of lever which is moved over when the shutter is fully wound. That's the signal to the camera that says, 'turn off the motor, it's cocked.'

 

I seem to recall that there was a camera where the motor kept trying to wind on, even though the shutter was already cocked. In that case, of course, all other function of the camera is blocked.

 

Only guessing, but that might be the case here if a fully charged battery doesn't solve the problem. That would mean back to Leica.

 

 

Reason I asked about upgraded M8 (and M8.2): You're probably aware that there's a hiccup in the present firmware such that 'discreet' and 'continuous' don't mix well. That's expected to be taken care of in a future firmware update.

 

 

Good luck. And keep us posted.

[Gotham Historian]

It's morning and I kept my M8 (with original M8 shutter and 2.004 firmware) on all night with the battery out and it's still not working.

 

The white stripe is visible when looking at the shutter. Looks like the shutter is wide open.

 

I'm charging my battery and will pop it back in when it's fully charged to see if it works. The local Leica dealer opens in three hours. If this doesn't work, then I'm afraid I'll have to get it serviced! Thanks for the input.

[Gotham Historian]

I should mention that I loaded 2.004 onto my M8 recently and was playing with the discreet function and to my delight it worked. Then I switched my M8 back to "standard", and then I played with the "C" function, then the camera froze.

 

But unlike other L members, my LCD screen does not turn on (It is working because when I turn on my camera without the bottom plate, the LCD lights up and tells me that there's no bottom plate). I can't access my menu because the LCD screen does not turn on and I cannot check if I indeed switched out of Discreet mode back to Standard.

 

I also tapped my camera vertically on my palm after reading the thread on the locked lever with pictures from the Anatomy of an M8 thread. Unfortunately, no success.

[wstotler]

I was playing around with my M8 and used the C mode and took a series of 4 shots, then the camera stopped working. When I turn it off and then back on, the little red light on the bottom R hand of the LCD blinks and the screen does not turn on and the camera does not fire.

 

This has happened to me.

 

Regardless of the other things going on, the M8 is reporting to you that the battery doesn't have enough juice.

 

This may or may not be true.

 

The M8 reads whether the battery is charged or not from the battery's chip. When the chip gets out of sync with the camera it causes these conditions. "C" mode really brings that problem to the fore (don't know why, just does). (Do a search on " battery overnight " in the forum and just zip through results to read more about this issue in many threads. Mostly from 2007/2008. Low batteries causing conditions like this caused a fair amount of FUD and worry for a lot of people. Once they figured out it was the battery, like I did, and picked up a spare, they could reset the first battery, like I did, and went on with business.)

 

You should try a new, fully charged Leica battery before doing anything else. In my experience this will solve the problem. If it does, you're gold. If not, it's off to service.

 

Thanks,

Will

[farnz]

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I think it's the 'classic' Discreet Mode and Continuous problem where the camera (understandably) gets confused because you're pressing the shutter release and simultaneously telling it to hold the shutter open for Discreet Mode but keep firing the shutter for Continuous shooting. Heck I'd be confused too. Leica has confirmed that this status will be controlled through an imminent firmware upgrade.

 

I've foolishly allowed this to happen with my M8 but removing and replacing the battery cleared it for me although I always keep well-charged batteries in my M8 owing to the processor firmware bug so your problem may be exacerbated by low battery.

 

You should be able to see the white stripe with the shutter closed because that's what the camera meters from.

 

Pete

[Gotham Historian]

 

 

The M8 reads whether the battery is charged or not from the battery's chip. When the chip gets out of sync with the camera it causes these conditions. "C" mode really brings that problem to the fore (don't know why, just does). (Do a search on " battery overnight " in the forum and just zip through results to read more about this issue in many threads. Mostly from 2007/2008. Low batteries causing conditions like this caused a fair amount of FUD and worry for a lot of people. Once they figured out it was the battery, like I did, and picked up a spare, they could reset the first battery, like I did, and went on with business.)

 

You should try a new, fully charged Leica battery before doing anything else. In my experience this will solve the problem. If it does, you're gold. If not, it's off to service.

 

I fully charged a new battery (purchased two weeks ago) and popped it in and it didn't work. I sat down, ate my lunch and was getting my pack together to take my M8 to the local dealer. Right before heading out the door, I turned on the camera, the red light continued to blink...I hit the trigger and off went a shot! Then I took my cap off and took some more shots! It worked! Thanks for the info Will!

 

This is not a shutter problem, it's a problem with the battery level gauge (which had two bars) when I took my shots and drained the battery completely. Definitely would recommend always keeping a fully charged battery next to the M8 when you're taking important photos! Thanks to the forum members and especially Will for the great help!

 

Mike

[wstotler]

This is not a shutter problem, it's a problem with the battery level gauge (which had two bars) when I took my shots and drained the battery completely. Definitely would recommend always keeping a fully charged battery next to the M8 when you're taking important photos! Thanks to the forum members and especially Will for the great help!

 

 

No problem, Mike. Glad it worked for you, saving you a trip and expense.

 

You should probably take the time now to do the procedure where you put the battery in and "recalibrate" the chip so that when it's charged, the M8 knows that it's charged.

 

(1) Set this: Menu --> Auto Power Off --> Off

(2) Press "play" so an image is displayed on the LCD.

(3) Leave the camera on overnight to completely drain the battery.

(4) Recharge the battery fully before use.

 

When I had the problem in late 2007 I did this for all of my batteries. Haven't had to do it since.

 

Cheers,

Will

[trs]

Just to add to Will's list above, even after doing all that, you still want an extra battery. M8 tends to be in situation where two sticks of battery goes out in one to two shots, thus leaving you in situation described above. You would think something else is wrong, but it is really battery.