D-Lux 5 blank pictures

[MalcolmJ]

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Hi, I wonder if some one could help.? When I look at the shot in playback on the camera it looks ok. When I try to zoom in on it, it goes black. When I've imported the (jpgs) into Aperture, there's no image at all, just a grey panel with a tiny strip of image down one side.

So out of my first 140 shots, 21 are like this. Has any body had any similar problems?

Thanks.

Malcolm:mad:

[daveleo]

what mode are you shooting in?

are you in a burst mode?

are you auto-bracketing?

 

do the 21 bad photos actually display well on your camera LCD ?

[Shootist]

Try a different SD card.

[MalcolmJ]

Hi, some in aperture priority, and auto, as jpg's. Nothing fancy. They look fine on the cameras' screen. Should one leave a sutible gap befor taking another picture. It's almost as though it's not had time to process it.

Malcolm

[ho_co]

Malcolm, welcome to the forum. Sorry you arrive with a problem.

 

 

You shouldn't be getting blank pictures. The camera should simply refuse to shoot if you're trying to shoot when it's not ready.

 

It may be your SD card. Could be defective, could be too slow for what you're trying to do. Try another card.

 

"A gray panel with a tiny strip of image" is extremely peculiar. Could you post a sample?

 

Are you shooting in burst mode? In low light?

 

Are these blanks all together? Are they spread out among good images? When you put the card back into the camera after transferring the files to your computer, does the same thing happen?

 

You might try shooting some in RWL+JPG, just to see whether that makes a difference. (Don't worry about "learning RAW," if that bothers you; we just want to see whether you get RAWs but not JPGs, or whether both show the same problems.)

 

What you're describing should not be happening. A replacement, relatively fast SDHC card should solve the problem. If it doesn't, we need to know more about what you're doing and what you're getting to form an opinion.

 

If it's not the card, it's probably not you but the camera. But remember, that's just an early guess.

[MalcolmJ]

Thanks Howard, it's reassuring that it's probably not the camera. In answer to your queries. I'm not shooting in burst mode or low light. They seem to be spread out through my shooting. I can't see link between them, it seems random. I'll try shooting RAW.

Thanks for your help.

Regards

Malcolm Jackson

 

I've attached a picture, hopefully.

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[MalcolmJ]

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Update: Took it back to the shop. They tried several cards, same thing, random blank files. Camera on its way bak to Germany! Could be gone for 4 weeks. Miffed as wanted to take it on an impending trip, ironically to Berlin! Thanks for feed back. Will post outcome.

Malcolm:mad:

[ho_co]

Malcolm, that's crazy, and it's exactly what you said.

 

There's a strip of image on the top left about two pixels wide, and then below that about 8 rows of some really weird random pixels, but all neutral gray or with some other dark admixture of color. The strip only covers a part of the frame, not the full width. And then it goes to a perfect neutral gray, 127,127,127.

 

It makes no sense. I'm the stupid one on this forum, but I think this has to be in the camera processing.

 

If the sensor weren't getting light, that area would be black; but somehow, the camera is assigning equal values to the R,G and B pixels.

 

I'd still say try another card, because it's just conceivable that might be the problem.

 

And then send an email to Leica, and attach this file. Or maybe just send the camera in with this file and be done with it.

 

To me, this is peculiar as the dickens; probably someone who understands how the camera works can make better sense of it than I.

 

 

 

 

BTW, the exif shows what version of Photoshop you processed the picture with. I don't think there's any way to use the camera's RAW with what you have. (My first Photoshop was earlier yet, Version 6; they've come a long way since then.)

 

 

Whatever happens, do keep us posted!

[Shootist]

Update: Took it back to the shop. They tried several cards, same thing, random blank files. Camera on its way bak to Germany! Could be gone for 4 weeks. Miffed as wanted to take it on an impending trip, ironically to Berlin! Thanks for feed back. Will post outcome.

Malcolm:mad:

 

How long did you have this camera? If it was a short time, days, for the dealer to send it back to Germany for 4 weeks and for you to let them is just ridiculous. The camera should of been replaced or refund given.

 

But then if it is a few months old I guess that is the only option.

 

Good luck.

[ho_co]

Malcolm, my post above seems oblivious to the rest of the thread. My apologies. Your most recent "took it back to the shop" post sneaked in while I was writing, and I didn't notice it till just now.

 

 

I'm glad you've got it sorted, though I'm sorry it means missing the camera.

[sfmullens]

Hmm, seems like a similar problem I had with Aperture. Correct me if I'm wrong but if the image shows on the camera screen isn't the data on the card?

I had images show up as a grey screen when importing into Aperture from a compact flash card. It was random and I usually had to quit the application and restart it. I recall the problem went away with a software update. If memory serves, it was with a late build of version 1. You could take your card and insert it into another reading device. I needed to get some photos sent off so I imported them into Canon's raw processor using the card reader on my Epson printer.

It's a moot point now, as I see you sent the camera back but maybe this might serve for future reference.

 

Steve

[pop]

My best guess is that the camera has issues writing to the card. There might be an intermittent timing problem or a handshake problem between card and camera. It might be a coincidence but the sample image provided is just a bit less in size than 64kB. For IT people that's an indicator for a range of technical problems.

 

It's not a very good guess, I'm afraid. If card writing issues was the whole story, I don't see how Photoshop could read the defective file at all. It ought to be in an internally inconsistent state and no self-respecting software is supposed to just ignore inconsistencies in a data file. It should refuse to process the file.

 

From the example uploaded here it's not really possible to learn more about the problem, I think. The file has been processed and presumably heavily altered by photoshop. The "smeared" bits in rows 2 ff most probably would turn out to be jpg artifacts introduced by PS. I hasten to add that I myself could not analyze the problem better if I was in possession of the original files directly off the card. I lack the proper tools.

 

That the camera shows the first review after taking the shot seems to indicate that the camera does capture the image correctly and that the problem lies somewhere in later steps of the processing chain. That's not a very useful bit of information for us users, I'm afraid.

 

Replacing or repairing the camera seems to be called for.

[wda]

Hi, I wonder if some one could help.? When I look at the shot in playback on the camera it looks ok. When I try to zoom in on it, it goes black. When I've imported the (jpgs) into Aperture, there's no image at all, just a grey panel with a tiny strip of image down one side.

So out of my first 140 shots, 21 are like this. Has any body had any similar problems?

Thanks.

Malcolm:mad:

Malcolm, are there any clues in the Metadata? Relative file sizes between good and bad images?

Camera exposure details recorded?

[MalcolmJ]

Hi everybody thanks for all your feedback.

The good news is, I had a call from the shop and they are replacing the camera! Hooray.

 

Academic now I know, but I did copy over the files by other means apart from Aperture and had the same problem. The image I posted was obviously resized to upload. The orininal files were of reasonable sizes ie 4.5meg etc.

Trying to open files in photoshop showed thumbnail in browser then gave me “unknown or invalid JPEG marker”. Metadata info was present.

Anyway sorted now. Thanks again for time.

 

Look forward to getting back to making pictures.

[MalcolmJ]

Arrrrge! New replacement D-Lux 5, wait for it, same problem! 2 out of 48 pictures the black screen of death. Really fed up now, going back to get my money back. I'll go back to my trusted IIIf and film, give this digital lark a miss I think!

[Shootist]

Arrrrge! New replacement D-Lux 5, wait for it, same problem! 2 out of 48 pictures the black screen of death. Really fed up now, going back to get my money back. I'll go back to my trusted IIIf and film, give this digital lark a miss I think!

 

Are you sure you aren't pushing the shutter button to quickly and not allowing the camera to set the shutter speed and aperture for proper exposure?

 

There are thousands and thousands of these cameras, LX5/DL5, out there and your report of this problem is the first one I've heard. And you got 2 that are doing the same thing.

 

Please buy a new SD card and take a series of shots making sure you push the shutter button half way for a split second before pushing it all the way to take a shot. See if you still get black frames.

 

EDIT

Just tried pushing the shutter button very quickly on my LX5 and couldn't get it to do this. The camera would actually wait for it to focus and get correct exposure before taking the image. So that isn't it. But I suspect that if you are using the same SD card it is the SD card that is bad.

 

Any way good luck.

[ho_co]

Wow, that's remarkable!

 

Two cameras with the same defect, and that defect a very rare one. Very upsetting. I don't blame you for being angry.

 

The only thing I'd say, Malcolm, is that this digital thing is winning. But maybe the gods are reminding you that someone has to support film, and you're the Chosen One.

 

 

Still, it's a rare and strange problem.

 

Thanks for the report back, and good luck to you!

[Heidi S]

Malcolm,

I am so sorry to hear of your problems with the D-lux 5. I don't have any answers for you. I had the D-lux 4 and now the D-lux 5 and I love it. Mine works flawlessly. I use Sandisk SD cards.

 

I also have Nikon digital cameras and one time I forgot to format the card after taking it out of the Nikon and putting it in the Leica. The image didn't write to the card full size and if my old brain remembers right, I had a couple of shots come out like you are showing. Every time I put a card in a digital camera now, I format it. I just thought I'd throw this out there as a possible solution.

 

I do hope you can figure the problem out before hanging up the D-lux 5 and digital. It is a fun camera and would make a great compliment to your film shooting.