Strange white spots on M9 sensor?

[jaapv]

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Leica's lawyers must be advising against Leica issuing a public statement admitting a manufacturing fault in order to protect inventory, protect the dealers and protect Leica shareholders.

 

Imagine the financial impact on Leica from a recall (replacing thousands of sensors, write-off unsold inventory).

 

Now...imagine the impact on sales of the high-margin, premium and "unaffected" M240, M260, etc...

 

Sadly, Leica has no option but to buy time. The owners will get hurt as well. Don't expect a fair solution.

 

Now this depends to a large extent on the way they handle the current situation, doesn't it?

From a consumer's and frequent buyer's point of view I would not drop Leica if they were to be seen to do their utmost to support their loyal customers.

There is still (a small amount) of time.

[Michael Markey]

So do I...

 

There is some concern on RFF .

[k-hawinkler]

More corrosion examples?

 

summilux.net • Afficher le sujet - ENQUETE CAPTEUR M9/ME/Monochrom

[M9reno]

In the spanish-speaking community:

 

Corrosión en el sensor de las M9/MM... a cuantos os ha pasado?

[Dan Ryan]

Now this depends to a large extent on the way they handle the current situation, doesn't it?

From a consumer's and frequent buyer's point of view I would not drop Leica if they were to be seen to do their utmost to support their loyal customers.

There is still (a small amount) of time.

 

This says it all. In more ways than may be immediately obvious.

 

I've followed Jaapv's posts over the years (just look at the number of them!). He is a loyal ambassador for Leica - always sticking up for them. He's no fool and doesn't tolerate those who are; that Dutch logic just hammers them into the ground. Many a Leica critic has felt the lash of his tongue.

 

When he says there is a small amount of time left for Leica over this issue, that should be sounding alarms bells in Solms.

 

When he writes that he would not drop Leica if they were to be seen to do their utmost to support loyal customers, Leica should be worried at the implied threat.

 

I came to this thread thinking of getting an ME. No longer.

 

And yes I love Leica too. An M4 and IIIf - with lenses dating back to 1932.

 

I hope you blokes with the afflicted sensors get a decent deal.

[Paul J]

There is a growing list of sites talking about it. Constraining google searches to "past week" , "past month", "past 24 hours" etc. and searching for a broad range of terms finds quite a lot. I'm sure Asian speaking members could add some links too.

 

dSLR-Forum (38 pages) - here

 

Summilux.net (45 pages) - here

 

Leicanistas - here

 

Photo.net - here

 

DPReview: here, here, here

 

Rangefinder Forum: here

 

LaVida Leica: here

 

Clubsnap: here

 

Xatakafoto.com - here

 

Microstock - here

 

Digi-pixel-pop - here

 

Might be worth keeping an eye on twitter too: here

Edited December 6, 2014 by Paul J

[pgk]

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I don't know about that Jaap... over at RFF there's an active thread now 9 pages in - granted it's not Leica Camera Forum but it's got a significant amount of people over there that are just as perturbed about this as those here.

That could be for a very simple reason - look at the names of some of the posters and compare them with those here.........

[bill33]

You can add the french Leica forum post about M9/ME/MM sensor

 

summilux.net • Afficher le sujet - ENQUETE CAPTEUR M9/ME/Monochrom

[fahadm]

Now this depends to a large extent on the way they handle the current situation, doesn't it?

From a consumer's and frequent buyer's point of view I would not drop Leica if they were to be seen to do their utmost to support their loyal customers.

There is still (a small amount) of time.

jaapv: I respectfully disagree with your logic. Leica mishandled this since 2010 and has not released a single official statement !!!

 

Leica knew about the faulty sensors since 2010 and quietly replaced them (no recall).

 

Then they released the Monochrom in 2012 with the same faulty sensor (which I paid USD 8,000 for).

 

Then they released the M-E in 2013 with the same faulty sensor.

 

If Leica was transparent about the issue, many of us would not have bought the M9-generation.

 

Seems that someone is trying to bury the fiasco under the rug or hope that this thing blows away.

 

Leica should send an email to affected users provide a permanent fix; not a temporary band-aid by "quietly" replacing faulty sensors.

[pgk]

Leica knew about the faulty sensors since 2010 and quietly replaced them (no recall).

 

Then they released the Monochrom in 2012 with the same faulty sensor .....

 

Then they released the M-E in 2013 with the same faulty sensor.

Of course they did. Knowing that they had a sensor which was inherently faulty, they based and released two new models on it. Completely logical, knowing that it would bounce back on them:eek:.

 

IF they did this with full knowledge of what they were doing then they deserve to go bust. But doing so would make absolutely no commercial or other sense whatsoever, now would it? Can we PLEASE have some objectivity here - its impossible to extract any reality at the moment, and I would like to know what exactly is going on and just how problematic, or otherwise, it is rather than conjecture.

[M9reno]

jaapv: I respectfully disagree with your logic. Leica mishandled this since 2010 and has not released a single official statement !!!

 

Leica knew about the faulty sensors since 2010 and quietly replaced them (no recall).

 

Then they released the Monochrom in 2012 with the same faulty sensor (which I paid USD 8,000 for).

 

Then they released the M-E in 2013 with the same faulty sensor.

 

If Leica was transparent about the issue, many of us would not have bought the M9-generation.

 

Seems that someone is trying to bury the fiasco under the rug or hope that this thing blows away.

 

Leica should send an email to affected users provide a permanent fix; not a temporary band-aid by "quietly" replacing faulty sensors.

 

fahadm, I believe you are right that Leica have not been transparent about this problem for a long time, despite knowing about it.

 

But now the issue has caught up with them, doubtless against their expectations.

 

Jaap is right that they now have little time to react and try to make things right.

[M9reno]

IF they did this with full knowledge of what they were doing then they deserve to go bust.

 

Now we agree, sadly.

[pop]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145845

 

New Leica "CCDgate" Scandal Afoot? | La Vida Leica!

 

Thanks for the links. Clearly, they demonstrate (or at least don't refute) the point I was making: both were prompted by this very thread.

[Guest]

But the French thread started discussing the sensor problems on 8th August and has 6 73 posts, many of which show the same intensity as some of the ones here and which were not prompted by the ones here. But why should this matter?

[jaapv]

It should matter to Leica to judge the extent of the storm they find themselves in.

[dcsang]

It should matter to Leica to judge the extent of the storm they find themselves in.

 

Yep.

 

We'll see how they weather it.

 

It is even to the point, as I pointed out over on RFF, that it's making me "re-think" my M(240) that is, for all intents and purposes, basically "like new" - less than 6 months old and under 2,000 actuations easily.

 

I can totally understand the M9 / MM / M-E / M-P owners concerns here even if I myself don't have that camera(s). I owned an M8 from new and it had a lousy sensor and it wasn't until Leica switched to a new sensor company and when time had settled down many/any bugs that may have caused issue, did I decide to buy another digital Leica M-mount body.

 

For me, and this is my opinion only, it doesn't give me confidence in their digital products especially at the luxury price we are all paying if we buy "brand new".

 

Cheers,

Dave

[Guest]

...IF they did this with full knowledge of what they were doing then they deserve to go bust. But doing so would make absolutely no commercial or other sense whatsoever, now would it? Can we PLEASE have some objectivity here - its impossible to extract any reality at the moment, and I would like to know what exactly is going on and just how problematic, or otherwise, it is rather than conjecture.

If they did know, then proceeding with the M-Monochrom and the M-E was either management incompetence, or desperation to get products out or to use up remaining parts inventories; if they didn't know, it's technical incompetence to use a design without adequate testing, or not to be able to figure out that humidity could cause problems, considering what has been written in earlier posts about the Schott information spec sheets. Edited December 6, 2014 by not_a_hero

[k-hawinkler]

Hopefully this leads to something.

 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2421793&postcount=236

[Jeff S]

It should matter to Leica to judge the extent of the storm they find themselves in.

 

The weather resistance of the new M takes on new meaning.

 

Jeff

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[pgk]

....it's technical incompetence to use a design without adequate testing, or not to be able to figure out that humidity could cause problems, considering what has been written in earlier posts about the Schott information spec sheets.

Well mine has been very adequately tested first as a demo unit, and then by me for nearly 3 years and has no problem with de-lamination. And I've used it all sorts of situations including a very damp and soggy dive boat for a week. So where does that leave us? I'm sorry but this all seems like a classic blown-up internet storm with multitudes of 'experts' weighing in, but at the end of the day its impossible to tell how many of the thousands of M9s actually are suffering from the problem and whether its is endemic, batch related or just a rare and unfortunate QC issue.

 

I'm off to enjoy taking some photos with my M9 and my M8 (crappy sensor and all).

 

I'll wait to see how this all pans out but in the meantime intend to actually shoot some images.....