New M8 problems: lost images, corrupted image, hot pixels, false ligh readings

[rami G]

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I have my M8 for nearly two weeks now. As a 5D and a R-D1 owner, I enjoy the camera very much. I use it with vog 12, 15, Leica Elm asph 21, 28 cron, 35 lux asph, 50 cron, 75 lux, and 135 apo Telyt, non of which are coded yet. However, I have a couple of issues with it:

1. When used on Aperture priority in very low light it tends to have sudden false readings much lower of 20 to 32 seconds exposure resulting in totally burned picture and a useless camera for double that time (long exposure noise reduction which I cannot turn off).

2. After exposing for 1-2 seconds in 640 iso and above, when looking at the picture on the LCD I first see MANY blue and red hot pixels, most of them are fixed after a few seconds (probably a hot pixel fixing application). Now, when I say many, I mean hundreds of them, some of which are much worse than others. On my R-D1 I had hot pixels and I was very happy when the firmware upgrade fixed it, but I had no more than 6-10, when on the M8 I really have a few hundreds of them. I am glad that they are "fixed" automatically, but the number of hot pixels I get makes me feel that my sensor might be defective failing to deliver full information (even if it can be masked by the algorithm). Do all M8s behave the same way or do I have a unit with a bad sensor?

 

3. Unfortunately, I am starting to have a problem with images that are not saved on the SD card. I had yesterday a whole session of 12 images that were simply lost. I used a Ridata card that others reported to work fine. I had the same problem a couple of days ago with a card that is "officially" compatible with the Leica.

 

4. I got THAT defective image (see bellow) the other day, without any explanations.

 

I attach 3 files. The first to illustrate the problem mentioned in 4, the two others (a whole frame and a crop) simply to illustrate the usability of the 135 apo with the M8. I used "save for web" to get the 244 size so the quality is very bad and I seem to have lost the exif info... (appreciate advice on that too)

 

Will appreciate any input,

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[Jamie Roberts]

My M8 has been really good in very low light, even in automatic mode.

 

The scrambled picture looks like a battery condition to me, maybe? Did the camera stop writing or something?

 

Also, I would format the card in the camera every time, if you're not already doing that!

 

Nice 135 shots, too

[rami G]

Jamie, thanks for the reply. I am not aware of any power shortage during the writing to LCD. Do you have any take about the red and blue dead pixels? do you (or anybody else...) recognize the phenomena I describe? do I have an unusual number of these dead pixels?

[hsw]

I believe what you're describing is the noise reduction program in action. I've seen that on my LCD, but the printed image does not contain the dots.

Not completely sure I've helped. I think we're all still learning this camera.

 

Regards,

Henry

[xrogers]

2. After exposing for 1-2 seconds in 640 iso and above, when looking at the picture on the LCD I first see MANY blue and red hot pixels, most of them are fixed after a few seconds (probably a hot pixel fixing application). Now, when I say many, I mean hundreds of them, some of which are much worse than others. On my R-D1 I had hot pixels and I was very happy when the firmware upgrade fixed it, but I had no more than 6-10, when on the M8 I really have a few hundreds of them. I am glad that they are "fixed" automatically, but the number of hot pixels I get makes me feel that my sensor might be defective failing to deliver full information (even if it can be masked by the algorithm). Do all M8s behave the same way or do I have a unit with a bad sensor?

 

I may understand what you're describing---from my experience, when exposing at high ISO, the jpg thumbnail can be exceedingly noisy and full of bright pixels. When reviewing images, that ugly, noisy image will appear for about two seconds, while the camera reads in the actual photo data, and then displays it. The effect is that when scrolling, high ISO things can look ugly, but when you stop and wait a couple of seconds, the image suddenly clears up. The cleared up image is the real image, that noisy thumbnail is just for navigation through saved shots.

 

If that's the effect you're seeing, then what you're seeing is jpg artifacts in the thumbnail, which disappear when the photo data is loaded, and not hot pixels at all. And if that's the case, we all share this feature, and it isn't any issue at all.

 

Until later,

 

Clyde Rogers

[gravastar]

It's late here but I do have a few ideas before I go to bed........

 

1. Are you sure you're not trying to use the camera's light meter outside of it's measuring (EV) range. That could either be because the ambient light is too low or you have stopped the lens down too far while trying to measure. If the latter, I try to get around the problem by measuring with the lens opened up (either manual or auto exposure mode) and then stop the lens down and make the required shutter speed adjustment in manual mode. I've found that going outside the meter's range on long exposures can result in overexposure.

 

2. I agree with what Clyde Rogers has said. The fast preview seems to use only a few sampled image points, probably from the embedded jpeg. The finer detailed image which appears after a short time is more representative. Even then processed RAW high ISO images show a lot less noise than you see on the LCD, that's with noise reduction in Capture One set to minimum.

 

3. Not sure about this one since you say you've had problems with different cards. I'd suggest formating the cards in the camera. I hope it's not a camera problem.

 

4. The image with the purple band looks like corrupted data on the SD card and is usually a faulty card.

 

Do you know if the battery was fully charged when you had the corrupted data or missing images on the SD card? It seems with the present firmware it's possible for the battery state indicator and actual battery condition to get out of step, so it maybe the camera would continue to try to write to the SD card when the battery is discharged, causing corrupted data. As others have said you can reset the battery and it's monitor by disabling the power down and leaving the camera switched on until the battery is discharged. Then recharge.

 

Bob.

[rami G]

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This is all very reasurring. I was worried about the "hot pixel" issue because I did not want to feel that I have such a great sensor but a defective one. The explanation makes a lot of sense. I am still worried about the low exposure but as gravastar suggests, I might very well be using the meter bellow its limit, but I never had such a problems with any of my M7, R-D1 or with the 5D. by the way- does anybody know if there is any way to stop the long exposure noise reduction? it just makes my camera unusabloe for a delayed period.

I do format my card every time I insert it to the camera. I hope it is not an issue with the camera. Thank you all for your suggestions. I do feel much better now about a camera I really love. I feel I have a lot to learn about the camera (especially white ballance management) but this camera is for me by far the best of all available worlds...

[rami G]

Bob, I believe the baterry was not empty when it happened.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Rami one problem with the battery level is your really not sure of the level there is a bug in the existing firmware and basically the problem is the camera may read full but the battery may not be . So the suggestion from Germany is too leave the camera on all night and completely drain battery and camera memory than recharge fully than try again. This does two things really it conditions the battery which is a good thing to do once in awhile but it also resets the camera battery level which should be fixed in the latest firmware. Give that a try and maybe also try a different card or reformat that one through your computer than do it again in the camera , it just may have some fragmented data on it the camera can't delete. I think your camera is okay though but try these things out first and see what happens and please keep us posted , this stuff needs to be known so it can get forwarded to leica.

[adan]

I would just add this regarding the 12 shots that disappeared (the other comments seem on target, although since I have an original, unrepaired M8 with the original 1.06 firmware, I can't judge what happens with the newer versions).

 

12 shots taken fairly close together in time would take up to a minute to write from the camera's internal memory to the SD card. If you turned the camera off during that minute (while the red light is still flashing on the back) all the shots still unwritten will be lost.

 

If you are sure you did not shut down the camera too soon, then it may be one of the other issues noted.

[wlaidlaw]

Rami one problem with the battery level is your really not sure of the level there is a bug in the existing firmware and basically the problem is the camera may read full but the battery may not be . So the suggestion from Germany is too leave the camera on all night and completely drain battery and camera memory than recharge fully than try again. This does two things really it conditions the battery which is a good thing to do once in awhile but it also resets the camera battery level which should be fixed in the latest firmware. Give that a try and maybe also try a different card or reformat that one through your computer than do it again in the camera , it just may have some fragmented data on it the camera can't delete. I think your camera is okay though but try these things out first and see what happens and please keep us posted , this stuff needs to be known so it can get forwarded to leica.

 

Back in the dark ages of digital photography when I had a Fuji built Leica Digilux (not 4.3, 1 or 2 even) it galloped through its NiMh AA batteries - sometimes as few as three images on a charge in really cold weather. In order to maximize and maintain what battery capacity you had, the battery charger had a very neat device, where if you pushed a button on it, would fully discharge the batteries and when they were totally flat, automatically start charging them. A similar device might have been a good idea on the M8 charger. I was thinking of doing as you say and conditioning my two batteries but having read of the horror stories of what has happened to M8's in which the battery has run down to totally flat, I have decided to wait until after 1.10 is installed before I try this apparently risky procedure.

 

I also believe that the M8 is ultra fussy on what SD card you use. Mine is distinctly cranky when I use the cheap MyMemory 133x 4GB card (probably a Toshiba) but runs perfectly on either the San Disk Ultra II 0.5 GB card or the Extreme III 2 GB card. I have been giving my card contacts a wipe with Servisol switch contact cleaning fluid before installing and I also blow out the slot with a Giotto rocket. On my previous Digilux 2, I occasionally used to have card problems before I adopted this procedure.

 

Wilson

[SteveP]

I thought it was "bad" to totally discharge NiMH batteries? Isn't it NiCads that need that done? Of course the M8 battery is Lithium Ion, so it has a finite life (whether used or not) can be recharged from partial use with no ill effect, should not be completely discharged and should be stored long-term at 40% charge in a cool place.

 

Chapter 15: Caring for Your Batteries from Birth to Retirement

[Guest guy_mancuso]

My message came from Germany on a specific question on the subject, I have done this on all 5 of my batteries with no ill effect

[xrogers]

12 shots taken fairly close together in time would take up to a minute to write from the camera's internal memory to the SD card. If you turned the camera off during that minute (while the red light is still flashing on the back) all the shots still unwritten will be lost.

 

Good thought. Isn't it true, though, that even if you shut it off the camera will continue writing until it is done (I can't check, my early M8 is in for upgrade---maybe someone else can look...)? If during the write, however, you changed batteries or memory, this is just the sort of thing that would happen. It could also happen if the battery registered full, but petered out during a long write due to an incorrect battery level display.

 

Until later,

 

Clyde Rogers

[johnastovall]

Save for web always removes the EXIF data. To retain it (at least in CS2) after resizing the file just save as jpg from the file tab.

[Riley]

Good thought. Isn't it true, though, that even if you shut it off the camera will continue writing until it is done (I can't check, my early M8 is in for upgrade---maybe someone else can look...)? If during the write, however, you changed batteries or memory, this is just the sort of thing that would happen. It could also happen if the battery registered full, but petered out during a long write due to an incorrect battery level display.

 

Until later,

 

Clyde Rogers

 

i suspect thats a really risky practice Clyde

i dont think anything guarantees the file would still be written

[carstenw]

The off setting is a software off, and all images in the buffer will be written to the card. This is documented somewhere.