Jump to content

M8 Freezes in Desert


lenjh

Recommended Posts

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I had an interesting experience in the desert outside of Brawley/El Centro, Imperial County CA Sunday. I was photographing an accident scene. It was about 102 degree F and I was out for about 2 hours walking up and down the highway (near heat stroke, anther story). I hit play to check my images and the screen locked up and I could not get back to menu, play or shooting mode. I ended up taking the battery out and putting it back in. Fortunately, my images were still there. A few minutes prior to that I tried to take an picture and the shutter release was unresponsive. I turned the camera off and on and that seemed to fix the problem. I was using a Lexar Pro 2gb card. Never had a problem with this card before.

 

Anyone else had such an experience either from heat or just locking up in general. I suspect the heat, my cell hone was so hot I couldn't even touch it.

 

Leonardo

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Replies 46
  • Created
  • Last Reply

LFI 4/2007 has a report by Dan Suskin who toured the Namib Desert, the oldest, hottest and driest desert in the world, with two M8 each with a Tri-Elmar. Everything worked smoothly and the pictures prove it. So it should not have been the desert conditions as such.

 

The old man from the Age of White Christmases

Link to post
Share on other sites

These things also happen under more normal weather-conditions. I don't think it's the heat.

 

Agree. I've had several lockups recently with mine (none for the first month, and then maybe 3 or 4 in the past three weeks). This is in Oxford, UK, where the weather conditions are typically British: dull and mediocre, nothing extreme at all (except perhaps the heady atmosphere of academia... is the camera sensitive to that?)

 

Battery yank solves this. I'm also getting occasional black-and-red zebra stripes and my scroll wheel acts in reverse about 30% of the time when reviewing shots (so an attempted zoom-in drags you back to a view of the nine most recent shots). All of which get in the way of a smooth picture-taking experience and detract pretty severely from the sense that you're holding a well-engineered piece of kit (and before anyone flames that, software needs to be engineered too, and is integral in a piece of digital kit – that's what Apple keep getting right).

 

It's been a while since we had a firmware upgrade, and really, these things NEED TO BE NAILED SOON. Come on, Leica.... :mad:

Link to post
Share on other sites

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I was shooting a band the other night. Was standing on the stage. My M8 froze twice...nothing worked...had to remove battery, to get back to normal. VERY annoying! And embarrasing, when standing with a bunch of clients.....!!!

Also get the multiple pictures, when trying to zoom in very often....

 

I REALLY hope that Leica wil fix this FAST!!!!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Agree. I've had several lockups recently with mine (none for the first month, and then maybe 3 or 4 in the past three weeks). This is in Oxford, UK, where the weather conditions are typically British: dull and mediocre, nothing extreme at all (except perhaps the heady atmosphere of academia... is the camera sensitive to that?)

 

Battery yank solves this. I'm also getting occasional black-and-red zebra stripes and my scroll wheel acts in reverse about 30% of the time when reviewing shots (so an attempted zoom-in drags you back to a view of the nine most recent shots). All of which get in the way of a smooth picture-taking experience and detract pretty severely from the sense that you're holding a well-engineered piece of kit (and before anyone flames that, software needs to be engineered too, and is integral in a piece of digital kit – that's what Apple keep getting right).

 

It's been a while since we had a firmware upgrade, and really, these things NEED TO BE NAILED SOON. Come on, Leica.... :mad:

 

 

And on the top of all that Leica increases the price of 600 € at the end of the month...

 

It sounds to me more reasonable to me to correct all these bugs with a good firmware before increasing the price, doen't it?

.

Link to post
Share on other sites

And on the top of all that Leica increases the price of 600 € at the end of the month...

 

It sounds to me more reasonable to me to correct all these bugs with a good firmware before increasing the price, doen't it?

.

 

You guys are getting off lightly. It's the equivalent of a 716 Euro increase for us here in Japan. That's 20%.

 

But, and I'm not resorting to logic here, just my gut: I have to agree with Manuel on this one. Although I love the camera and would buy a second body in an instant if I was sufficiently liquid (or had drunk sufficient liquid of the right type :) ), it would be nice if the system was a little more "finished" before they dropped a 20% price-hike bomb on us.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Had to reset mine at a wedding last Saturday. Second time on this body I believe (first body was doing all the time before being replaced). Fortunately it only takes a second. I just think the processor gets scrambled on occasion and needs rebooting, just like we've all had to unplug our computers, modems, etc before. It shouldn't have to be this way but I think Leica's expertise doesn't lay in electronics (never has). Too bad. Yeah, they really need a firmware update, but these things take time. Heck, the price increase could be to pay for extra programmers. Lets hope so.

Link to post
Share on other sites

. I just think the processor gets scrambled on occasion and needs rebooting, just like we've all had to unplug our computers, modems, etc before.

 

It seems to happen with all kinds of electronic apparatus containing microchips.

 

My Skoda (VW) car has electric windows. Two buttons on the driver's arm rest, one (RH) for the righthand window, one (LH) for the lefthand window. Early on in my ownership there were a couple of occasions when, just after starting the engine, the buttons decided to swap jobs... :confused:

 

I stopped the engine, restarted, and they went back to the original arrangement. Presumably the in-car computer hadn't booted properly the first time and was sending the wrong signals through the multiplexed wiring.

 

A number of M8 'faults' strike me as being of much the same type.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It seems to happen with all kinds of electronic apparatus containing microchips.

 

My Skoda (VW) car has electric windows. Two buttons on the driver's arm rest, one (RH) for the righthand window, one (LH) for the lefthand window. Early on in my ownership there were a couple of occasions when, just after starting the engine, the buttons decided to swap jobs... :confused:

 

I stopped the engine, restarted, and they went back to the original arrangement. Presumably the in-car computer hadn't booted properly the first time and was sending the wrong signals through the multiplexed wiring.

 

A number of M8 'faults' strike me as being of much the same type.

 

You don't need a Skoda: My Jaguar locks up the boot once in a while and can only be reset by getting in, locking all doors, switching on and off the ignition and getting out again. They have been trying to fix it for three years now....

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guys,

 

These days I've been thinking a lot about buying a second body before the price goes up. Finally I decided not to do it.

 

Why?

 

1.- Are all these problems just firmware problems or are they related to electronics and misconception?

 

2.- In almost 1 year now since the M8 is on the market, I believe that Leica had enough time to produce a firmware to solve these problems if they were really related to firmware.

 

3.- Sensor update, "T2" update, IR issues (came up after the M8 was on the market) make me think there's an engineering/electronics conception problem and Leica is just patching the M8 everytime a new problem comes up.

 

4.- Price increase seems nothing to do with the Euro/Dollar rates. I could understand that Leica will increase the price out of the EU to compensate the currency exchange loss. But when you see in the US the price will go up 500 USD and in the EU 600 Euros (836.937 USD) makes me think that Leica is making a M8 ver.2 which will be available after October 1st.

 

5.- I love the picures I get with my M8. They're sharp, clean, just beautiful... when it works.

 

I can image you, guys, rolling on the floor laughing your asses off with tears in your eyes here if Canon had such problems with one of their cameras. But when this happens with a Leica most of people here seems to be extremely condescendent. Personally, I never had a camera (independently of the quality of the pictures) having so many problems as the M8... and I had a lot!

 

Well, I'll wait a few months before getting a second M8.

.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You don't need a Skoda: My Jaguar locks up the boot once in a while and can only be reset by getting in, locking all doors, switching on and off the ignition and getting out again. They have been trying to fix it for three years now....

Sounds like it is running Windows... :D Restart the program, reboot, reinstall the program, reinstall the drivers, reinstall Windows, ...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...