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Help - My M8 has died


ronaldh

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I was out taking photos with my M8 (latest firmware) this afternoon. Shot about 20 raw images which I was able to review on playback. Then the camera died. No sign of life at all other than the red led stays on as long I hold down the shuttter button. I have tried swapping batteries and cards but to no avail. Any ideas would be welcome but I suspect it's back to Leica again.

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Are you sure your batteries are charged? Not based on the camera meter but when you put them in the charger the light goes out. I accidently left my camera on all night and the battery was dead in the morning and all I got was the red blinking light when I pushed the shutter button. A trip to the charger fixed it.

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No. it's not a matter of a dead battery. I tried with two batteries I had just recharged before posting this. No menu, no screen illumination, nothing responds. There is a momentary beep when I insert the battery, but other than that only the led glowing as long as I hold the shutter down.

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Don't know if it will help but when I had a similar problem with a Canon I removed the battery and left it for a couple of hours then put the battery in and it was fine. I think if you leave it out for a while it will reset itself.

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no idea Chet, but sometimes they must have some functionality left, its been said before

sounds a bit like auto-off is worth avoiding doesnt it

i disengage all that stuff where i can on my cameras

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I was reading the manual yesterday and I thought I saw, I'm sure I read, a way to do a factory resetwithout using the menus.

Take the battery out then turn the camera ON for a period of time. I read through the manual today trying to find it so I could list the page but I couldn't find it.

EDIT:

I found that part. Page 125, first column near the bottom.

General Precautions.

If due to the effects of electromagnetic fields the Leica M8 malfunctions, remove the battery and then switch the camera on again.

It does not give a time length to leave the camera on but I would leave it on for 30-60 seconds.

Then of course turn it off and re-insert the battery.

I surely hope this works.

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Ronald, if you have a voltmeter, check the voltage between the rightmost battery connection and the last but one on the left. Use kitchen foil to make bades to slide into the contacts but be careful not to short them together. Should be 3.7 - 4.2 v. Search for my previous post on testing the battery for more information.

 

If you do not have a voltmeter, I'm sure you can buy from Radio Shack or Home Depot for pennies, well, less than an M8 batttery anyway.

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Sounds like a dead battery to me, do you have spare to try?

 

Mark,

I think it's getting close to the time when you will have to do a complete dis-assembly of the M8 as you did with the D2 : Perhaps you could enlighten us, you have two, right:D

 

Cheers

-J

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Guest guy_mancuso

At the suggestion from Germany. Try this trick . Put battery in camera go into menu item if you can and in the menu disable auto off settings if not leave the camera on and just let the battery completely die and also the camera will die out than recharge the battery to full than try again. This resets the camera

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Thanks for re-posting this information wilfredo and Shootist--my M8 (arrived Thursday afternoon) "died" last night after a few days of shooting with what I thought was a freshly-charged battery.

 

I thought I was dealing with the "Black Screen of Death" and a trip for the camera to Solms.

 

The directions you provided above "saved" my M8 and brought immediate relief. :) Thanks, guys.

 

Firmware update 1.10 might indeed address this--I was an early iPod (first gen) adopter and battery life indication did improve incrementally as Apple released updates over time so I'm hopeful that Leica's firmware updates will improve battery life indication as it does seem software upgrades can fix battery life indication accuracy.

 

I'm getting about 300-350 shots out of my battery, BTW, w/image preview set to "always on."

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Well Ronaldh, I feel your pain. My M8 Just died last evening. I shot during the day and put the camera back in the bag but did not notice it was still turned on until later in the evening. After that, NO RESPONSE. I have been following this forum so I charged the battery overnite but my M8 is still dead.

 

Similar symptoms symptoms as yours. The only screen I can see is the warning that the bottom cover is off. It will only display this if you put the camera into self time mode and hold down the shutter release until the screen appears. With the cover on, no response whatsoever other than the flashing memory write light and get this, if you listen to the camera very carefully in a quiet place, there is a faint ticking sound! No kidding.

 

I will try a call to New Jersey to see if they would reveal the cold start secret without sending it in. I can live with an occasional lockup if the recovery is a quick reset.

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Guest guy_mancuso

Micheal reset the camera, like I said above install the battery and let it die along with camera and than recharge battery this resets the camera

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Micheal reset the camera, like I said above install the battery and let it die along with camera and than recharge battery this resets the camera

 

Guy I think he already did that. He accidentally left it on until the battery did die. He recharged the battery and get nothing from the camera. Although it might not be a bad idea to do it one more time.

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