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Leica M 240 sensor issue/flaw


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12 hours ago, Adam Bonn said:

Leica could so easily have said, tough shit or even you pay the labour, but for a chunk of time it was all done FOC

They could have said that, in fact they did more or less says that to me for a while. Had they said that to all users, I'm not sure what the consequences would have been, but they are not stupid.

TBH I would have been ok if they had said, "we'll pay for the part and you pay for the labour".... as I wrote above, there were many ways this could have been handled to everyones satisfaction.

You have hit the nail on the head with the "chunk of time". Of course there is a time when repairs, exchanges, etc. run out. But they knew that every camera had this hidden flaw, that chunk of time should have been much longer. And if they run out of parts, or if the technicians are overloaded, then offer a decent exchange program, not the pathetic and frankly insulting offer they put on the table.

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Any Leica product may develop an issue over time, that may be attributed to production, shipment handling, user operations etc. That's why Leica has a solid warranty and service cover. Two year warranty backed by quality service.

It is not uncommon for a product to exhibit some issues after 7 years of usage. 

feven0816, you have been communicating with Leica on this service. Best to revert to them on your observations and work on a resolution with them.

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/22/2021 at 2:20 AM, ianman said:

I don’t understand why you would buy four expensive cameras if you think they are a PITA to work with. Not being critical but I really don’t understand the behaviour.

I bought the M8.2 to play with a Leica with a good color image.  Then I discovered they are shaky, so I bought the full-frame M9 because it, too, had the good sensor, if it has been replaced, and was full-frame and supposedly more reliable.  But I heard the siren call of the "sturdier" and more modern M240 with still a pretty good sensor.  And then the second one as a gift for an old friend who has been a photographer for ages but is always financially challenged.  He did not like it and gave it back.  And I have told you this even though it is none of your business how and why I spend my money.  I was going to piss it off on strong drink, wild women and fast cars.  But DMV pulled my license so the cameras were my fallback.   ;o)

My "git-er-done" camera is still my SONY A7M II which is always in focus and always correctly exposed, always.  The 55mm Zeiss is an extremely sharp and color accurate lens and the SONY 24 - 240mm zoom is not too far behind.

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On 5/22/2021 at 6:42 AM, jaapv said:

That is what the trade-in offer is for. And there are third-party repairers. Not a fact, just your opinion.

It may be opinion to you, just opinion, but it is bad business practice to many.  It is further compounded by the fact that Leitz like to primp and prance like God's gift to photography while selling gear with not very good electronics.  They sub it out.  For God's sake, find a better supplier.  And you can continue to deny and obfuscate this but the rest of us are aware of what is written on the "board."  Out on the street we say it is easy to talk the talk but can you walk the walk?  Make of that what you will.  But your continued biased defense of Leitz is starting to look  little silly.  It is hard to consider you unbiased.  But, again, that is "just an opinion."

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On 5/27/2021 at 10:20 AM, martinot said:

I also do not like when vendors limit their repair program. When it is a clear construction fault they (or their suppliers) have made, they should (IMO) not have any time limit for their responsibility.

That reminds me - the Lucas electronics on my TR4 are notoriously unreliable. I should have had free repairs since 1963.🤣

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That was the TR6. Just grotty dynamos - the replacement ones are made in India are much better, burnt-out wiring, dying switches, failing starter motors, nothing out of the ordinary for British cars of the time. Fortunately Triumph used Jaeger for their gauges. They didn't earn the honorific "Prince of Darkness" for nothing...🤔

Contemporary Lucas jokes:

Quote

* The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
* Lucas is the patent holder for the short circuit.
* Lucas - Inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
* Lucas - Inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
* The three position Lucas switch - Dim, Flicker and Off.
* The Original Anti-Theft Device - Lucas Electrics.
* Lucas is an acronym for Loose Unsoldered Connections and Splices

# A friend of mine told everybody he never had any electric problems with his Lucas equipment. Today he lives in the countryside, in a large manor with lots of friendly servants around him an an occasional ice cold shower...
# Back in the 70's, Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which did not suck.
# Q: Why do the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes their refrigerators
# Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone.Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb. Joseph Lucas invented the Short Circuit.
# Recommended procedure before taking on a repair of Lucas equipment: Check the position of the stars,kill a chicken and walk three times clockwise around your car chanting:" Oh mighty Prince of Darkness protect your unworthy servant.."
 

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 7/24/2021 at 4:25 PM, jaapv said:

That reminds me - the Lucas electronics on my TR4 are notoriously unreliable. I should have had free repairs since 1963.🤣

Is it just your example due to normal age and wear, or is it due to a known faulty construction?

 

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On 5/27/2021 at 10:30 AM, rramesh said:

Any Leica product may develop an issue over time, that may be attributed to production, shipment handling, user operations etc. That's why Leica has a solid warranty and service cover. Two year warranty backed by quality service.

It is not uncommon for a product to exhibit some issues after 7 years of usage. 

I do not think two years is exceptionally generous. Many cars have 5 or 8 years of warranty. 

By law we have a three year right to claim repair if the error is due to a manufature iduced faulty product.

 

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3 hours ago, martinot said:

Is it just your example due to normal age and wear, or is it due to a known faulty construction?

 

At the time the Lucas Company was nicknamed "Prince of Darkness" which tells us enough about the reliability. Long ago, on my Spitfire 1500 (nasty car, quite unlike the earlier ones) three dynamos lasted 18.000 km. on average. I. replaced it by a French Ford one which happened to fit and it never broke down again. 

Contemporary Lucas jokes:

Quote

* The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
* Lucas is the patent holder for the short circuit.
* Lucas - Inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
* Lucas - Inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
* The three position Lucas switch - Dim, Flicker and Off.
* The Original Anti-Theft Device - Lucas Electrics.
* Lucas is an acronym for Loose Unsoldered Connections and Splices

# A friend of mine told everybody he never had any electric problems with his Lucas equipment. Today he lives in the countryside, in a large manor with lots of friendly servants around him an an occasional ice cold shower...
# Back in the 70's, Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which did not suck.
# Q: Why do the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes their refrigerators
# Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone.Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb. Joseph Lucas invented the Short Circuit.
# Recommended procedure before taking on a repair of Lucas equipment: Check the position of the stars,kill a chicken and walk three times clockwise around your car chanting:" Oh mighty Prince of Darkness protect your unworthy servant.."
 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/21/2021 at 2:11 AM, jaapv said:

I don't think it is a blind spot. See my many posts criticizing where Leica dropped the ball. My take is that I do not extrapolate one single failure to take down tens of thousands of flawless cameras. 

Yes - NJ went through a bad patch - but I understand it is running fine now - Yes, we all know the M9 saga, but Leica came through with a more than acceptable solution after the heat was turned on in this forum - including me, BTW- 

As for your assertion that you take a DSLR for reliability? I have been taking Leicas into harsh conditions since 1988. The only time I was unable to take the photographs I wanted was when a city bus ran over my M4 in Pretoria. Oh - and when the OIS failed on my Canon 300 in the middle of the bush. I find it very silly to regard Leica as playthings for fumbling amateurs when they obviously are not. And even then - horses for courses - Even if I see people carrying huge DSLRs for travel, street and reportage, they are not the tools of first choice, nor is the Leica M made for motor sports or long-range wildlife, even if some use them that way. The most reliable image taking machine you should take into harsh conditions is the iPhone 12 Pro, not a full camera at all.

 

This is such an old thread I somewhat regret picking it up again.  But not entirely.  I expect more from Leica.  They are comfortable wearing the mantle of being the best.  There are armies of acolytes who limn their perfection.  Some wear a red Leica dot like a Hindu tilaka on their foreheads.  For that kind of devotion I expect results to be what the reputation infers.  I expect perfection or at least near perfection.  I do not expect a bunch of shaky evidence put forward that electronics fail after four years or anything similar.  This is a Leica, it is supposed to be the best so just be the best an stop whining about electronic failures.  I have a Sony DSC-S70 from 1999 that works just fine, thank you.  I have other old cameras, electronic, that work just fine, zero failure.  Do they fail more than Leica?  They may.  But to have the drengle with shoddy electronics in two cameras, the M8/8.2 and M9 is not the mark of excellence nor the mark of a manufacturer who has shopped for the best components nor learned from previous, then recent glaring failures.  This is shoddy.  It really is.  And I guess the ass-whipping got their Teutonic attention back there in Wetzlar as I understand that they fail now no more than Japanese cameras.  Sort of good, I guess. 

I've got four old Leicas.  An M8.2, an M9 and two M240's.  The CCD cameras have that lovely almost holographic image description that the Kodak-made sensor for Leica has.  The M8.2 is quite delightful.  But for me it is a tool, not a lifestyle.  I enjoy using them.  I enjoy the results.  They render dark scenes better than my Sony A7M III.  Dark scenes look dark, artistically so.  And as I have said, I love the M8,2 color and almost holographic image.  What also makes me happy is that I have just given up worrying about when they will break and use them and treat them kindly.  What's really funny is that my Pentax Q-S1 with its 12 megapixel pinky fingernail sized sensor is a close second to the M8.2 in color and image definition.  Pentax tuned that BSI-CMOS sensor really well.

As always, YMMV.  Have a great day.  I am.  And please do not brand me as anti-German, we are from Germany, Berlin.  Tschüß.

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15 minutes ago, boojum said:

shoddy electronics

I didn't find those - I found Leica struggling with an unique situation - integrating present-day (electronic) technology into a fifty-year old technology and a ninety-year old lens system. Succeeding was brilliant- but not without teething troubles. No other camera maker attempted this feat and Zeiss freely admitted they couldn't - and bowed out of the race. Before anybody brands me as a fanboy - check my latest images ;) 

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  • 2 weeks later...
I faced a similar problem with my m240.
Have about 20 pixels stuck all over the sensor and a thin white horizontal stripe at the top.
I was going to contact the official service but after this topic I'm not sure anymore what i should to do (
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Ok - somebody is going to buy your broken camera, have Leica fix it, pay them  a moderately unreasonably high sum for the repair, assuming Leica charges them -they have been known not to for sensor mapping- and sell the  camera for. 3000$ .

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/21/2021 at 11:57 AM, Paco said:

Consumer electronics has a life around 4 years. Likely this is why Leica provides a two-year warranty. Leica offers repair support (so far they have repairing parts). 

My guess is that you got a custom firmware for your camera where the defect line is avoided in the DNGs and JPEGs. As the sensor is not replaced, your camera sensor will continue to die.  

I understand, that we pay a lot of money for a Leica camera and we want that it works fine for 20 years. A pity, but this is not the case. M lenses can work fine (with some care) for more than 50 years, but not electronics. Anyway, that an average Leica M (digital) can work fine ten years is amazing. My Leica M has 8 years, it has no problems, but I know that one day it will not work anymore...    

To me Leica M9 and M Type 240 camera sensors are like the hard drive in a laptop,  eventual failure is expected even though the rest of the camera may be good for 20 years. The good thing about hard drives is they are relatively easy to replace (Apple not withstanding with recent designs to thwart HD replacement!) insert a new one and off you go. Leica running out of M9 and 240 sensors for replacement when they were very aware of the corrosion problem is disconcerting to say the least especially as the same sensor was used in 2 cameras. I have no idea what percentage of those sensors failed. But now that Leica has run out of replacement sensors I personally will avoid the M9 and the ME 220. I currently have an M8 I bought used and am very happy with it. But when I can afford a used upgrade it will probably be an M type 240 or an M10. I'm just a sucker for how much I enjoy using these cameras. 

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