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M246 captures "blank" images


BjarniM

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Today i experienced for the second time that my Monochrom M246 failed to capture an image.

 

It triggered as usual, it indicates the right shutter time in playback mode but nothing was captured/registered in the image.

 

It's just a blank (read black) unexposed picture. I've tried to google this but did not find anything about this problem, that's why i'm trying here.

 

Nothing was captured in the sensor and it's only a black picture with no data recorded at all.

 

Has anyone in this forum experienced something like this?

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Sometimes you will get something like this when your battery dies before the image can be written on the card from the buffer. It usually also gives you a warning in Lightroom that a file might be damaged. I would say either battery or SD card related problem. It also happens on the M9/MM1 when you take a series of shots, pause for a split second, and continue taking pictures. This is when you can get lock-ups because the camera starts writing to the disc and you start shooting again. This seems to overload the camera's processing and may lead to a corrupt file. I can't speak for the M240/246 on this, but I have a suspicion it might be a similar problem.

Edited by BerndReini
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Leaving aside Pjay's suggestion (which is very possible, using the RF, but not possible, with live view or EVF), I was going to make the point the Bernd makes. You don't get a picture, until it is written, nice and safe, to the SD card.

 

Low battery can be a cause. Not just in the file writing, but in making the shutter fire without either the correct timing (you or the camera ("A") set 1/60, it fires at 1/4000), or even actually opening at all (both blades move together, as a solid wall). There is a chain of electronics, from the shutter to the sensor to the CB to the A/D converter or CPU to the buffer to the card module to the card itself. Any of them can "burp."

 

I think, over the 9.5 years and 60,000 exposures since I started with an M8, I have seen a handful of black frames, and another handful where no picture was written, or it came up as a empty file (would not play back, even on the camera, except as the file number and a "?").

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm an IT- and Electronics engineer myself, so i'm not "blank" or stupid concerning the technology or how things work in the camera.

 

The error has happened while the capacity of the battery was >30%, and it has also happened with different SD-cards. Thanks for your input though.

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had a couple of blank frames myself on the 246.

 

One was had an obvious "lazy shutter" as I'll call it, that sounded very odd. Almost like it took ~half a second for the shutter to reset or something.

The other I cannot explain. Shutter sounded normal.

 

About the best explanation I've gotten, which I think does explain my first blank frame, and maybe my second (though I'm not sure), has to do with taking a picture just at the wrong time after the camera is waking up from sleep.  

 

either way, subscribing to this thread to see if anyone else has any info

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Not a real solution and no guaranty, but I would try a Panasonic Gold 16 Gb. Those are extremely stable cards that provide enhanced memory management, data protection and are fused against power surges.

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Just to make sure: This can happen if you use a card that comes from another camera without formatting.

Yes, i know. That's why i never switch cards between cameras.

 

 

Does the black image file have EXIF data?  Curious.

Yes, all the information is in EXIF-data for the captured "blank" image. Unfortunately i've deleted the two pictures from the first time it happened, so i can't check if EXIF-data was recorded and written to the files that time as well.

 

 

Not a real solution and no guaranty, but I would try a Panasonic Gold 16 Gb. Those are extremely stable cards that provide enhanced memory management, data protection and are fused against power surges.

Thanks for your suggestion, but I've always bought premium quality cards for my cameras.

Edited by BjarniM
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None of the explanations known here so far seem to apply to your problem.

Having excluded all causes which would apply to a working camera or even a partly working camera, I think there remains one cause only: the camera has an intermittent fault. 

 

One last thing I can think of: Is the frame really black or is it only extraordinarily dark? I.e., are all pixel values zeroes?

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I was able to review my 2 blackframe files yesterday.

 

The first is definitely a black frame. The exif showed 1/60s, f9, iso320. 

The shots taken on either side of the blackframe, literally a couple of seconds before and after, came out fine, both 1/350, f4, iso320.

 

The second blackframe I am no longer certain about. I think I may have accidentally tripped the shutter when it was inside my camera bag. The reasoning here is that I can see a small light leak from one edge of the frame and that the frame is showing up in a vertical orientation in lightroom, indicating the accelerometer picked that up as well. That's the orientation my camera is stored. That exif was 1s / ISO10000. Dont remember the calculated fstop.

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I've had black frames with the 246 (and M9, and M240) and the causes were the camera firing inside the bag, so I scratch my head at home and wonder which fabulous picture did the camera screw up only to remember I didn't take a shot between the bookend pictures but the camera was in the bag, and a couple of time with the M246 when the camera was just falling asleep. I should add it is very easy for the camera to be switched on when you put it in a bag if the switch rotates.

 

Steve

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I've just had it today, after upgrading to the new firmware. 

The weird part was that the Liveview was also showing a black screen. Lens wide open, auto speed, auto iso. 

 

What fixed it was stopping the lens down, then opening it up again... Overall very bizarre. 

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That is totally bizarre, as the aperture is in no way connected to the camera... ...

The lens does not have any electrical connections, of course. Still, changing the aperture will, equally of course, allow more or less light into the body which will be registered by both the exposure meter and the sensor. Both changes will be registered by the software in the camera and this, in turn, might cause it to correct any abnormal conditions within the camera.

 

So: yes, the aperture setting can have an influence on the behaviour of the software in the camera. It is "logically" connected.

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It's true that there is a logical connection between the selected aperture and the software but there is no way that changing the aperture back and forth will fix anything that is not working in the camera, it must have been a coincidence.

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