Do all M9 Original Sensors Fail?

[roofus]

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I am thinking of selling my very lightly used M9. It has the original sensor. The sensor has never given me any problems and as a result I have never replaced it. 

I took some photos the other day and I could not see any flaws. 

What should I be looking for as trouble? Someone told me problems usually being in the top-left of the image.

Any advice or comments appreciated!

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by roofus
spelling

[ianman]

I presume you are asking about the corrosion issue?

All original sensor are subject to corrosion. It may have occurred quickly (I had spots I could not remove as early as 2012), it may occur in the distant futur, it may never occur if you are lucky.

I've not heard about the top-left having any particular importance. As to what to look for, there are plenty of examples posted on this forum. This one just a couple of days ago:

Somewhere I have a picture sent to me at the time by Leica CS. I'll see if I an find it and post it here.

 

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[roofus]

Thank you for you reply. I am indeed talking corrosion. The amount of information in the forum is overwhelming because it is such a big issue.

Based upon pervious posts, I have taken a few photos of subjects with a plain uniform background (cloudless sky, etc) and have not found any flaws/artifacts so far. I will take some more to be sure. It just snowed here yesterday. Would a photo of a clean snowy field be a good test?

Edited February 29, 2020 by roofus
typo

[Stein K S]

Hi

I did all sorts of test with my M9... and concluded along the way that my sensor did not suffer from corrosion. However, when some ¨regular¨ dust made me send it in for cleaning at the local official Leica Store, I soon got the message anyway that it was corroded... the attempt to clean the sensor did provoke or speed up the corrosion according to the store....

[ianman]

Here is an example sent to me by Leica CS in June 2015. This is just an example, apparently the issue manifested in different patterns.

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!

Be aware, as I wrote in my previous post, even if you sensor is clean now, it is unfortunately subject to the issue some time in the future. Buyers will know this, and if they don't, you should make them aware of it. This will of course affect your selling price dramatically.

Edit: looking at this example again, I notice that most of the corrosion is in the top left corner, so you could be right about that. Or it may just be a coincidence.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by ianman

[roofus]

Thanks Again!

[Ko.Fe.]

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Are test phots taken at f16?

[GiorgioNuvolari]

Apparently they all fail... Mine has just developed corrosion after holding out for 14 years... 

[M9reno]

It’s not that they all fail - it’s that they all have a strong *propensity* to fail eventually, so most or all will.

[ianman]

1 hour ago, GiorgioNuvolari said:

Apparently they all fail... Mine has just developed corrosion after holding out for 14 years... 

Sorry to hear that... but you must have been very avant-garde! 

Edited March 3, 2020 by ianman

[GiorgioNuvolari]

4 hours ago, ianman said:

Sorry to hear that... but you must have been very avant-garde! 

@ianman thanks for the correction 🙂 in my frustration I mixed up 2006 with 2012. Alas, it failed on me after 8 years...

[rivi1969]

On 2/29/2020 at 7:17 AM, roofus said:

I am thinking of selling my very lightly used M9. It has the original sensor. The sensor has never given me any problems and as a result I have never replaced it. 

I took some photos the other day and I could not see any flaws. 

What should I be looking for as trouble? Someone told me problems usually being in the top-left of the image.

Any advice or comments appreciated!

 

The trouble would be selling it at a good price. You can expect to get $1200-1500 less than those M9 bodies with the sensor replaced.

[roofus]

That's true. I have to decide whether to replace the sensor and sell,  or drop the price about $1500 and sell as is. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by roofus
typo

[drec]

Infectious rate of Corrvid-09 appears to be 100%... price of vaccine in September 2018 for my M9 was around $1000... I think it’s gone up...

My policy is now to think long and hard before ditching an M9 (I bought and sold 2, and then bought the second one back from the guy I sold it to a year later!).  The colours and look out of camera are unique and hard to replicate.  Yes you can adjust the workflow in LR to get other cameras close but there’s that pop that I get from the M9 that is hard to find in all of these flat images in other cameras...

Not to be presumptuous of you.  These are very trying times!  All the best.

[jaapv]

On 3/3/2020 at 9:49 AM, GiorgioNuvolari said:

Apparently they all fail... Mine has just developed corrosion after holding out for 14 years... 

That is not true, quite a few don't - but it is impossible to predict which...

[jaapv]

On 3/3/2020 at 10:12 PM, roofus said:

That's true. I have to decide whether to replace the sensor and sell,  or drop the price about $1500 and sell as is. 

Leica will not replace a perfectly good sensor.

[roofus]

3 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Leica will not replace a perfectly good sensor.

They won't replace the sensor even if you pay to have it replaced . . . as a preventative measure? . . . .that makes no sense!

[jaapv]

No - because the replacement is still subsidized by Leica for about 50%. If you pay the full 2800 Euro cost they might, but I can imagine that they want to protect their stock of replacement sensors.

[Stealth3kpl]

27 minutes ago, roofus said:

They won't replace the sensor even if you pay to have it replaced . . . as a preventative measure? . . . .that makes no sense!

I think it would be wise to have it done prior to selling to maximise its value. To that end, send it in for a simple CLA which itself will boost the value, and they'll soon tell you if the sensor needs replacing. If it does, get it done.

Pete

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jaapv]

That is a sound plan.