Missing images after first shoot with SL3

[Shawn30]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

On 4/16/2024 at 12:34 PM, MG Photo said:

Problem "Solved."  After running some tests with the assistance of Jonoslack's questioning that jolted my brain, I have confirmed that the issue occurs when removing the battery from the camera WITHOUT power down. So if I've shot 300 photos and then Im mid shooting and ask an assistant to swap a battery, the normally hand me a new one and I pop out the current and swap in the new.  Sometimes I forget to power down (and have been working this way my whole career so this isn't anything new) and just swap in the new fully charged battery.  Upon doing this, It was confirmed that files I had shot previously to the battery swap go missing. I've also now been able to see that when reviewing images ONE at a time, there doesn't seem to be any missing. However, when I "zoom out" of the single image review and are looking at a grid of all the photos on my card, the images that are missing are indeed black with an error icon of some kind shown. In addition, this expanded menu seems to be corrupted with a red box outline seemingly out of place and "glitched" out. Check out the pics attached to this post. 

IMG_9366.HEIC 916.93 kB · 20 downloads IMG_9365.HEIC 977.7 kB · 8 downloads

I did pop the battery before the files were tossed. The camera became unresponsive and wouldn’t even power off. Once at 6fps 14 bit af and again 4fps 14 bit af. I haven’t had issues in single shot, so I’m going out on a limb saying it has something to do with AFc. Using a Lexar 128GB 1667x SD V60 XC II 250 MB/s

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Mikko Kankainen]

My case it was all af-s and slow shooting. But a lot of images. Also when I tried at home I took pictures with af-s.

For me the issue is camera has just finished writing images->suspend->battery off.

I bought a battery grip because of this so I can use SL3 more, now I dont have to remove battery. Or only charge one battery, camera is always powered. This is a workaround but of course it does not help if camera freezes. For me it only freezes at startup but it has always rebooted itself. This happens actually quite a lot, user just dont see it if not looking carefully.

[zilver]

 I’ve been missing more than 30 important images from the middle to the shoot. previews were all there at the shoot but the dng/jpg files are now missing when importing the images in Capture one or Lightroom. (I've tried both) 

 it seems that the SL3 has somehow overwritten the files after changing the battery ….The foto’s from the beginning and the end of the shoot are all there.

I switched off the camera when I replaced the battery 

singe shot mode and Im using the Sandisk Extreme pro memory card CFexpress 256gb

[jaapv]

If they were just deleted Rescue Pro should be able to recover them, however that will not work with overwritten files - still worth a try. Note - Rescue Pro can show recovered files with a .tif extension, in that case they need to be changed to .dng to become readable. 

[TeleElmar135mm]

vor 17 Minuten schrieb zilver:

 I’ve been missing more than 30 important images from the middle to the shoot. previews were all there at the shoot but the dng/jpg files are now missing when importing the images in Capture one or Lightroom. (I've tried both) 

 it seems that the SL3 has somehow overwritten the files after changing the battery ….The foto’s from the beginning and the end of the shoot are all there.

I switched off the camera when I replaced the battery 

singe shot mode and Im using the Sandisk Extreme pro memory card CFexpress 256gb

Did you try to import the files with OSX or windows Explorer? Are they shown there? C1/Lightroom or other had sometimes problems importing all files (not camera specific). I hope the best for you. If they are not shown use the jaapv way.

[SrMi]

Has anyone had missing images without changing the battery?

Has anyone had missing images when shooting in single-shot mode?

[Mikko Kankainen]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I always shoot single-shot with Leicas so yes. 

This is starting to sound quite scary for Leica.

[SrMi]

8 minutes ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

I always shoot single-shot with Leicas so yes. 

This is starting to sound quite scary for Leica.

Thanks for the reply.

So it seems that battery change without shutting the camera down can cause image loss, right?

 

[zilver]

39 minutes ago, jaapv said:

If they were just deleted Rescue Pro should be able to recover them, however that will not work with overwritten files - still worth a try. Note - Rescue Pro can show recovered files with a .tif extension, in that case they need to be changed to .dng to become readable. 

Thanks for the reply, 

Ive tried Rescue Pro but the files are overwritten. The DNG timeline is missing 30 minutes as if they never been taken. 

[BernardC]

9 hours ago, Shawn30 said:

I did pop the battery before the files were tossed. The camera became unresponsive and wouldn’t even power off.

That's probably what did it. It sucks, and it's obviously a bug, but you shouldn't pull the battery if you think that the camera is unresponsive. It's better to wait.

3 minutes ago, zilver said:

Ive tried Rescue Pro but the files are overwritten. The DNG timeline is missing 30 minutes as if they never been taken. 

The only thing to do when this happens (when you've removed the battery prior to files being fully saved) is to pull the cards and put-in new ones. The files might still be there (albeit with no directory entries), but they'll be overwritten if you keep shooting.

[Shawn30]

36 minutes ago, BernardC said:

That's probably what did it. It sucks, and it's obviously a bug, but you shouldn't pull the battery if you think that the camera is unresponsive. It's better to wait.

The only thing to do when this happens (when you've removed the battery prior to files being fully saved) is to pull the cards and put-in new ones. The files might still be there (albeit with no directory entries), but they'll be overwritten if you keep shooting.

I respectfully disagree about the files not being fully saved.  Mikko is shooting AFs slowly. 

If anyone at Leica is reviewing this thread. I will say that for me, the camera became extremely laggy when I hit the play button to review. That’s what seemed to cause the lock up.
 

 

[BernardC]

1 hour ago, Shawn30 said:

I respectfully disagree about the files not being fully saved.

I think that the files are saved to the card, but the directory structure isn't updated, which means that the blocks appear to be free. That's why the camera thinks it can overwrite them. There's probably a routine that updates the folder contents when you do a clean shut-down, but in this case the battery was pulled so this routine was never called.

The other way to explain this is that it's a caching issue. The camera keeps the folder structure in-memory, for performance reasons. That usually isn't a problem, except if the power fails (when the battery is pulled). High-end disk controllers also do this, except that they have a small on-board battery that writes any cached data to disk during a power failure.

I'm sure that Leica and Panasonic have figured this out already, but fixing this type of bug still takes time. You don't want to introduce new bugs while fixing old ones. Plus, the bug could be in a third-party memory card controller, or in an application library, or in the main firmware, or at some other layer in the code, or in the interaction between different layers. Each of these layers might have a caching mechanism, and you might not even be aware of them until they fail (especially if it's hardware or third-party libraries).

Long story short: wait for the next firmware update. Until then, make sure the camera is fully shut-down (not just sleeping) before you pull the battery.

[Mikko Kankainen]

And if it freezes take card out and leave battery in? Could it be a better option? But not sure just an idea.

@BernardC explanation makes sense. I can confirm as others that the pictures was written to card but then they are lost. And yes playback is buggy, I dont use it because it's just very laggy. I trust that I got what I wanted to get.

Edited April 23, 2024 by Mikko Kankainen

[fotonutzz]

Initially, I had this issue too.  When I took a series of similar photos, it would "disappear" after reviewing it on the camera. 

While scrolling thru the menu, I stumbled upon a GROUP DISPLAY MODE.  When I turned off the option, all the photos appeared back.  Apparently, the SL3 groups all the similar photos together. 

Fortunately, mine were all intact and not lost. 

Can refer to page 186 of the SL3 manual. 

 

Edited April 24, 2024 by fotonutzz

[Mikko Kankainen]

Yes this is also a weird default setting that I just cannot believe. 
But it is not related to this where camera has lost images from card also. 

[jaapv]

Did you notice this post?

 

[Mikko Kankainen]

Me? As far as I see it’s the same info just a new post. 
 

I also wondered that once. It only groups pictures when using afc. And pictures are in card as usual. Just a playback ”aid” that only messes users mind. 

[jaapv]

Whoever This problem deserves all the help it can get. 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[SrMi]

5 hours ago, Mikko Kankainen said:

Yes this is also a weird default setting that I just cannot believe. 
But it is not related to this where camera has lost images from card also. 

On my camera, the Group Display was turned on by default, but the manual says it should have been off (p 186).

Edited April 24, 2024 by SrMi

[fotonutzz]

2 minutes ago, SrMi said:

On my camera, the Group Display was turned on by default, but the manual says it should have been off (p 186).

Yup....it was enabled by default on my camera too.   Maybe the instructions manual was written for Firmware 1.0, but they enabled it by default on FW1.10