M10 shutter slow above 1/1000

[Francis L]

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I'm a relatively new Leica shooter, and I've been shooting with the M10 for about 6 months now. At first I thought it was my technique, but after some experimentation, I think there's an issue with my camera and wanted to check with this forum to see what you thought. I'm going to contact Leica as well but I expect delayed replies. 

When shooting at 1/1000 or slower, I can rely on metering for a well-exposed shot. However, anything above that and it will always overexpose, like the shutter is opening for longer than indicated. I verified this by setting up a properly exposed shot at f8 at 1/1000 (ISO 200). Then I opened the aperture one stop (f5.6) and increased the shutter speed one stop (1/2000). The photo was slightly overexposed about 1-2 stops. Then I did the same another stop at f/4 and 1/4000, and the photo was drastically overexposed, about 2-3 stops. It seems to me like the shutter actually isn't going faster than 1/1000 no matter what I set it to.

As I understand, after 1/250, the shutter operates at the same speed, just the opening is narrower, so it's hard for me to believe that something like this could be faulty or out of calibration, but I don't know what else to think. 

At the end of the day, I'm going to check with Leica and probably send it for repair, but I wanted to see if anyone else has this issue or if it's operator error.

Thanks!

[jaapv]

Check your ISO settings. Is Auto-ISO messing things up?

[Francis L]

I don't use auto ISO, I just keep it locked to 200 or 400. Also I've tried it on a few Leica lenses to rule out lenses as part of the issue. 

[Mikep996]

As they would say in the scientific world, "Sounds like the camera is broken."   

Shipping to Leica/a Leica repair shop sounds like a necessity...

[250swb]

I think I'd first try resetting the camera before bothering Leica or wrapping it up in a parcel.

[FMB]

1 - In "A" mode let the camera to select the speed every time you change the aperture, if the exposure remains correct that means you have intermediate speed values you did not take in account changing full speed values.

2 - Depending on the metering zone you are using, unless it were matricial or multizone, every time you change the aperture also changes the focusing (or blurring) of the image that may be hiding or showing more or less brilliant surfaces.

I don't know if these two points  will be considered as a silly explanation but I think many times we don't expect all of what camera sees.

Francisco.

[adan]

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Have you checked the picture info to see what shutter speed is recorded as actually used for the overexposed shots? Just press the INFO button while reviewing the pictures in the camera, to get the overlay of shutter speed, ISO, lens used etc. etc.

It is certainly possible that there is an electromechanical problem with the shutter dial (I assume for the tests you manually set the dial to 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000).

With today's shutter dials, the visible dial is the only thing that is nominally "mechanical;" once below the top plate and inside the camera. the connections are all scrubbing resistors and electronic signals. Or even magnets - I saw a post recently that the M10 ISO dial uses a tiny magnet to signal the camera how it is positioned. And the M10 ISO dial has been known to malfunction (gets stuck at one ISO no matter how the dial is set).

Possibly the dial's electronics simply fail to send any signal for a speed higher than 1/1000, regardless of how you set it.

A control-test would be to do the same experiment of changing apertures, but with the shutter set to "A". Where the CPU will pick the shutter speed instead of the dial.

If you get correct brightnesses (and those show up in the file data correctly as 1/2000 or 1/4000) when the CPU setting the shutter speed by itself, then the problem is not with the shutter as such, but just a dial malfunction.

[Francis L]

A lot of good content here, but I will say that I've definitively ensured that the test was exact. The EXIF data records the same speed/aperture I set manually. I've also used auto settings to check if the scene metered differently due to the change in aperture. I've also tried different scenes. In short, I was very scientific about testing this. I think the reality is sinking in that "the camera is broken" and I'll have to get it serviced. 😭

[a.noctilux]

Hello Francis,

had you tried what Steve 250swb suggested, "reset" to factory state ?

Then redo your scientific tests of the shutter.

If not, I'd do that reset, as many times with digital M that I have/had, some strange behaviors were cured (but not all).

[Francis L]

I did perform a reset, but that didn't solve the issue, unfortunately.

[Francis L]

Update: I took it to a Leica store, and they confirmed that it was indeed a defect, and are sending it back to Leica for repair. They said it was extremely uncommon.