I’ve now had 3 x sl2 bodies fail.

[beewee]

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4 hours ago, Olaf_ZG said:

And this really shows - sadly - that Leica is not the brand for professionals. 
To stay with stereotypes: amateur, dentist and lawyer only.

Any camera can fail, though it service time shows the professionalism of the brand.

Except for Leica, no camera ever failed on me, despite heavy and careless use. A second hand Q was the first camera showing problems, and Leica serviced it very well, without cost, but it took them some time. That said, I would never use a Q as the sole camera on any pro assignment, but a SL would be such choice.

Having been a Leica user for over 10 years and following the product releases closely throughout that time, some observations are worth noting. Some are obvious but others less so.

• Leica’s market share is a lot less than 1% of the total camera market and they simply don’t have the sales volume to support world wide professional after sales support like Canon, Nikon, Sony
• For products that have more units in circulation (i.e. older and legacy products) like M lenses, Leica does have regional service centers that cover large markets like North America. But for everything else, it needs to go to Germany as that’s where they have the tools to service all products, as is the case for new products such as new digital M bodies, and S and SL products.
• Over the years, there’s been quite a few cases were early production units have more issues and Leica often works out the kinks over time to improve reliability of the same product. This is especially true for lenses where Leica may refine manufacturing processes and make engineering changes that are not visible to the customer but do improve the product’s reliability and manufacturability over time. In extreme cases, Leica even went so far to recall products or temporarily stop production to make physical changes to the product (i.e. Leica 21/3.4 M, 50 APO M, etc).
• Although it’s always nice to chase the latest and greatest offerings from Leica, if someone wants reliability, the late production models are often the most reliable because Leica had time to refine the production process and improve reliability. This is not unique to Leica but is pretty standard in all product companies, from cars to cameras and from phones to airplanes. Nothing is prefect in product manufacturing but all successful companies will make improvements overtime and much of this is unnoticeable to the customer.

For someone making a living with a tool, reliability is a very important consideration and, in many cases, may take precedence over absolute performance unless having that edge in performance actually increases profitability for a given business model. After all, most businesses are for-profit, so when buying a camera as a tool for business, such decision should be viewed with some sober considerations for return on investment, and total cost of ownership (which includes downtime and need for backups, servicing, repairs, end of life sale/disposal). If it doesn’t add up, then the camera/system is not suitable for the business and that’s just the cold, sad reality. Despite what our gut and emotions tell us.  

For myself, I don’t shoot for work or business. It’s purely for enjoyment so my decision making process is completely divorced from ROIs and TCOs. A bit like people who like driving sports cars. A delivery business would never run deliveries with a sports car but a delivery business owner may own a sports car as a hobby. The decision making process between the two worlds are totally separate.

Edited April 10, 2022 by beewee

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[nicci78]

6 hours ago, Gavin Cato said:

Short of literally throwing the cameras against a wall I struggle to see how any buttons I press can cause a actual hardware locked up failure. That’s absurd. 
 

The “environment” is weddings. And I’ve used many other cameras with no such issues.

I was a computer engineer before photography and I’m not an idiot with electronics. I would love it if a reason could be found why but at this stage it’s just a lot of conjecture and nothing of any worth from Leica themselves. 
 

Regardless - needing a 4 month turnaround on repair of such an expensive piece of gear is utterly absurd and probably worth leaving the system for just on that point alone. 

 

 

You can only found the culprit once you start looking for it. 
Just change your state of mind for one week. And start being curious and suspicious. 
The cause may surprise you. 
 

I have friend working for Leica after sales in Paris. He is absolutely sorry and desperate about the turnaround time. Wetzlar has many months of backlog due to Covid and parts shortage. 
Nothing they can do to speed up the process. Every hands are already on deck. 
Wetzlar is about 4 months late at least. 

one story from him : a customer were very angry because Leica fixed its M9 four times, including a sensor exchange and a brand new body exchange ! 
Guess what ? The same issue repeated again and again. 
The very last time, he got curious and ask him to show every steps of using its M9. 
Then he showed up it’s old beaten up SD card and insert it inside its brand new M9 !!! Same issue, just due to old SD  

The customer were super sorry. And never thought to change its old accessory. 

 

[nicci78]

I’ve got dozens of similar stories from my time at Apple Store Genius Bar :

- out of spec headphone jacks destroying the port of three different iPhone. All exchanged for free. 
- a guy letting it’s Mac on it’s beer cooler : letting condensation killing its mac. We refuse its warranty claim due to “water damage” sensor trigger. He swear to us that no liquid ever got inside. 
- a guy used to left it iPad behind its windshield during summer. It was indeed toasted. 
- etc… 

Each time a customer came back for the third time. We start investigate. And almost always found the culprit. It was not the hardware 99% of the time. 
 

BTW : I was not a technician. I was a manager. When you ask me to pay three repairs for the same customer. It trigger red light in my hand. I start to ask questions. And reassure them that the repair will be free, whatever they said to me. I just wanted to know the truth and I avoid them to come back again at the bar. 
 

Obviously I am talking about 3x the customer got an email exchange. Not a repair. 3 defective exhange = an automatic exchange for the current model, no matter how old is you product 

Edited April 10, 2022 by nicci78

[Gavin Cato]

Yeah sure guys, I get the point but I'm not someone who is dim when it comes to camera gear, or electronics. I've probably shot somewhere between 1500-2000 weddings across a variety of gear.

I have over a dozen memory cards. It's not the memory card, and even if it was - that would be reason enough to dump the SL2 - a memory card causing 3 x camera hardware failures that can only be fixed by sending the camera back to Germany? That just doesn't compute. As I said earlier a bad memory card could cause corrupt files, camera lockups, but not a fatal hardware fault that renders the camera unusable permanently. I haven't heard from Leica but all 3 cameras look like a shutter failure - the shutter is stuck over the sensor and you can see the camera try and move it out of the way when the camera boots up but it's stuck.

I'm at the stage where I'm not looking for a leica solution now. I have a Canon R5 with a 50/1.2 & 85/1.2 next to me. I'm going to pickup a Sony A1 later today.

I'll still be keeping leica gear (I love the glass) but I'll be changing my setup so I don't need it for weddings. 

Very much appreciate the well intentioned comments about checking things, but as I said earlier 4 month repair times was already pushing my trust of the brand. To add multiple body failures on top of that - I'm done. This is not a knock on leica Australia, who have been lovely. They. cant help the trip to Germany and the long times once there.

I'm going to take a break off the computer for a day or two - I just finished 4 weddings in 4 days and it's time to take a break

cheers

[Mute-on]

Sounds like a very sensible, if unfortunate, solution.  I hope at least one of the Canon and Sony products gives you the results you are after with an efficient process to achieve it. 
It is entirely possible that there is some incompatibility of your usage/shooting style and Leica’s design parameters regarding burst shooting and shutter. It is a real shame, since you get the results you want in all other respects. [Personally I hope the Canon prevails since I started as a Canon shooter for weddings - on film]. 

Good luck!

[lx1713]

Chiming in very late and really sorry about your situation. I'm a Pro but no longer shooting as much events these days because of Covid. So my SL2 and SL2S doesn't have much issues yet but I shoot somewhat similar events. Had the occasional problem but no failures. I think your issue may be electrical.

I'm wondering if you checked how you store your batteries and if the condition of storage might cause perspiration to seep to the contacts and into the batteries. That might cause the power supply to be inconsistent. In very humid conditions perspiration can become an issue. Get a dehumidifier. 

Do you have sweaty palms? A friend's 1DX was damaged because of sweaty palms which soaked through the gaskets. The motherboard was damaged. I have shot the 1D in pouring rain regularly so apparently, rain is fine but sweat isn't.

The hot shoe is also a sweat ingress. If you don't mount a flash then its possible to have that as an issue. If you sling a second body against your body, perspiration may roll into the hot-shoe or collect there. When you use the flash that will be an issue. I think I ran into this when I had the occasional problems.

Are you using a Leica flash or a third party flash? Canon flash which I use is somewhat less finicky but because I haven't deactivated the canon TTL contacts, it does do cranky things to it.

Take care, I hope things get sorted out. I understand your reluctance to leave Leica. They have the loveliest colours and imaging.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by lx1713

[BernardC]

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On 4/9/2022 at 9:44 AM, Jim B said:

It is widely know that their was a design flaw with the power supply, which restricts you from burst shooting even with Leica lenses.

FYI, that was fixed a long time ago. You can read several threads about that here. Dozens of people have shared their experiences.

The problem remains with some adapted Canon EOS lenses. I doubt that Canon will update those lenses for the benefit of a few Leica users.

[hossegor]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb BernardC:

FYI, that was fixed a long time ago. You can read several threads about that here. Dozens of people have shared their experiences.

The problem remains with some adapted Canon EOS lenses. I doubt that Canon will update those lenses for the benefit of a few Leica users.

this problem is not fixed.  i tested it last week with an SL2s, can not shoot bursts with Panasonic lenses below 50% 

[BernardC]

4 minutes ago, hossegor said:

this problem is not fixed.  i tested it last week with an SL2s, can not shoot bursts with Panasonic lenses below 50% 

Interesting. Most people on the relevant threads (in this forum) have reported success after updating the camera firmware and the lens firmware. Are you getting the warning with all Panasonic lenses, or just specific ones? I only have the 20-60 from Panasonic, and a couple of Sigma lenses. None of those have issues, but perhaps some other lenses are still awaiting updates.

[Planetwide]

18 hours ago, Gavin Cato said:

Yeah sure guys, I get the point but I'm not someone who is dim when it comes to camera gear, or electronics. I've probably shot somewhere between 1500-2000 weddings across a variety of gear.

I have over a dozen memory cards. It's not the memory card, and even if it was - that would be reason enough to dump the SL2 - a memory card causing 3 x camera hardware failures that can only be fixed by sending the camera back to Germany? That just doesn't compute. As I said earlier a bad memory card could cause corrupt files, camera lockups, but not a fatal hardware fault that renders the camera unusable permanently. I haven't heard from Leica but all 3 cameras look like a shutter failure - the shutter is stuck over the sensor and you can see the camera try and move it out of the way when the camera boots up but it's stuck.

I'm at the stage where I'm not looking for a leica solution now. I have a Canon R5 with a 50/1.2 & 85/1.2 next to me. I'm going to pickup a Sony A1 later today.

I'll still be keeping leica gear (I love the glass) but I'll be changing my setup so I don't need it for weddings. 

Very much appreciate the well intentioned comments about checking things, but as I said earlier 4 month repair times was already pushing my trust of the brand. To add multiple body failures on top of that - I'm done. This is not a knock on leica Australia, who have been lovely. They. cant help the trip to Germany and the long times once there.

I'm going to take a break off the computer for a day or two - I just finished 4 weddings in 4 days and it's time to take a break

cheers

I Shoot the R5's for my commercial architectural work using TS lenses. They have been reliable, and I have not experienced overheating while shooting stills. Video - yes, but I have two bodies, so it's not really an issue for me. The Canon will give great colour, not as good as the Leica, but close.

[Herr Barnack]

On 4/7/2022 at 4:43 AM, Gavin Cato said:

Some of you might remember earlier I posted that I had a sl2 body fail with the red system error message. Then shortly afterwards my 2nd sl2 body failed. 
 

Because of the very long repair times I bought 2 x sl2-s bodies at considerable expense. So I now own 4 x sl2 bodies. I’m a wedding photographer.
 

Well yesterday Leica messaged me to say the first sl2 body is repaired. Took pretty much exactly 4 months by the time it got sent to Germany. They are posting it to me and I’ll probably get it in a couple of days.

I’m at a wedding today and one of my sl2-s bodies - 4 months old - just failed in the exact same way.

What on earth!!?? I bought into this system knowing the af was not up there with Sony but assuming the hardware at least would be strong and well built.  

I mostly use these cameras in silent mode / electronic shutter outdoors and switch to mechanical shutter indoors. So this body that failed would have hardly any mechanical actuations on it and again is only 4 months old. 

I really don’t know what to do. I love these lenses but can’t stay on the system if they are so ridiculously unreliable. 

 

 

 

 

After having three SL2 bodies die, I would be thinking in terms of trading the SL kit in for an M11 or an M10R and a set of M lenses.  JMHO.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Herr Barnack

[Eclectic Man]

A bit of a long shot, but I was wondering whether you have considered whether the cameras which lock up each have the same lens mounted? If the lens is a common factor then you may need to consider sending that off to Leica for checking.

The other thing you could try with two bodies is shoot all outside shots with one body on ES and then all inside shots with another body on MS and see what happens.

I did have an unfortunate incident with a Canon 5Mk3 and an SD card that could not be accessed (containing several days of holiday snaps), so please reconsider checking different cards.

Good luck.  And do please let us know if you find out the problem.

[charlesphoto99]

1 hour ago, Herr Barnack said:

After having three SL2 bodies die, I would be thinking in terms of trading the SL kit in for an M11 or an M10R and a set of M lenses.  JMHO.

Unless one is super confident and quick with M handling, at all focal lengths, I would not switch to this to do weddings. Better to just go with a different brand of EVF or dslr, even if they don't have the cool design factor of the Leica. I seriously doubt the clients would know the difference in image quality in the final product - they will if the wedding shoot doesn't happen as it should due to mechanical failure, that's for sure!

If a bad card is at fault (which I 100% doubt is the problem) and renders the camera inoperable, then I would definitely be looking elsewhere as a bad card should affect the card only, not the camera. That would be a very serious design flaw. 

[Olaf_ZG]

I agree, would not step in with the M as well, though I would consider Panasonic as one could use the same lenses.

 

[Gavin Cato]

5 hours ago, Eclectic Man said:

A bit of a long shot, but I was wondering whether you have considered whether the cameras which lock up each have the same lens mounted? If the lens is a common factor then you may need to consider sending that off to Leica for checking.

The other thing you could try with two bodies is shoot all outside shots with one body on ES and then all inside shots with another body on MS and see what happens.

Different lenses - I remember when the first body died, it was with the sigma 14-24 - can't remember the 2nd body lens, the 3rd body was only a few days ago so I clearly remember it was the 90/2.

With the ES only / MS test - I'll let leica do that. I agree that would be a good test but it's a test that could potentially take months to find the result of.

 

11 hours ago, lx1713 said:

'm wondering if you checked how you store your batteries and if the condition of storage might cause perspiration to seep to the contacts and into the batteries. That might cause the power supply to be inconsistent. In very humid conditions perspiration can become an issue. Get a dehumidifier. 

Everything is stored in a huge gun safe - no guns, it's just a huge safe as the entire kit is worth a fortune. As far as I know it's decently dry - my passport and other papers etc. are in the same safe and I've never seen anything damp.

6 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

After having three SL2 bodies die, I would be thinking in terms of trading the SL kit in for an M11 or an M10R and a set of M lenses.  JMHO.

I do agree with this but when they work - I really like the SL2. The canon r5 I have sitting here feels like a silly plastic toy with a billion buttons all over it. Nothing wrong with the files from it though.

I'm going to keep a single SL2 for personal use and keep my fave lenses, the 35/2, 50/1.4, 90-280 and sell the rest.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Gavin Cato

[Gavin Cato]

Oh, one other thing The "first" SL2 body I had fail just returned in the post yesterday from Leica which took near exactly 4 months. Quite disappointingly, there was just a little signed slip in it saying it has been inspected and is working. Absolutely zero mention of what the problem was, what parts were used or anything similar.

So I'm still in the dark as to the actual technical reason the camera died. 

[Planetwide]

If you are testing the Canon R5 make sure that you give the 28-70mm F2.0 a test, it is an exceptional lens. 

[Archiver]

On 4/8/2022 at 3:26 AM, LocalHero1953 said:

For the record:

• Leica SL: launched October 2015
• L-mount alliance announced: September 2018
• Panasonic S1: launched March 2019

Panasonic had little or no experience of anything larger than MFT before the S1. The relationship with Leica goes a long way back, but who knows which direction  the IP was flowing within each camera subsystem (or with the SL2).

A few years ago, someone with a software engineering background did an analysis of the X Vario or X113 and discovered code clearly labeled Panasonic in the AF component. This was reported on the X subforum.

At another time - I wish my memory was more clear about this - either Panasonic or Leica announced they would collaborate more on projects, which was very vague. I believe this announcement was made before the X Vario was released, although I could be mistaken.

It's intriguing to note that the bugbear of Panasonic, contrast detection autofocus, is also present in all Leica mirrorless and compact cameras.

Edit: I've found a few posts. @barjohn looked at the EXIF data in X Vario files and found several references to Panasonic_Leica, as seen here:

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/208175-anybody-switched-from-m-to-x-vario-experiences/?do=findComment&comment=2453496

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/208175-anybody-switched-from-m-to-x-vario-experiences/?do=findComment&comment=2453502

 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Archiver

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[Gavin Cato]

27 minutes ago, Planetwide said:

If you are testing the Canon R5 make sure that you give the 28-70mm F2.0 a test, it is an exceptional lens. 

Already ordered 😀

[beewee]

31 minutes ago, Archiver said:

A few years ago, someone with a software engineering background did an analysis of the X Vario or X113 and discovered code clearly labeled Panasonic in the AF component. This was reported on the X subforum.

At another time - I wish my memory was more clear about this - either Panasonic or Leica announced they would collaborate more on projects, which was very vague. I believe this announcement was made before the X Vario was released, although I could be mistaken.

It's intriguing to note that the bugbear of Panasonic, contrast detection autofocus, is also present in all Leica mirrorless and compact cameras.

Edit: I've found a few posts. @barjohn looked at the EXIF data in X Vario files and found several references to Panasonic_Leica, as seen here:

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/208175-anybody-switched-from-m-to-x-vario-experiences/?do=findComment&comment=2453496

https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/208175-anybody-switched-from-m-to-x-vario-experiences/?do=findComment&comment=2453502

 

 

That’s interesting but also not surprising.

I did a quick search for software people from Leica Camera AG on Linkedin and only found 5 embedded developers. I get that not every single employee would be on Linkedin but a project on the scale of 4 major camera systems (S, SL, TL, M) would require a very sizeable team of embedded developers if everything was done in house.

It wouldn’t surprise me if much of the electrical and software design is contracted out to Panasonic and other third parties with Leica’s in-house software development primarily focused on the imaging pipeline and UI and leaving all the other peripheral components like SD card access, USB, charging, WiFi, etc… to their contractors.