Lode Posted March 19, 2007 Share #21 Posted March 19, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) ... Cause for hope? Sure, that goes in the right direction. Lode Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 19, 2007 Posted March 19, 2007 Hi Lode, Take a look here UPDATE - internet survey of M8 experience - more good than bad!. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
ken_tanaka Posted March 19, 2007 Share #22 Posted March 19, 2007 Very interesting results so far, Chris. Thank you for your efforts. I do hope that someone from Leica, empowered to take messages, is watching. As has been repeatedly noted, this is not a thorough statistical study. It's a completely unqualified survey of folks who wanted to take part. As such, a large portion probably had a problem that they wanted to air while others wanted to offer only praise. Even so, I agree with Hank that the failure reports seem extremely high. (Mine experienced only a minor transient failure once in 1500 frames.) It seems that these problems are being gradually fixed with firmware and slight alterations to the later M8s manufacturing. But the survey results do tend to corroborate the opinion I held prior to buying an M8 myself: the camera was released prematurely, probably to maintain the Photokina introduction date. In the end, of course, it doesn't matter. Things get truly fixed and finished when they begin to cause pain. The M8 has caused Leica some financial and public relations pain but they seem to have staunched it as well as possible. But as the gottahaveititus flu season ends we now enter the more crucial stage of the M8's product life. With high photo season approaching how many will part with $5,000 (plus thousands more for a lens or two) for a "10 megapixel camera with no auto-focus and no zoom lens" and "rumors of a 20%+ sudden death rate"? Hopefully it will be enough to keep the M8 a viable product and the M9 a possibility. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
colorflow Posted March 19, 2007 Share #23 Posted March 19, 2007 Chris: First let me add my thanks for doing this. The cross tabs are interesting. I believe it is statistically very significant that most of the failures, whether recovered or not, are among the earlier deliveries. But, of course, it can also mean that failures occur after a couple of months of use. Does your survey ask how "old" the camera is if and when it failed? Mine had total failure after 2+ months. Alan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 19, 2007 Share #24 Posted March 19, 2007 I don't think it quite correct to talk about a 20% plus failure rate. After all, freeze and recover after removing the battery is equivalent to Canon's Error 99 failure. That would put Canon in the 50% plus failure rate box. Having said that a failure rate of between 5 and 10% is far to high, even if this survey is slanted. Even if it were 3.5%, which I suspect is nearer to the truth, it is far too much. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankg Posted March 19, 2007 Share #25 Posted March 19, 2007 The M8 has caused Leica some financial and public relations pain but they seem to have staunched it as well as possible. From all accounts, despite it's stumble out of the gate, the M8 is a smashing success. I understand the M8's introduction has had a halo effect across Leica's product range boosting sales of film cameras and lenses as well. It's seems many lenses and M8's are still in short supply and sell out quickly when stocked. In addition Hermes and it's exclusive uber-brand for the fabulously wealthy few marketing mentality is gone. The new management/investors at Leica seem very much on the ball and in tune with the photo market. This is the most optimistic I have been about Leica in decades -as an ongoing venture and a source for new products I can use. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_tribble Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share #26 Posted March 19, 2007 The cross tabs are interesting. I believe it is statistically very significant that most of the failures, whether recovered or not, are among the earlier deliveries. But, of course, it can also mean that failures occur after a couple of months of use. Does your survey ask how "old" the camera is if and when it failed? Mine had total failure after 2+ months. Alan Alan - afraid it's not as sophisticated as that - and we don't know which firmware was applied when the failure happened ... though for those which failed and never woke up before the end of February, we do have the answer... I've looked at a cross tab for firmware but it's worse than meaningless because the question's about which firmware people are running now, not which firmware they were running at the time of the failure... The clever money would, however, be laid on 1.06 was associated with more problems than 1.091... Now I want 1.10... Will it solve all problems? I really don't know. It may be that there's a basic flaw in the design on the battery / power side. But it would be nice if it did... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_tanaka Posted March 19, 2007 Share #27 Posted March 19, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) From all accounts, despite it's stumble out of the gate, the M8 is a smashing success. I understand the M8's introduction has had a halo effect across Leica's product range boosting sales of film cameras and lenses as well. It's seems many lenses and M8's are still in short supply and sell out quickly when stocked. In addition Hermes and it's exclusive uber-brand for the fabulously wealthy few marketing mentality is gone. The new management/investors at Leica seem very much on the ball and in tune with the photo market. This is the most optimistic I have been about Leica in decades -as an ongoing venture and a source for new products I can use. I hope your first sentence is accurate, Hank. When I refer to the "financial" stumble I'm thinking of the unanticipated recall (to Germany, no less) of the initial batch of M8s which certainly cost significant sums in capital and time. I'm also thinking of the Great 486 Filter Give-Away which Leica clearly didn't plan. This is also costing large sums. When I refer to the "PR" stumble I'm thinking of the flavor of the general press coverage outside the photographic enthusiast world. The several articles I've read so far are generally laudatory of the M8 but in a rather tongue-in-cheek style. (Ex: What to give your shutterbug husband if he already has every other camera on the market.) The fact is that the M8 is becoming, to a great degree, something of an icon of costly self-indulgence in the general public's eye. (One non-photographic acquaintance recently likened the M8 to putting a satellite radio receiver in a replica of a 1940's wood-cased desktop radio. It was a hard observation to challenge.) That the camera is less than perfect has given at least two writers (I've read) something at which to snicker. Hermes' previous marketing influence might be fading in favor of a more technically oriented approach (although you can still get a custom-wrapped M7 or MP). I wonder if that's a good thing. The M cameras are cult objects deliberately priced far beyond competitors. Whether or not this luxury margin is warranted I'll leave for others to decide for themselves. Is an $3500 M7 really that much better than a $500 Rollei 35 or a $700 Bessa? Really? Selling such a luxury margin is exactly what Hermes knows how to do very well. Granted, their expertise lies mainly in plying the opinions of silly, insecure women and their deep-pocketed boyfriends. But the core luxury goods pitch across all products is tuned largely to insecurity and works just as well with cameras. So I wonder if Hermes ever really put its shoulder to the boulder at Leica? Aside from selling golden Ms to rich oil sultans I don't think so. But I digress from this thread's topic; the early M8 customers' experience. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
colorflow Posted March 19, 2007 Share #28 Posted March 19, 2007 Alan - afraid it's not as sophisticated as that - and we don't know which firmware was applied when the failure happened ... though for those which failed and never woke up before the end of February, we do have the answer... I've looked at a cross tab for firmware but it's worse than meaningless because the question's about which firmware people are running now, not which firmware they were running at the time of the failure... The clever money would, however, be laid on 1.06 was associated with more problems than 1.091... Now I want 1.10... Will it solve all problems? I really don't know. It may be that there's a basic flaw in the design on the battery / power side. But it would be nice if it did... Chris: Mine was running 1.09 when it failed. Thanks, Alan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandymc Posted March 19, 2007 Share #29 Posted March 19, 2007 Doesn't the focus on failures here somewhat obscure the more important point of image quality problems - the way I read the survey is that for their first M8, only 45.76% of people haven't run across some kind of image quality related problem. In other words, if you buy an M8, you have about a 1 in 2 chance on getting one that has, at least in some situations, a significant image quality problem. I mean, you can return a non-functional camera, but as I understand it, there is as yet no solution to, for example, the green band problem. Given that is "best lenses in the world" Leica, am I the only one that finds that really, really scary? Sandy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j. borger Posted March 19, 2007 Share #30 Posted March 19, 2007 the way I read the survey is that for their first M8, only 45.76% of people haven't run across some kind of image quality related problem. In other words, if you buy an M8, you have about a 1 in 2 chance on getting one that has, at least in some situations, a significant image quality problem. Given that is "best lenses in the world" Leica, am I the only one that finds that really, really scary? Sandy Amazing the way people interpret surveys and related statistics...... I thought only politicians tend to read use and bend statistics to their own use. If i see the interpretations at this forum i am afraid this survey is going to hurt Leica again as soon as the real trolls start interpreting and bending the results Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 19, 2007 Share #31 Posted March 19, 2007 Doesn't the focus on failures here somewhat obscure the more important point of image quality problems - the way I read the survey is that for their first M8, only 45.76% of people haven't run across some kind of image quality related problem. In other words, if you buy an M8, you have about a 1 in 2 chance on getting one that has, at least in some situations, a significant image quality problem. I mean, you can return a non-functional camera, but as I understand it, there is as yet no solution to, for example, the green band problem. Given that is "best lenses in the world" Leica, am I the only one that finds that really, really scary? Sandy It proves to me that 54.24 % of the people don't understand a thing about photography or the theoretical background thereof. .Kinda scary indeed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_tanaka Posted March 20, 2007 Share #32 Posted March 20, 2007 It proves to me that 54.24 % of the people don't understand a thing about photography or the theoretical background thereof. .Kinda scary indeed. Actually that is a myopic perspective. I suspect that 100% of M8 owners realize that a dead M8 produces exactly the same image quality as a dead Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax,.... I agree that part of the conversation regarding the early M8 owners' experience should be devoted to image quality issues. But they tend to shrink when compared to much more basic operational issues. Also, discussions of relative image quality tend to be like herding cats. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
herbkell Posted March 20, 2007 Share #33 Posted March 20, 2007 I don't think it quite correct to talk about a 20% plus failure rate. After all, freeze and recover after removing the battery is equivalent to Canon's Error 99 failure. That would put Canon in the 50% plus failure rate box. Having said that a failure rate of between 5 and 10% is far to high, even if this survey is slanted. Even if it were 3.5%, which I suspect is nearer to the truth, it is far too much. Where did you learn that Canon has a 50% failure rate for Error 99? I have owned 5 (10D, 20D, 5D, IDsMkII and IDMkII) and have yet to experience an Errror 99. I must be either very lucky or a statistical anomaly! One the other hand I must be very unlucky or a statistical anomaly as I have experienced 100% failure rate on my Leica camera! Aren't statistics fun? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrc Posted March 20, 2007 Share #34 Posted March 20, 2007 Now I want 1.10... Will it solve all problems? I really don't know. It may be that there's a basic flaw in the design on the battery / power side. But it would be nice if it did... You know, I don't think it's a basic design flaw -- the designs are too routine. I believe the difficult part of the M8 design had to do with the sensor/lens side. Otherwise, the electronics and firmware don't seem to me to be as complicated as that routinely produced by other camera companies for the best part of a decade -- and I'm sure that the Leica designers stripped those designs down to the bone. My new digital Pentax has an automatic pop-up flash, so many modes that you need an electronics degree to figure them out, backwards compatibilty with most Pentax lenses back to the 60s, autofocus and internal image stabilization, all in a package in a package not much bigger than a Leica. Reliable as a toaster. Even the RD-1, which was pretty much of a kludge job (as much as I think it's an okay camera) is more reliable than the M8. I suspect that there's simply some crappy boards or some crappy wiring somewhere -- a lack of QC in an assembly plant. I believe that I've read that either NIkon or Canon moved some assembly back to Japan from Thailand (?) because of QC problems. It's something that, at some stage, would probably cost about $1 per camera to make right; and is now probably costing Leica a couple of hundred dollars per camera to correct after-the-fact. And that kind of bad assembly work can be a nightmare to track down and fix -- some cameras work, some don't and the problem isn't always in the same place. JC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrc Posted March 20, 2007 Share #35 Posted March 20, 2007 My last post, of one minute ago, brought a memory from the 60s, when I was in college and working in a defense plant that built high-tech radios for fighter jets being used in Vietnam. We had a number of radio failures with symptoms that were all over the place; the radios always worked fine on the ground, but seemed to fail in high stress situations. But because they worked fine on the ground, they could never diagnose the problem. So they sent a batch back to the factory, where they were taken apart piece by piece, and what they eventually found was that the little short rivets that held the box together (the metal box that held the radio) would sometimes rattle out of their holes if assembled sloppily -- too much pressure on the heads would tend to push them through the hole. As long as the planes were on the ground, the rivets generally settled in some inoffensive place inside the box -- but when the plane was in a dive, or twisting in a dog fight, or trying to avoid flak, the rivet would ricochet merrily around the inside of the box, from one electrical connection to the next, and seriously screw things up. Tracking that down took about 100 years of cumulative engineering knowledge... JC Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
guywalder Posted March 20, 2007 Share #36 Posted March 20, 2007 interesting reading, Chris wanted to do the survey to avoid the moaning voices drowning out the happy customers, someone else thinks the results are totally scewed by unsattisfied owners making sure their voices are heard..... Here is a not altogether hypothetical question. If you were involved (as I am) in engineering & producing a product that is an integration of mechanical & electronic components, dependent on flash programmable software (ie not dissimilar to an M8!), that operates in a harsh environment (-40 Deg C to over 100 Deg C, continously subject to vibration, aggressive fluids, etc), that has a retail price of orders of magnitude less than an M8, would the reliability level suggested by Chris's survey be acceptable? If the product was part of a 'safety critical system', such as the brakes on your car, would these survey results give you a warm glow? Would you be happy hanging around for firmware 1.10, wondering if your brakes are going to work next time you press the pedal? A zero ppm (part per million) failure rate is a dream for this kind of product, but this level of performance is shocking, whatever your view of the survey sample size. I really hope that the actual failure rate is less than the survey suggests, although I see no reason to think that the sample of buyers in the survey is so dramatically different to the actual total, same as any survey this is an indication. I really want Leica to succeed, and I really want to love my M8, but thats only going to happen if I can trust it, and so far the jury is out (bought 1 week ago, V1.092, regularly needs SD card re-inserted until it works, generates patterns in close to blown out red highlights, and my 50 summilux is unusable due to focus error) your equivocally, Guy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barjohn Posted March 20, 2007 Share #37 Posted March 20, 2007 guywalder, I too work in engineering producing an even more complex product and the failure rate in this survey would have me calling my engineers to task and I would be climbing the walls until they/we found a solution. At the same time I would be on the phone to my customers assuring them that my team was working the problems and getting solutions out as quickly as possible, even piecemeal to prove to them that I was addressing their issues and concerns. It still bothers me that they publish an updated firmware and only tell us in the vaguest terms what it is supposed to do in terms of fixing problems. Where is the response to the questions Guy M posted that was being sent to Leica and whos answers would be posted here in the forum? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_tribble Posted March 20, 2007 Author Share #38 Posted March 20, 2007 Postings from JC and Guy make absolute sense. Hope that someone's going to listen to this. Sean, Guy, anyone with an in with Leica management, let's hope you can get the message across. Or Stephan Daniel or others at Leica who ought to be reading this forum, I think that for all its flaws the survey does help make clear that there are some serious issues to address. 1.10 is going to have to be really good. It's also got to address issues central issues like reliability and AWB rather than just focusing on coded lenses and cyan shift. These latter are important, but not at the heart of our concerns. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
carstenw Posted March 20, 2007 Share #39 Posted March 20, 2007 Let's not forget two things: firstly, we already had some numbers before, so this only adds some accuracy and extra information to the existing situation. Secondly, Leica is already aware of the problems and are working feverishly on the solutions. I don't understand the people who are panicking all over again. It gets really tiresome after a while. There is nothing new here, just a new set of similar numbers describing the same situation. Sean's numbers were similar. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_tribble Posted March 20, 2007 Author Share #40 Posted March 20, 2007 We've now got over 300 replies and the picture is changing a little - with the account of QA looking less than rosy. I'm giving some screenshots of the recent key data - no attempt to interpret on my behalf. I know that some of the numbers are familiar, and I'm glad that Leica are working feverishly, but the QA side of things still seems to be an area to address. Of course I wish we knew how many bodies have been sold, but Leica do, so they can put our numbers in perspective... It's really clear if you look at the March 2007 row in the last figure. Best Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/19221-update-internet-survey-of-m8-experience-more-good-than-bad/?do=findComment&comment=206524'>More sharing options...
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