Faulty M9 Returned... This is my letter to Leica

[Snapper UK]

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I am very disappointed with my M9 and am returning it because it is faulty and too unreliable to be used as a professional camera.

 

This is my second M9 and the second faulty one. The first one was clearly faulty as soon as I started to try it. There was a problem with a capacitor and the camera did not save any settings when the battery was removed. I was very happy with the way Leica dealt with the return. I received a new camera within days.

 

However, now having used this second M9 for six months, it is clear that this camera has also got a fault and has probably had it since the very beginning. This M9 is very temperamental with SD cards. Some cards which are in the Leica approved list refuse to work at all. Others sometimes work and then stop without warning. It is this that makes the camera unusable by a professional. Without warning the camera stops recognising the SD card, but will continue shooting. Without constantly checking the back display, I can not be certain the camera is actually recording my images. Last Thursday, shooting for one of my most important clients in Morocco, the camera suddenly stopped recording the images and I think I only noticed after about 20 minutes and lost between 30-40 images. This has never happened with any other digital camera I have owned or used and I am absolutely furious.

 

The hassle of not having certain SD cards work is a pain, but for the camera to suddenly stop recognising a card it had been writing to BUT to carry on shooting as if nothing had happened is unforgivable. Like all professionals I need a camera that I can rely on and have faith in. I have completely lost faith in my M9.

 

The next day, the shutter release button stuck and would not shoot a frame for 10 minutes during a key time of my reportage shoot.

 

I identified this card recognition issue with my camera very soon after I got it. I have previously taken the camera into both RG Lewis and the new London Leica store, have spoken to a technician in Milton Keynes about the problem and posted on Leica forums from way back in December.

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/108374-m9-problem-sd-cards.html#post1143534

I never really got to the bottom of the problem, not least because of the intermittent nature of it with some cards. I had hoped that the issue was firmware related and the last update would have resolved it. Obviously it didn't.

 

I have included with the camera 3 SD cards that I have had problems with.

 

I have been shooting with M series cameras (M6, MP & M8) for the last fifteen years and was always happier taking a Lieca into a hostile environment than any other camera, but now I am finding that the M9 can't even cope with the most straight forward of shoots.

 

Please can you take immediate action to sort out the problem I have with this camera. In order to preserve my trust in the Leica brand and restore faith in the M9 I expect a replacement camera.

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[leicashot]

I hear your pain and frustration. I believe the market has changed since digital and the M9 was never built specifically for professionals, much like Canon and in some ways Nikon. The professional market is smaller than the demand coming from the larger amateur market and most professionals cannot afford to invest in such equipment on top of their staple gear. The days of a trusty mechanical Leica and alike are behind us. The fact that the M9 isn't weather sealed is the first indication of this. It's electronics are the most important part and they're not properly protected and designed to be used in environments that most documentary photographers/professionals would use them in. Plus Leica was being rushed by the demand in the marketplace and losing ground to the potential of the 4/3 market and alike. Had they spent more time on R&D they may have been too late and shut down for good. They hold very high standards and the only reason these standards have drooped is due to the constant market pressure to release new products, something the brand never needed to worry about 10 years ago.

 

Therfore I believe that if a professional is to own one they need to invest in multiple bodies to ensure they're covered for these kinds of situations. Unfortunately this is the reality of professionals choosing to invest in Leica gear for work. If Leica put more effort into marketing towards processionals they wouldn't be here today. The S2 is the perfect example, yet another camera designed to wealthy doctors and lawyers with some pro spec thrown in. At least they got the weather sealing right on that camera, being easier to do cause it was created from the ground up.

 

Good luck

[chris_tribble]

Sorry you've had the problems. Which SD cards caused the problems?

 

For the record.

 

1. I've got a PhD but I'm not a medical doctor or a dentist
   
2. I have two M9s - one since 9/9 & the other since December 09.
   
3. I've never had problems writing to SD cards (I use Sandisk 4 & 8 gig models Extreme II and III)
   
4. I format cards after each shoot rather than deleting all images.
   
5. I've been working professionally with these cameras throughout this period and they've never caused a problem - operating temperatures have ranged from -10 to +30.
   

None of this denies your experience - it's a bummer and shouldn't have happened. I'm not an apologist for Leica. However, I do know that the voice of complaint is typically the loudest and the one that gets heard above the voices of those who are quietly satisfied.

 

Two thoughts.

 

• I agree with Leicashot - a working professional needs two matched bodies - if you're doing critical work you can't afford not to have this minimum insurance
  
• In general, there are lots of good arguments for using smaller SD cards. A problem doesn't have to turn into a catastrophe if you've not got too many images on one bit of silicon and plastic.
  

I hope you're happy with your next system.

[01af]

The first one was clearly faulty as soon as I started to try it. There was a problem with a capacitor and the camera did not save any settings when the battery was removed.

You are aware that this capacitor, when fully discharged, will take approx. 24 hours to recharge? So it's perfectly normal that it cannot save settings a few minutes after you started playing with a brand-new camera. Fully charge the battery, put it into the camera, and leave it there for at least 12 hours, better 24 hours. You may or may not use the camera during that period, it doesn't matter. After that, the capacitor should be able to provide the voltage required to keep the settings for several hours when the battery is removed.

 

Regarding your 2nd camera ... intermittent failure to record images on the card is absolutely intolerable. But it seems to me you're the only person experiencing this issue. So I'd say it's not a typical fault of the M9. Bad luck!

[chris_tribble]

Olaf - sensible comments. On the same lines, my sense of the forum being a bit of a desert these days probably comes from the fact that the growing number of M9 users are too busy working with their cameras to spend time on the forum. Gone are the heady days of speculation, grief and anger of the M8 epoch... Long may it be so!

[jaapv]

You have every right to complain about a product that does not meet your expectations. I would be doing the same. However, reading the responses above, adding my modest good experience, there are clearly two sides to this. Publishing a letter like that in an open forum without including any reponse by the company, not even leaving them time to respond, leaves an impression of trying to get to the company through puplic outcry.

[erl]

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Not waiting for Leicas response (I assume that is the case) before you publicly denounce them or their product seems like going off half cocked to me. Even the camera will not work if half cocked!

 

I will add my good experience to Chris Tribbles, and I know many others. My m9 has seen heavy service around the globe and at home with widely varying environments. All of this does not help your particular case, for which I have sympathy, but I would recommend putting your energy into pursuing the case directly with Leica and give them an opportunity to respond and rectify before publicly denouncing them. Persistence coupled with courtesy will produce the best response from them, I assure you.

 

Good luck for a positive outcome.

[Overgaard]

Bad idea with a public letter. It's not a common problem deserving being published all over the universe.

 

As for SD-cards, I've had one 16GB Sandisk card working flawlessly since September 9, 2009 (and having shot 50,000+ photos on the M9 with that) and then I have had two other backup 16GB Sandisk cards failing: One couldn't be read by either computer or camera when I finally needed to use it. The other can be seen by the computer but not by the camera after that I formatted it in the computer (before that it worked fine for the first batch of photos).

 

God knows what this is, I get the cards returned from Sandisk but I don't blame the camera. Works fine with other cards but I do stay alert that there is some kind of issue with new 16GB cards for whatever reason. Also tried other well-used cards that went corrupt in other cameras, but that seem to be the way it goes.

[msk2193]

Snapper, did you update the firmware?

[Snapper UK]

The first camera was definitely faulty. The capacitor had lots of time to charge, but never held it. Leica replaced the camera without query.

 

Regarding 2 matched bodies.... absolutely the way I worked with film, but doesn't feel as necessary with digital. Now I tend to work with a 5D Mkii and the M9. Perhaps if my experience with the M9 had been better I would be tempted to get a second body. The 5D is a great camera, but I do prefer the way of working with an M.

 

These are the 3 cards I sent to Leica with my camera...

Lexar Professional SDHC 8GB 133x class6- Never recognised by camera

Lexar Professional SDHC 4GB 133x class6- Intermittent recognition problems

SanDisk Extreme III SDHC 4 GB Class 6- Recognised initially then not... card that was in camera when images lost last week.

 

It says on the Leica FAQs document "In principle, all cards complying with the SD/SDHC specifcations will work". I have been using high end cards from Lexar and Sandisk and have problems with both brands and different size cards.

 

I don't think that I was particularly trying "to get to the company". As I mentioned I have owned several Leicas and Ms have been my camera of choice for 15 years. I have a great relationship with my dealer who got me my M9 within weeks of it coming being announced. Without doubt this forum is populated by Leica fanboys, (of which, despite my recent experiences, I would count myself), so while it is 'public' I thought that there might be forum users who were interested in my experience. Maybe I could have taken a bit more time to re-work my letter before posting so it was less directed at the company and more an emotionless account of my experience.

 

I wasn't really expecting this to have been a universal issue, as my postings and discussions about it since December have met with very limited recognition of my specific problem. When the camera does work as I expect I really do enjoy using it and have made some great work on it... I just wish I could be sure it would do this 100% (or at least 99.9%) of the time.

 

I will post what the response is from Leica... The camera should be in Germany tomorrow.

[Snapper UK]

As I wrote in my letter....

 

"I had hoped that the issue was firmware related and the last update would have resolved it. Obviously it didn't."

[jaapv]

Even if these are 5500 Euro cameras, parts like a capacitor are 50 cents parts, and the SD card connector slot, which may be at fault here, will not cost more than 2 Euro and will not be built to particularly tight tolerances, nor the mechanics of SD cards. It would explain the phenomen, but of course it could be anything. This digital stuff is too complicated...

[scott kirkpatrick]

I have no problem with the tone of the letter posted at the start of this thread. He has provided a very complete and unemotional description of the camera behavior that he found unacceptable (as would I), and will post Leica's reply. His SD-card problem is rare, but hardly unknown to forum readers, and it has not gone away with firmware 1.116. I have two M9s now. One has behaved flawlessly except for one corrupted frame out of about 5000 taken. The other is more suspect. Its red light flashes when the shutter button is pressed with the camera switched "off". It has refused to accept one SD card that works in the other M9, and briefly stopped seeing one other that it has since used without problems. It has hung up once, in a situation that I thought had been solved in 1.116, but not reproducibly.

 

Either the firmware needs to have certain timing guard bands set still wider to ensure that all M9s function properly all the time, or some M9s need factory tuning to get the same result. I will be interested in Leica's answer, in the hopes that it gives a clue to which case holds.

 

Snapper, did your faulty M9 flash its red light when the shutter button was pressed with the camera OFF?

 

scott

[hoppyman]

Sorry to read that you have used Leica cameras for the last fifteen years but now have recently just joined the forum to describe your troubles with your last cameras.

I hope that your camera returns quickly, working to your satisfaction and your experience can then be positive again as it apparently was for the last 14 and a half years.

Looking forward to hearing that you are satisfied once more and perhaps seeing some positive contributions.

Six months of professional use but you have now established that you had a problem with some cards I think? I guess that it was an intermittent problem perhaps?

 

I understand that Leica Camera are doing their best to turn any returned M9 (from some thousands delivered so far) as fast as possible. I hope that yours is back and 100% very soon.

Touch wood that it will work as flawlessly as those of many other folks here.

[andybarton]

On the same lines, my sense of the forum being a bit of a desert these days ...

 

Just an aside, but there is a lot more to the Leica forum than just this sub-section

[plasticman]

Sorry to read that you have used Leica cameras for the last fifteen years but now have recently just joined the forum to describe your troubles with your last cameras.

I hope that your camera returns quickly, working to your satisfaction and your experience can then be positive again as it apparently was for the last 14 and a half years.

Looking forward to hearing that you are satisfied once more and perhaps seeing some positive contributions.

Six months of professional use but you have now established that you had a problem with some cards I think? I guess that it was an intermittent problem perhaps?

 

I understand that Leica Camera are doing their best to turn any returned M9 (from some thousands delivered so far) as fast as possible. I hope that yours is back and 100% very soon.

Touch wood that it will work as flawlessly as those of many other folks here.

 

Are these sorts of veiled attacks really necessary? We're all grown-ups here, and can work out for ourselves the frequency and validity of different complaints, I believe.

 

Oh - and just as an aside - intermittent problems are really the worst kind: ask any programmer.

[ndjambrose]

Sorry to read that you have used Leica cameras for the last fifteen years but now have recently just joined the forum to describe your troubles with your last cameras...Looking forward to hearing that you are satisfied once more and perhaps seeing some positive contributions.

 

What makes me sorry is that people feel they have to post replies like this. Frankly it's unnecessary. There's no compulsion to make only 'positive contributions' to justify participation, nor to raise a legitimate concern about product quality in an online environment that is dedicated to discussing that product.

 

As an aside, I struggle to find anything very positive in the early part of the above response, as I take no pleasure in seeing someone get blamed for raising legitimate issues. Thinly veiled sarcasm isn't helpful.

 

I'll be interested to see how this thread develops, and whether there is an additional dimension to follow by means of Leica's reply. FWIW, general reliability issues like this one are what prevent me from buying into an M9, as I've had a few reliability problems with my M8, to the point where I don't trust it for commercial work.

 

But seeing the topic aired intelligently and fairly, together with appropriate technical information and responses from Leica, are exactly the ingredients that will encourage wider adoption with people like me. There's nothing to be gained from discouraging dialogue, either directly or indirectly.

 

One of the nice side effects of an 'open letter' is that it gains attention in the right quarters and has plenty of potential for good, particularly in terms of fostering stronger relationships and better understanding between supplier, customers and prospects.

[jaapv]

 

 

I'll be interested to see how this thread develops, and whether there is an additional dimension to follow by means of Leica's reply.

 

But seeing the topic aired intelligently and fairly, together with appropriate technical information and responses from Leica, are exactly the ingredients that will encourage wider adoption with people like me. There's nothing to be gained from discouraging dialogue, either directly or indirectly.

Which is exactly why I felt that the OP lacked a dimension. Now that it is clear that the response by Leica will find its place in this thread as well, the objection is removed, except for a faint remaining feeling of the thread being premature.

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[andybarton]

 

One of the nice side effects of an 'open letter' is that it gains attention in the right quarters and has plenty of potential for good, particularly in terms of fostering stronger relationships and better understanding between supplier, customers and prospects.

 

 

 

That's only true if Leica are reading this thread. So, the "right quarters" may only be other Forum Members.

 

As you know, Leica will never respond to a forum thread, and nor would I expect them to. Nor should they. Having their products discussed in such a way before they have even had a chance to receive a letter, let alone respond to it is, IMHO, highly unlikely to be conducive to "fostering stronger relationships and better understanding between supplier, customers and prospects" and potentially damaging to the response that they will be making to the writer of the letter.

[Jamie Roberts]

Snapper UK--I have had the same thing happen with my M9 and multiple Hoodman SDHC cards, and I will no longer use them (they work fine in other cameras and with other, less demanding, applications).

 

So there is obviously room for improvement on the card compatibility / file writing side with the M9 (and with the M8 too, IMO). It's scary and frustrating when stuff like this happens.

 

On the M9 itself, I've had totally reliable success with Sandisk 4GB Extreme 3 cards and with Panasonic SD HC 4GB class 10 cards, which also seem very quick as well. No problems whatsoever to date.