M11 Auto Lens Detection problems.

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

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Hi,

My M11 has until now performed reasonably reliably (apart from the freezing issues which seem to have gone away with firmware updates) since I first got it in January 2022. However, it has now started to have problems with auto lens detection for 6 bit lenses.

When I first turn the camera on, most times it detects the lens. But then very quickly it loses the lens detected and shows 'no lens'. I've checked to see if the lens is mounted correctly, but this doesn't make any difference. Nor does it make any difference if I change to a different 6 bit lens. I also get some weird extra shutter sounds if I take a picture, which sounds like it's taking several images although playback shows only one.

Has anybody else had this problem?  If so, is there a solution or do I need to hand the camera in to Leica?

 

p.s., the camera is running firmware 1.6.1

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[chasdfg]

Funnily enough I just encountered a lens detection problem on my M11 today. It detects several of my 6 bit coded lenses consistently (28cron, 35FLE, 35Apo, 50 Noct f1), but three 6 bit coded lenses it consistently does not register - for those 3 lenses (50apo, 50 noct 0.95 and 75lux), it switches to the profile of my only uncoded lens, the 35lux pre-asph. I've cleaned the IR reader and the 6 bit pits of those 3 lenses. Formatted internal memory. Reset the camera. No luck. I realise the 3 lenses have a 6 bit code which starts with 1xxxxx, while the other 4 don't (i.e. they start with 0xxxxx). Might just be a coincidence. 

Same firmware (latest firmware). Camera was working fine too, aside from maybe 2 freezes in 10 months. Sorry I have no solution though, but I feel your frustration/confusion.

[lct]

20 minutes ago, Patrickfoley@mac.com said:

When I first turn the camera on, most times it detects the lens. But then very quickly it loses the lens detected and shows 'no lens'. [...]

Did you clean both the flange of the lens and the lens mount of the camera? 

[lct]

5 minutes ago, chasdfg said:

for those 3 lenses (50apo, 50 noct 0.95 and 75lux), it switches to the profile of my only uncoded lens, the 35lux pre-asph.

Did you select lens detection auto for your coded lenses? 

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

6 minutes ago, lct said:

Did you clean both the flange of the lens and the lens mount of the camera? 

Yes, I tried that. Didn't make any difference. 

[lct]

10 minutes ago, Patrickfoley@mac.com said:

Yes, I tried that. Didn't make any difference. 

You may wish to do a camera reset and try again.

[Evan-Liu]

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In another thread, the original poster described symptoms such as the M11 lens not being detected and the shutter also having weird behavior. He ended up with the issue after three days of removing the battery.

I don't have an exact solution, but based on the original poster's experience, you might consider trying this.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Evan-Liu

[chasdfg]

6 hours ago, lct said:

Did you select lens detection auto for your coded lenses? 

Yup I did that. 

Will try a battery removal for a few days and see how that goes. No harm anyway. (To OP - didn't mean to hijack your thread. Issues are not identical. If there is miraculously a solution to my issue I'll share)

[LikameLeica]

On 4/24/2023 at 4:19 AM, Patrickfoley@mac.com said:

Hi,

My M11 has until now performed reasonably reliably (apart from the freezing issues which seem to have gone away with firmware updates) since I first got it in January 2022. However, it has now started to have problems with auto lens detection for 6 bit lenses.

When I first turn the camera on, most times it detects the lens. But then very quickly it loses the lens detected and shows 'no lens'. I've checked to see if the lens is mounted correctly, but this doesn't make any difference. Nor does it make any difference if I change to a different 6 bit lens. I also get some weird extra shutter sounds if I take a picture, which sounds like it's taking several images although playback shows only one.

Has anybody else had this problem?  If so, is there a solution or do I need to hand the camera in to Leica?

 

p.s., the camera is running firmware 1.6.1

I have had the same problem with my M11.  It recognizes my 50 summilux black chrome, 35 FLE summilux, 90 sum micron, but it will not recognize my 21 3.4 super elmar.  It does not even let me select the option to manually choose my M lens manually.  I have the same problem with older 1990 model 28 2.8, where I cannot get the camera to let me manually select the M lens.

 

[lct]

2 minutes ago, LikameLeica said:

I have had the same problem with my M11.  It recognizes my 50 summilux black chrome, 35 FLE summilux, 90 sum micron, but it will not recognize my 21 3.4 super elmar.  It does not even let me select the option to manually choose my M lens manually.  I have the same problem with older 1990 model 28 2.8, where I cannot get the camera to let me manually select the M lens.

Lens detection manual is disabled for coded lenses. Now your 21/3.4 is coded i guess, so it should be recognized under lens detection auto. Is your 28/2.8 coded or hand-coded?

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

On 4/23/2023 at 7:59 PM, lct said:

You may wish to do a camera reset and try again.

Tried a reset as you suggested. It worked for a couple of days and I thought the issue was solved. But now the lens detection and shutter problems have come back! I’m sending the camera into Leica. 

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

…and I’ve just received my M11 Monochrom. Hope I haven’t doubled down on a camera model which appears to have some serious reliability issues. Could be a very expensive mistake…

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

Thanks to all for their suggestions. I’ll post again when I know what Leica conclude.

[thighslapper]

Not sure how 6 bit recognition and shutter issues can be connected. I doubt your problem is a firmware issue as it went away and has come back. 

The 6 bit sensor is a fairly crude array of IR lamps and detectors. Alignment is pretty critical and I've had issues with M cameras in the past where the sensor alignment and the locking registration of the lens were just a tiny bit off so the coding wasn't recognised with all ..... or just some lens/camera combinations.  It's also feasible that one of the sensors is on the borderline in terms of QC .... or dying .... and only registers intermittently.

Anyone who has self-coded lenses will soon find out that this mechanism is pretty finicky and capricious. 

The worst case scenario is you return it to Leica and it doesn't misbehave with the lenses they try and is passed as being 'within acceptable parameters'. That's happened to me in the past several times with other M issues. It's one of the many reasons I gave up on digital M's for most of my photography (I still have an M10M for occasional amusement). 

Best of luck !

Edited April 29, 2023 by thighslapper

[lct]

2 hours ago, thighslapper said:

[...] Anyone who has self-coded lenses will soon find out that this mechanism is pretty finicky and capricious. [...]

Was true for me on the M240 but not on the M11 i must say. Curious to see such differences in appreciation of the M11 BTW. I have not had the least freeze issue under FW 1.6.1. personally. Yet i still use both UHS1 and UHS2 SD cards as well as several M lenses, be they coded, hand-coded or uncoded. One of the reasons is maybe that i don't make user errors like selecting lens detection auto for uncoded lenses, I have no idea.

Edited April 29, 2023 by lct

[LikameLeica]

On 4/28/2023 at 8:50 PM, lct said:

Lens detection manual is disabled for coded lenses. Now your 21/3.4 is coded i guess, so it should be recognized under lens detection auto. Is your 28/2.8 coded or hand-coded?

21/3.4 is coded but just not recognized.  The 28/2.8 is not coded, so I would think I could override and manually select the lens however it does not allow to manually select.  I also have a SL2-S and SL2 and they allow me to manually select the lens.

[lct]

14 minutes ago, LikameLeica said:

21/3.4 is coded but just not recognized.  The 28/2.8 is not coded, so I would think I could override and manually select the lens however it does not allow to manually select.

About the 21/3.4, you may wish to clean out any possible dirt from the coding areas of the lens or the camera. Same for the 28/2.8 and you may wish to try the following tip (purely empirical). Select lens detection off, switch the camera off and on, then try to select lens detection manual again. If this doesn't work i fear the camera needs some repair or replacement.

[Patrickfoley@mac.com]

On 4/29/2023 at 9:00 AM, thighslapper said:

Not sure how 6 bit recognition and shutter issues can be connected. I doubt your problem is a firmware issue as it went away and has come back. 

The 6 bit sensor is a fairly crude array of IR lamps and detectors. Alignment is pretty critical and I've had issues with M cameras in the past where the sensor alignment and the locking registration of the lens were just a tiny bit off so the coding wasn't recognised with all ..... or just some lens/camera combinations.  It's also feasible that one of the sensors is on the borderline in terms of QC .... or dying .... and only registers intermittently.

Anyone who has self-coded lenses will soon find out that this mechanism is pretty finicky and capricious. 

The worst case scenario is you return it to Leica and it doesn't misbehave with the lenses they try and is passed as being 'within acceptable parameters'. That's happened to me in the past several times with other M issues. It's one of the many reasons I gave up on digital M's for most of my photography (I still have an M10M for occasional amusement). 

Best of luck !

Thank you! I’ve tried a few lenses and the camera still shows the same problem so hopefully this will also be the case with Leica. Incidentally, I also tried a Voigtlander lens, selecting a lens manually (27mm f/2.0). This experiment showed the same problem - after a couple of shots the camera showed ‘no lens’ and the shutter started firing several times for each image. And then eventually I also lost live view. 

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[ianforber]

So far my experience has been OK but I don’t change lenses very often. I have two lenses (50mm Summicron and Voigtländer 35mm f1.5) I have the lens detection set to Auto and have manually selected a profile for a 35mm Summilux from the M lens menu for the CV lens. When I swap lenses, the camera recognises and swaps profile and doesn’t affect any other aspect of the camera. The only exception was that the first time I swapped back from the 35mm CV lens to the 50mm Summicron it took 2-3 shots before the camera noticed it was a different lens. Hasn’t happened since though. 

Of course, it might be a different experience if I had more than one uncoded lens. 

[la1402]

I also started to have problems today with my SEM21. The camera recognized it first, then I removed the battery to get to the SD card and afterwards it did not recognize the lens anymore. I had not changed lenses in between.