M-D Typ 262 Shutter Lag Issue

[cheeseburger]

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Hello,

I have a M-D (bought second-hand) and it's the perfect camera for me who started out with film back in the 90's. In any case, I don't shoot in continuous mode (single only) and for the first few years, I haven't had any issues but as of late, I've been having shutter lag issues. I would turn on the camera and have to depress the shutter and wait for the camera to "buffer" or whatever it is. There's a blinking red light on the back bottom right of the camera. I have to wait anywhere between 10-20 seconds. After the lag, I can take photos (as many as I'd like) but once I stop shooting and regardless if I turn the camera back off or leave it on, after maybe 10-20 mins, when I depress the shutter again, there's the same lag.

I initially thought it had to do with the SD card so I bought new SD cards with very high read/write speeds. But it doesn't seem to help. I'm not sure what else it could be unless it's some sort of degradation and there's not a whole lot of information out there on M-D. Most shutter lag posts have been about Leica's with back screens that the user can change options, update software or shooting in C-mode (none of which applies to me).

Help?

Thanks.

[pippy]

Hello, cheeseburger, and welcome to the Forum.

This is not something I've ever read about previously concerning the M-D and am, therefore, curious to have read about it and will look forward to this thread as it progresses.

In my own case I have always used the same card with the camera (nothing remotely fancy; just a bog-standard Sandisk Extreme 32Gb) and, if possible, ensure the 'dead' DNG files are wiped before the card becomes half-full just in case this helps in the 'allocation of space' within the card as I've absolutely no idea of how the software records information.

My camera works in the way as one would hope regardless of whether newly switched-on or awoken from 'sleep' so, unfortunately, have nothing to add which might help you. You might try to reinstall software just in case but apart from that?....

Best of luck and hopefully someone here might have experienced this issue previously and can point you in the right direction.

Philip.

[Datsch]

Hello @cheeseburger I have not had this issue with my M-D nor have I heard of it before. When I turn on the camera there I get a wait of a second or two; perhaps you have a rather large card and this booting up time is long because the whole card has to be scanned -- ie it is a reading issue rather than a writing or buffering issue?

Like @pippy I too use a SanDisk Extreme 32GB which is rated 90MB/s. That may be quite small and slow by today's standards, I don't know, but it seems to suit the M-D quite well,

Thorsten Overgaard says "The SD-card I use in my Leica M-D 262 is the SanDisk 64GB card with a writing speed of 95MB/second, which is the one I recommend for the Leica M 240 as well." Source:  https://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-M60-and-Leica-M-D-262-digital-rangefinder-camera-page-1.html

So I would say try a 64 or 32GB 95MB/s and see how you get on.

Thorsten  goes on to say, "For some reason, the “same” SanDisk card in the 32GB model has a slower startup-time than the 64GB model of the same card (by which I mean the 95MB/sec speed). "

Which means I might try a 64GB myself sometime, although I am in no rush as I have no issues with the speed and startup times that I am getting now.

Good luck and enjoy your M-D!

Edited March 22, 2023 by Datsch

[kivis]

I assume these possible issues hold the same for the M 240?

[Borna]

1 hour ago, kivis said:

I assume these possible issues hold the same for the M 240?

I thought I had this issue, coming from an earlier M-models (M8/M9 shutters). It was very weird shooting experience with the M-P that I acquired. However, when reading the instruction booklet I understood the camera much better.

The issues I had was heavy shutter lag (I thought) and high speed shoot laggning. These was fixed by understanding how shooting in live view mode worked and also not using high iso settings. 

Live view mode gave me headache as in lower shutter speeds 1/30-100 was very slow in the mechanism sound, but was not in photo quality.

[RexGig0]

Something to try: Be sure that the Light Metering Mode is set to “Classic.”

There was a recent discussion, on the Fred Miranda forum, about some kind of lag that a shooter was experiencing. The solution that was found to be correct for the lag, was to set the camera to Classic Metering Mode. 

Edited April 7, 2023 by RexGig0

[M2Pete]

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I do not know if this might add to the discussion but when I first received my M-D there was a fair amount of dust on the sensor. I took it to a reputable Leica certified dealer for a cleaning. I was told their Leica "expert" would handle it. Sadly the guy did not know, or try and research the M-D, regarding shutter lock to clean the sensor on an M-D. He tried to clean it using the B mode speed setting and trying to clean it. Sure enough that just attracted dust and he could not clean it.

My biggest worry from this experience was a damaged shutter and sensor. It went on a holiday to Germany. I was lucky. I was told everything was fine but to NEVER have it serviced by a numb nut claiming to be a Leica "expert" as it can damage the internal electronics.

Do not know if this helps to explain or help but...

[Anthony MD]

My reasoning would be the battery going bad…!