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Strange white spots on M9 sensor?


Clong34

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Ah, but they did notice.

 

I agree that Leica is unlikely to find a solution (other than migrating M9 owners onto M(240) cameras and replacing sensors as they fail). Not sure about your "sources" though don't quote me :roll eyes:

 

I cannot imagine a company like Leica not monitoring and reviewing warranty claims and failures as they occur - that is not realistic, however few those failures may be, and I have already pointed out that this is not a problem which has just broken cover. I accept what you say about Nikon only honouring such failures under threat of a lawsuit, and I find it very sad that a company which came up with such fantastic SLR cameras has fallen so far. That is not a successful business model, if you think you have a future. I don't put Leica anywhere near that level of disregard for its customers, though they have shown now and in the past that they will ignore a problem until forced (here) to acknowledge it; they then offer a solution which is not very good and only revise it to a reasonable position after the owls of rage and disappointment here (the M8 LCD failure is a case in point).

 

Leica is not, and nor should it be, immune from criticism; that would not reasonably stigmatise my comments as "Leica bashing" - far from it. I have invested far more than I can reasonably afford in Leica, and I am like to continue to do so.

 

Cheers

John

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I did not see anybody claiming you were bashing, I would have moderated it.

 

I would submit that it was exactly this monitoring that triggered the whole hullabaloo.

The dilemma is when to move from individual cases to a general strategy.

 

Btw the Nikon story is even worse. One could only change from D600 to D610 after signing an NDA. The story was brought out by customer who refused the deal. And they tried to sue him.

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As reported before my M9 went to Wetzlar two weeks ago with suspected corrosion. Leica's response was: "During our test we did not find a problem with the sensor. The sensor will be cleaned and the camera will be returned back to you."

 

The camera was returned (for free) yesterday.

 

To my surprise and irritation, the suspected de-lamination spots shown on pages 22 and 32 of this thread ARE STILL THERE. This despite my sending them a CD with RAW images and telling them where to look. And despite asking Leica, after their initial response to double-check and confirm.

 

I can gather two things from my experience. Either: a) Leica cannot properly clean a sensor (which came back with more dust than before) and identify corrosion; or B) (as suspected by some here) some degree of corrosion is acceptable, and thus "not a problem" that would prompt Leica to meet its published commitment to repair or upgrade.

 

Needless to say, I am very disappointed with this situation.

 

These are the images from today. Please compare with pages 22 and 32 of this thread.

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I will be in Leica Mayfair in London in a few hours to make my disappointment known and see whether, face to face, we can work out the resolution I sought in vain with Germany: an M240 goodwill part-exchange.

 

I cannot understand why this desired outcome, which is absolutely in Leica's interest and was unambiguously requested, was refused. I must say that being right where I began more than two weeks ago, and having encountered what seems like wilful obfuscation by Leica Germany (one way or the other: either failing to clean the sensor, or recognise the problem, or act on their promise) I am fairly fed up.

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As reported before my M9 went to Wetzlar two weeks ago with suspected corrosion. Leica's response was: "During our test we did not find a problem with the sensor. The sensor will be cleaned and the camera will be returned back to you."

 

The camera was returned (for free) yesterday.

 

To my surprise and irritation, the suspected de-lamination spots shown on pages 22 and 32 of this thread ARE STILL THERE. This despite my sending them a CD with RAW images and telling them where to look. And despite asking Leica, after their initial response to double-check and confirm.

 

I can gather two things from my experience. Either: a) Leica cannot properly clean a sensor (which came back with more dust than before) and identify corrosion; or B) (as suspected by some here) some degree of corrosion is acceptable, and thus "not a problem" that would prompt Leica to meet its published commitment to repair or upgrade.

 

Needless to say, I am very disappointed with this situation.

 

These are the images from today. Please compare with pages 22 and 32 of this thread.

 

Many thanks for your update, much appreciated.

 

Good luck with Leica Mayfair. I'm watching this space with considerable interest!

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Update: thanks to Client Care at Leica Mayfair (especially Jimmy Hughes) the problem has been resolved!

 

The reason for Leica Germany's apparent (mis)diagnosis of my camera's corrosion is still a mystery, but Mayfair have now taken my M9 at a fair price in part-exchange for an M240. (NB: Mayfair took no view of its own on whether there was in fact corrosion).

 

For me this was a reasonable outcome, handled by Jimmy Hughes with exemplary sympathy and open-mindedness, and more than making up for the completely unhelpful response from Wetzlar. Perhaps Wetzlar CS staff should be sent for apprenticeship at Bruton Place?

 

To be slightly more constructive, the lack of even a tracking number for my camera as it returned from Germany (I had to telephone - twice - to find it out), was almost like dealing with a novice eBay seller. Likewise, if a customer asks for confirmation or explanation of a test, they really should go further than merely re-stating things. Even if they are overworked, there are few excuses for this sort of thing.

 

What counts, however, is that Leica UK has resolved the issue, for which I am grateful to them.

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And don't forget the firmware … for both the MM and the M9/ME.

 

And once the upgrade is available - EVERYONE will expect it - regardless of whether or not their watches shows signs of the dreaded sensor lurgy.

 

dunk

 

I will wait until the existing sensor shows problems before having mine replaced. The S8612 glass appears to be the best available in terms of passing visible light and absorbing IR. Quite possible that some climates and user habits will leave that glass intact for a very long time.

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I will wait until the existing sensor shows problems before having mine replaced. The S8612 glass appears to be the best available in terms of passing visible light and absorbing IR. Quite possible that some climates and user habits will leave that glass intact for a very long time.

 

Ditto ....... a lot of the posts regarding this are alarmist and not terribly logical in terms of sensible action .......

 

....... My MM is unaffected ..... but has had a couple of stuck pixels which are visible occasionally in shadows ..... and to be honest the problems that result in terms of PP are so minimal that I can't be bothered with sending it to Wetzlar to get them mapped out ....

 

..... and the same goes for dust on the sensor .... only the most anally retentive will clean till nothing is visible at f16 ....... most sane people will do it when the spots are big enough, numerous enough and visible in normal photos.

 

If I ever get corrosion I will send my camera in when it becomes a practical problem with regard to the images taken with the camera .... :rolleyes:

 

I am happy that Leica will replace the sensor... if and when this occurs ...... and for me that's more than enough for me to ignore the problem and just take photos .... rather than regularly obsessively analysing 1:1 high contrast images of white walls at f16 ..... :o

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wow. Took a few hours to read through the 1000+ posts on this thread. I've been aware of the CCD corrosion issue for awhile, of course - it would be hard to miss - but didn't do a deep-dive until this week.

 

Like everyone else, I'm glad Leica is doing the right thing. Especially as the owner of both an M9 and and MM, of which the MM (my favorite and most-used camera) has exhibited some impossible-to-clean spots. Thank you Stefan, et al.

 

It remains, alas, a little worrisome. Not the integrity of our personal, individual cameras, which now seems assured. But Leica as a whole.

 

It was interesting watching the evolving stance by Leica, starting years ago when the first M9 sensor de-lamination examples emerged - sensors replaced without comment by Solms; thence to charging (sometimes) for long-out-of-warranty cameras; then formalizing that we'll-pay-for-some-you-pay-for-some-policy some weeks ago, albeit a 'policy' quietly and ambiguously hidden deep in a dark corner; finally to the current satisfactory solution.

 

The long thread here is testament to the angst and the outrage of Leica's constituency.

 

What is less clear are the debates and the angst that likely went on within the halls of Wetzlar.

 

I can imagine, with tens of thousands of potentially affected cameras in the field, Leica management were presented with a sliding set of fiscal scenarios... a best case, more likely case, worst case kind of thing. And it wouldn't surprise me if the right-hand-side of those possibilities had the label bankruptcy attached to it.

 

The other choice was to have Leica's customers bear some or all of the pain of the problem. That would have meant, of course, the tarnishing of Leica's reputation and the surrender of much of the goodwill that their customer base brings to the table. I imagine Leica management were presented with different scenarios on sales-forgone, were that path taken. And it would not surprise me if the worst case scenario on that page likewise had that bankruptcy label hovering nearby.

 

It may very well be that the good ship Wetzlar recently sailed between the perils of Scylla and Charybdis, with no good choice at hand. They may still be in those waters.

 

Leica stands at the top of a very short list of companies that I care about, that I would dearly rue were they to be no more. One of the reasons is the continued excellence of the rangefinder platform that I fell in love with long ago. But the second reason is because they are different.

 

One of the interesting observations coming out of the CCD-epoch sensor tragedy was Leica's engineering choice to use the S8612 cover glass from Schott. There were other options available that were nearly as good at passing visible light and absorbing IR and that were less susceptible to surface corrosion. But the S8612 was the very best, even if it came with additional risks.

 

Hedging risk is part and parcel of the playbook of nearly all companies in today's world. And yet Leica has time and again spurned that conservative approach and bet the company, pushing all their chips to the center. They have sought not simply to build products better than their nominal competitors, but to build the very best that technology will allow, to push the boundaries of the possible. That has been their ethos.

 

I hope that's not the final casualty of the M9/MM/ME sensor de-lamination issue...

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  • 4 weeks later...
I am very glad that Leica has chosen to stand behind these digital cameras in this manner. In my opinion it shows very good faith and I do applaud them. But I am also aware that Leica has sometimes made statements they have found it difficult to fulfill.

 

However, my M9 will not be replaced by another digital Leica until it has provided me with at least 10 years of solid service. Leica advertised it as the "digital camera for life" and I took them up on it when I bought their camera. I still have that advertisement. Those were very strong words and if it fails my lawyer and their lawyers will be discussing how to handle their problem.

 

I have no problem sending it to them for service, for cleaning, even for this sensor replacement when it becomes necessary. But they will stand behind their promise.

 

Do you have a picture or something of this advertisement from Leica?

I believe you. I say already a picture of it, but I just can't find it.

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