M11 freeze issues [Merged]

[hdmesa]

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10 hours ago, Smogg said:

This did not completely eliminate the problems. Yesterday the camera corrupted the file again and then froze. The damaged file was the first in a series at high speed, the camera clicked the shutter several times after it and froze

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried turning the new dust protection feature off? I also reformatted my card (again) with SD Formatter just in case. I haven’t tried high speed shooting.

[charlesphoto99]

1 hour ago, lct said:

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

Once again, considering cameras 1/10, even 1/20th and 1/30th the cost of a Leica M11 format cards faultlessly in camera, there should be absolutely zero reason to have to turn to a third party software program. It's patently ridiculous. It was one thing to have to do battery resets with my M8, the first of a generation, totally another to do it with a body almost 20 years on and in its fifth or so generation. Leica need to figure this out before moving on to the M12, which is inevitably coming as they shill M11 variants. 

It would be interesting to hear from a user(s) if they essentially set up their M11 like it was an M6 and if they still have issues i.e. no profiles, high speed shooting, lens recognition off, EVF off, auto this or that off etc etc. Just bare bones manual aperture shutter speed and iso to see if they still have these freezing, lost DNG issues. IMO it's a race condition, either due to faulty firmware, hardware, or a combo. Some may experience it, some may not, but it's there. 

[lct]

Just now, charlesphoto99 said:

Once again, considering cameras 1/10, even 1/20th and 1/30th the cost of a Leica M11 format cards faultlessly in camera, there should be absolutely zero reason to have to turn to a third party software program. It's patently ridiculous. [...]

If it works it is patently 😉 good enough for me the same way as it did on all my cameras in 10+ years.

[lldd]

I also wonder if these issues will in the long run reduce the value of M11s in the resale market.  Who wants to take the risk of buying a used camera only to find out that it is defective.  I've seen a few used ones on sale, and although the price is attractive, the risk to reward ratio makes it a non-starter.

[Smogg]

1 hour ago, hdmesa said:

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried turning the new dust protection feature off? I also reformatted my card (again) with SD Formatter just in case. I haven’t tried high speed shooting.

I haven't experimented with different dust protection settings, but I did shoot on the internal memory without using liveview.

Edited March 29, 2024 by Smogg

[Smogg]

36 minutes ago, lldd said:

I also wonder if these issues will in the long run reduce the value of M11s in the resale market.  Who wants to take the risk of buying a used camera only to find out that it is defective.  I've seen a few used ones on sale, and although the price is attractive, the risk to reward ratio makes it a non-starter.

I think that in the future market the firmware version will be important. For example, I would, without hesitation, exchange any of my 2 M11s with firmware 2.0.2 for an M11 with firmware 1.6.1 with an additional payment of €500

[gtownby]

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3 hours ago, jeri said:

Unfortunately my camera started to develop freezing symptoms. It's happened to me at least four times in the last three weeks. The phenomenon occurs when viewing photos that have just been taken. Of course removing the camera battery from its place solves the problem. By the way, my default camera setting is screen completely off. Also, the bluetooth and wi-fi are also turned off.

In the meantime, and after I had no complaints during the year and a half that I had the camera in my possession - except for two times when the camera froze, and the information that was stored on the memory card went Kaput (although luckily I was able to recover the lost photos again) - I reformatted the memory card as usual, and in addition I also formatted the camera .

By the way, the memory card is the 'Kingston Canvas React Plus SDXC UHS-II U3 V60 HD/4K' and it resides in the camera, from the first day it was received.

I might add and hope that 17 years from now, my Leica M11 will be as faultless as my legendary mother Leica M8 is today.

 

Thanks for mentioning the M8. I was a Leica wannabe when it was released and I watched the IR issue unfold in real time by monitoring the bulletin boards back then. (It started with one guy who took photos at a wedding and the men’s tuxedos looked purple.) It didn’t take long for Leica to recognize the problem and come up with a solution: give everyone some IR cut filters in different sizes. I ended up buying the M8 (with my free filters).

[jeri]

4 hours ago, lct said:

 

 

4 hours ago, lct said:

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

Certainly, SD Memory Card Formatter is an integral part of my work routine.

Edited March 29, 2024 by jeri

[jeri]

56 minutes ago, gtownby said:

Thanks for mentioning the M8. I was a Leica wannabe when it was released and I watched the IR issue unfold in real time by monitoring the bulletin boards back then. (It started with one guy who took photos at a wedding and the men’s tuxedos looked purple.) It didn’t take long for Leica to recognize the problem and come up with a solution: give everyone some IR cut filters in different sizes. I ended up buying the M8 (with my free filters).

The IR issue in the Leica M8 cameras has never been a problem for me, since most of my photography work with it was in black and white, where the disadvantage became an advantage. My lack of color photographs with the M8 was not a problem either, as I am equipped with the appropriate filters, which I sometimes don't need either.

[charlesphoto99]

54 minutes ago, jeri said:

 

Certainly, SD Memory Card Formatter is an integral part of my work routine.

But it's not an integral part of, say, people shooting a Canon Elph, so why should it have to be an integral part of using a $10k Leica body? Nothing more than a feel good crutch that may or may not have an effect due to anecdotal experience.  

[Smogg]

25 minutes ago, charlesphoto99 said:

But it's not an integral part of, say, people shooting a Canon Elph, so why should it have to be an integral part of using a $10k Leica body? Nothing more than a feel good crutch that may or may not have an effect due to anecdotal experience.  

We have no choice. Nobody except Leica produces rangefinders, there is no competition, so we have to pay an extremely high price and get the quality they give, whether we like it or not.

 

Curious, do their watches work normally?😂

Edited March 29, 2024 by Smogg

[jeri]

37 minutes ago, charlesphoto99 said:

But it's not an integral part of, say, people shooting a Canon Elph, so why should it have to be an integral part of using a $10k Leica body? Nothing more than a feel good crutch that may or may not have an effect due to anecdotal experience.  

That's a good question you asked. In reality, after being burned in the past as a result of crashing SD type memory cards in other DSLR cameras, I adopted the SD Memory Card Formatter software, with which I format my memory cards.
Another thing and from many years of experience (since the days of the original Nikon D1), I can tell you that SD type cards cannot be compared to the stability and durability of CF cards, although they are not immune either.

*My opinion on the matter in question is that no camera that a person buys with the best of his money, should suffer from such malfunctions.

[IkarusJohn]

4 hours ago, lct said:

If it works it is patently 😉 good enough for me the same way as it did on all my cameras in 10+ years.

So there isn’t a problem?

It’s not a case of everyone having to set up their M11 cameras and using them like you do - the issue is using the camera and features it offers.

[Big John]

3 hours ago, lldd said:

I also wonder if these issues will in the long run reduce the value of M11s in the resale market.  Who wants to take the risk of buying a used camera only to find out that it is defective.  I've seen a few used ones on sale, and although the price is attractive, the risk to reward ratio makes it a non-starter.

Unless there is a substantive solution which unequivocally addresses the issue, I can see the M11 being a model that will be shirked in the future as the ‘problem’ M. 

[Smogg]

10 minutes ago, Big John said:

Unless there is a substantive solution which unequivocally addresses the issue, I can see the M11 being a model that will be shirked in the future as the ‘problem’ M. 

There was an M240 camera, there will be M1.6.1 and M2.0.2 cameras

[lct]

23 minutes ago, IkarusJohn said:

[...] It’s not a case of everyone having to set up their M11 cameras and using them like you do - the issue is using the camera and features it offers.

My point is to use SD Card Formatter to prevent such issues. Did work for me on all my cameras including the M11. Nobody has to use it. Just a tip i suggest and i've been suggesting since 2014 on the M240. Made me save 2 secs on startup times then and i got no freeze issues either.

[Edax]

6 hours ago, lct said:

Did you try SD Memory Card Formatter? Works fine to format my Sandisk and Sony cards on Leica, Panasonic, Ricoh, Sigma, and Sony cameras but i have no experience with Kingston cards sorry. SD Card Formatter is free though so there is no harm to try it.

SD Memory Card Formatter (or SD Card Formatter as called once installed) is a good tool. But it is not the Golden Hammer we think it is. A better name would IMHO have been "SD Memory Card Initialiser". Why? Because it does more things than simply format the volume on the card. Next to that formatting, it also partitions the card by preparing an MBR (Master Boot Record) on the card, as required by the SD card standard. In short, it initialises the card like new. This re-partitioning is only needed when the card has been re-partitioned with another scheme, like GUID Partition Map or Apple Partition Map, or in the IMHO rare case that the MBR has been damaged.

Just formatting a card with SD Memory Card Formatter, put it in the camera and start shooting: not a problem with M10(-R) and M's from earlier generations. But with the M11, depending on your workflow, you might run into problems due to how the M11 2.0.2 FW works. For the M11, best practice  is to format the card in the camera. The SD Memory Card Formatter step is normally not needed.

If I may guess your workflow @lct, shoot on IN and copy the files in camera from IN to  SD card which is only formatted by SD Memory Card Formatter; you will not encounter any problems and you will understandably be very happy with this camera.

Edited March 29, 2024 by Edax

[lct]

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Edited March 29, 2024 by lct

[TeleElmar135mm]

vor 14 Minuten schrieb Al Brown:

Hasselblad is HAND assembled in Sweden and Leica is HAND assembled in Wetzlar, but both most likely have the same grand total of Chinese parts inside. Yup yup.

... and use a red HAND made scarf to avoid freezing

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[lct]

26 minutes ago, Edax said:

If I may guess your workflow @lct, shoot on IN and copy the files in camera from IN to  SD card which is only formatted by SD Memory Card Formatter; you will not encounter any problems and you will understandably be very happy with this camera.

This is what i do usually thank you so if your point is that i'm 100% right, i agree 100% with you 😄