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My M9 is eating SD cards [MERGED}


dalippe

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I cannot go into the details as Leica has not given me a OK to copy paste the email here. I just say that I was informed that Leica has acknowledged the issue and are working hard to figure it out.

 

I find that very encouraging news. Thanks for that update.

 

RM

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I disagree with you. If you look at my other posts, you will see that I use paragraphs quite a lot, when I feel them to be appropriate. No requirement at all to split this post into paragraphs as all one subject. I agree that perhaps I could have used shorter sentences but I was writing a technical post and not writing a novel.

 

Wilson

 

PS You may intend your posts to be light hearted but that is not how they come over: Rude in your first post and patronising in your last.

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I have been asked to make a FAQ entry on this. As soon as there is some kind of clariy about the cause and extent of the problem and reliable workarounds I will do soz

 

 

That's great news. My question is, who will authoritatively supply the information for that? In my mind only Leica can really do that.

I personally would like to see three bullets in that post, namely:

 

• Leica acknowledging the problem and giving a brief description of it.

• Identify which M9 functionality is affected.

• Advise an user of an affected M9 what to do, what not to do, possible workarounds until that problem is corrected.

 

Once the problem is solved hopefully with just a firmware update, this becomes a mute point and it is time to move on.

 

K-H.

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That's great news. My question is, who will authoritatively supply the information for that? In my mind only Leica can really do that.

I personally would like to see three bullets in that post, namely:

 

• Leica acknowledging the problem and giving a brief description of it.

• Identify which M9 functionality is affected.

• Advise an user of an affected M9 what to do, what not to do, possible workarounds until that problem is corrected.

 

Once the problem is solved hopefully with just a firmware update, this becomes a mute point and it is time to move on.

 

K-H.

 

Yes, especially as days later I still can't get a reply from Leica CS or Leica UK on the issue.

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Ok. Don't know if this will help everybody but. I just got Brand New M9. I'm a working pro so I bought 24 cards all the same Sandisk Extreme 8gb.

I

 

Just a thought. Wouldn't you spread your risk a bit if you bought 8x 4 different brands of cards? I've always been suspicious of the robustness of Sandisk cards and now only use others since problems with my M8 (cured when I changed brand).

 

LouisB

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Ok I know how this sounds - and again it is completely unscientific. Anecdotal at best.

 

However, as Leica still haven't responded (to me, or the community) and my trip starts on Tuesday I went out and bought 4 x Sandisk Ultra Class 4 4MB 15MB/s cards. I had previously be using the 16MB version. Both cards are listed as ++ on the Leica FAQ with the same model but in 8GB as only +.

 

My rational was that if I had a flakey camera, I'd do better to have more smaller card so that when (not if - sigh) it fails on a card I can switch out and try to limit the damage.

 

Anyway, shooting a 3 year old children's party yesterday and testing through the cards I have to say it felt like a new, different camera. It was "snappy", responsive, keeping up with me. I was shooting a lot quicker than at the wedding where it last failed. Not "machine gun" but "fast paced" I would describe it as. It was writing and viewing when required without any hitch and just felt faster.

 

Now I know this doesn't help. I own and run engineering firms and this wouldn't help as product feedback in terms of diagnostics. It's all opinion and no fact. However I wonder, as the 16GB seems to have a bad history pre 1.162, maybe it just got more sensitive after the update?

 

I was shooting soft mode normal advance (discreet is too slow with the shutter cock for children's action.) I had set my auto sleep up to 2 min from 1 min. DNG compressed.

 

Honestly, a different camera altogether. Subjective and useless but my confidence level is way up. Most odd. Probably too emotive and actually worthless to anyone? Maybe I really "want" my beloved M9 to be great?

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I thought it was good practice to use more, small cards than fewer large ones, especially since the technology in SD cards is somewhat "flakey".

 

Don't you have to change the battery every 4 gig anyway?

 

Yes, it certainly limits your exposure. And if you consider that the 8GB cards are not rate as highly (by Leica) as the 2, 4 and 16's then you choose multiple 4's or less 16's.

 

I don't use the LCD really at all except to change ISO. My batteries last me way more than 4GB. Normally lasts for several days of shooting, not exactly 5DII levels but more than enough for me. The wedding where it crashed I couldn't get to the couple with an incident reading (should've gone in before to be fair) so had to chimp a bit as it was low light high contrast. The chimping seemed to contribute to the crash.

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Yes, it certainly limits your exposure. And if you consider that the 8GB cards are not rate as highly (by Leica) as the 2, 4 and 16's then you choose multiple 4's or less 16's.

 

I don't use the LCD really at all except to change ISO. My batteries last me way more than 4GB. Normally lasts for several days of shooting, not exactly 5DII levels but more than enough for me. The wedding where it crashed I couldn't get to the couple with an incident reading (should've gone in before to be fair) so had to chimp a bit as it was low light high contrast. The chimping seemed to contribute to the crash.

 

 

For my M9 that makes all the difference - that is chimping when the new images are still being saved to memory card. The fact that we have this discussion over the last handful of posts indicates to me again that there is a problem.

 

Best, K-H.

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I do hope you are wrong and we don't have to go back to 4GB cards :-((

 

Wilson

Wilson, for my kind of shooting a 4gb card is ideal. Think of it as equivalent to three x 36 exposure films. I rarely went through those in a day unless on some intensive project.

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I do hope you are wrong and we don't have to go back to 4GB cards :-((

 

Wilson

Wilson, for my kind of shooting a 4gb card is ideal. Think of it as equivalent to three x 36 exposure films. I rarely went through those in a day unless on some intensive project.

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When I go on a three to four week trip (retired person - ha ha!), I take 3 x 16GB Sandisk Ultra for my M9, which I generally will fill all three to about 75 to 80% each. I never feel it is a good idea to run them to full. Not sure why but I don't. I will also back up to some other medium (iPad or HD via a MacBook Air) but leave the cards un-wiped until I get home and can get them on a RAID back up system. If I had to take 12 X 4GB cards, I would never keep track of them. Until 1.162FW, I had never had an issue with these cards. They have a high score on the Leica recommended cards list.

 

I also will take 2 x 4GB cards for whichever back up camera I am taking, M8 or Ricoh GX200. Using 16GB for the M9 and 4GB for the M8 or Ricoh, means I don't get my cards mixed up. I do number and name them with bronze metallic ink on the back e.g. M9-1, R-2, M8-2 etc. If I am taking my M4 or Contax IIA as a back up, of course it is reasonably difficult to get the imaging media mixed up ;-}}

 

Wilson

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When I go on a three to four week trip (retired person - ha ha!), I take 3 x 16GB Sandisk Ultra for my M9, which I generally will fill all three to about 75 to 80% each. I never feel it is a good idea to run them to full. Not sure why but I don't. I will also back up to some other medium (iPad or HD via a MacBook Air) but leave the cards un-wiped until I get home and can get them on a RAID back up system. If I had to take 12 X 4GB cards, I would never keep track of them. Until 1.162FW, I had never had an issue with these cards. They have a high score on the Leica recommended cards list.

 

I also will take 2 x 4GB cards for whichever back up camera I am taking, M8 or Ricoh GX200. Using 16GB for the M9 and 4GB for the M8 or Ricoh, means I don't get my cards mixed up. I do number and name them with bronze metallic ink on the back e.g. M9-1, R-2, M8-2 etc. If I am taking my M4 or Contax IIA as a back up, of course it is reasonably difficult to get the imaging media mixed up ;-}}

 

Wilson

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I have no suggestions but I tend to agree with Andy and others on the use of smaller

cards…. and I don’t think they have to be ‘’super-duper’’ very expensive cards either.

I have used the same 8 gig San Disc Extreme I bought a long time ago when I got the camera…. and have since bought the same for back-up. I just have a gut feeling the

M-9 just works better with mid-range cards. I have nothing to base this on other than

the fact I tend to stick with what works.

Oh, I purchased my back-up card directly from SanDisc avoiding counterfeit cards

that are such exact copies on the outside they fool experts. There are a huge amount

of undetectable phonies being sold in good faith by reputable dealers…. their suppliers

can’t tell the difference!!!!

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