Leica M11 Significant SD / Internal Memory Issue (plus a rant)

[davekcooper]

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Over the weekend I had a shoot where I was shooting during the day on one card (Card A), and at night for a different shoot I wanted to shoot on a different card (Card B). I found out after much trouble shooting that the issue I'm about to describe was brought about by a bad card (Card B).

As most of you have reported and we all practice, I reformat a card in camera before shooting. I did this with Card B. Unbeknownst to me Card B was faulty. When I reformatted it, nothing actually happened. The card was not formatted and so none of the images were being saved onto it. It turned out that Card B contained video shot in 2017 even after formatting. However, when inserting Card B into my computer it did read as "LEICA M." So the camera was able to do something.

The next morning I removed Card B and put Card A back into the camera. When I reviewed the images on the back of the camera (presumably from Card A) guess what... the images being played back were those shot on Card B. How could this be? Was I losing my mind? I was really scratching my head for a bit there before I realized what had happened.

 

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

When I reformatted Card B and it failed, there was no error message, no indication that the card was not functioning. I just shot and shot and shot, and when I played the images back they all seemed fine. In fact they were fine, but they were not being saved onto the card. They were being saved to internal memory. So the next morning when I put Card A back into the camera and pressed PLAY, I was seeing images on Internal Memory, not on Card A. This made it look as though Card A contained none of the images from the previous day. It was scary. I didn't realize what was happening and had assumed that perhaps the images were both in Internal Memory AND on Card B, so I reformatted the Internal Memory and put Card B back into the camera. Now when I pressed PLAY I got the dreaded "NO IMAGES TO DISPLAY." So now it seems that I had no images on Card A, and no images on Card B. I put Card A back into the camera with a now blank Internal Memory and when I pressed play I did indeed get images from Card A which was a huge relief. 

Once back in my office I determined the cause of the confusion on-site at the shoot. I must say the entire experience made me lose faith in using my M11 as a professional camera. I'd never had an issue like this, and like most of you I have had corrupt DNG files from time to time. So...

Is there a way to determine where images you review on the camera LCD are pulled from (i.e. Internal Memory or SD)? Can you change this in the menu system? Can you switch "on the fly?" When I look at the menu it seems that the only options for where to save images are using a combination of SD and Internal Memory. Maybe I want an option that never uses Internal Memory. Can I do that?

 

RANT...

This was by far the most disconcerting experience using digital Leica cameras. I've had the M240, M262, M10, and M11. Why are we still in the digital dark ages with these $9k cameras? On my train ride back from the shoot I found myself contemplating bailing on Leica in favor of Canon which I have used for decades without any such stupid programming issues. Leica clearly has the design of the M right. It's always their programming that isn't up to snuff. They are a small company and I can live with longer than ideal repair times, slow to market new products, but a camera that behaves in unpredictable ways on a professional shoot is well, unprofessional. 

I hope my story helps someone from feeling temporarily insane like I did for a minute. Maybe Leica can fix this in yet another firmware update.

[SrMi]

18 minutes ago, davekcooper said:

Is there a way to determine where images you review on the camera LCD are pulled from

Yes. In the upper right corner, it says left of the image number: SD or IN.

[SrMi]

It was instantly clear to me what was happening. This kind of confusion occurred to me when I had two SD cards in a camera, and the images got written on the other card because I did not insert or had issues with one card.

I do not understand the issue. The camera had issues with one card, but it recognized it and saved images in a safe place instead.

Have you tried reformatting the bad card to see whether you missed any error messages?

[davekcooper]

5 minutes ago, SrMi said:

I do not understand the issue. The camera had issues with one card, but it recognized it and saved images in a safe place instead.

 

The issue was that it didn't warn me of a bad SD card or a failed formatting. It is helpful to know that the SD or IN on the left side of the reviewed image is there—thank you. I'd like to be able to review images from a place of my choosing, so either the card or internal, and switch from one to the other so I know what is on the camera. 

I did try reformatting the same card several times and there were no error messages. 

[Knorp]

I'm always using SD Card Formatter before first time use, though I may reformat the card in camera afterwards.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

Make sure you select 'Overwrite format'.

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[SrMi]

1 hour ago, davekcooper said:

The issue was that it didn't warn me of a bad SD card or a failed formatting. It is helpful to know that the SD or IN on the left side of the reviewed image is there—thank you. I'd like to be able to review images from a place of my choosing, so either the card or internal, and switch from one to the other so I know what is on the camera. 

I did try reformatting the same card several times and there were no error messages. 

Broken mass storage devices are notoriously hard to manage. Even though the format operation failed, it is possible that the SD card did not produce errors. I am glad that Leica was able to avoid losing data even though the SD card was broken.

[Photoworks]

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This has been reported before. the flair here is using cards in different cameras and wanted to make it work on the M11

This was apparent to me the first minute I tested the camera in the store, putting in a card from the SL2, I did not recognize it.

Leica M11 has a Different more complex system that manages M11 internal and SD. if the card was new, I simple format and you are up and running.

 

The moral of the story is don't mix cards with different cameras.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Well, there are two things here that stand out to me.

1. You used a card from 2017 in a camera from 2024? It probably didn't *fail*. It just couldn't write fast enough to satisfy the camera. Any card that old I have has long been relegated to being used as a *thumb drive* like device. I wouldn't be putting it in a camera. Even if it did work it'd slow the camera to a crawl.

2. You didn't lose any images. The M11 is the first M with dual memory available and it's done its job perfectly. When you used a card that was unsatisfactory it made sure you didn't lose any files. Which is exactly what it was supposed to do. So not unpredictable as you say but unexpected for you as you weren't aware of it.

Had you used any of your previous M's the results could have been MUCH worse. As it is you're lucky to have had a camera with dual memory available to save your arse. I'd be thankful. Not bitter. On a camera without dual memory in use you'd likely not have those images to view at all.

Gordon

[lct]

4 hours ago, Knorp said:

I'm always using SD Card Formatter before first time use, though I may reformat the card in camera afterwards.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

Make sure you select 'Overwrite format'.

Or simply use quick format as i've been doing for 10+ years

[Knorp]

6 hours ago, lct said:

Or simply use quick format as i've been doing for 10+ years

Yes yes - for new cards that may be fine, but in this case - an old card with video files - a complete overwrite is the best option.

However, the card could still be 'bad'.

[lct]

Does no harm to do quick format which is by far the faster solution. If it does not work, it wont be too late to do an overwrite but it happened to me a couple of times only in 10+ years, and this on all my Leica, Sony, Sigma, Ricoh, Nikon and other digital cameras.

[jaapv]

Quick format does not wipe the old images from the card-they can easily be recovered and as we see here still cause problems. Overwrite is the best way to go when you use a card from another camera. 

[lct]

Theory and practice as usual...

[Photoworks]

not all cameras are the same. The Sony format will delete everything, and nothing can be recovered anymore.

Sorry to bring this up, we don't care about sony here LOL

[lct]

13 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

not all cameras are the same. The Sony format will delete everything, and nothing can be recovered anymore

Unless you format them with SD Card Formatter if your Sony cameras work the same way as mine. Was one of the reasons why i use SD Card Formatter for all my SD cards and all my cameras since i got unrecoverable files with my A7s in 2015.  BTW Quick format worked yet fine then and still does on my current cameras including the M11 and a Kolari mod A7r2.

[Photoworks]

21 minutes ago, lct said:

Unless you format them with SD Card Formatter if your Sony cameras work the same way as mine. Was one of the reasons why i use SD Card Formatter for all my SD cards and all my cameras since i got unrecoverable files with my A7s in 2015.  BTW Quick format worked yet fine then and still does on my current cameras including the M11 and a Kolari mod A7r2.

oh yeah the wonderful Sony cameras, you take some photos and than they ask you to take some video, but you got a client in Europe that wants 25fps. What does Sony do? it needs to format the card in order to be able to film 25fps

and for the record SD formatter on does SD card only, and most recent cameras have multiple cards formats in the same camera, and formatting in camera is more needed.

[lct]

Not sure what video has to do with this discussion. You were referring to Sony cameras above so i was just replying to you.

[Kwesi]

On 5/14/2024 at 11:01 AM, davekcooper said:

Over the weekend I had a shoot where I was shooting during the day on one card (Card A), and at night for a different shoot I wanted to shoot on a different card (Card B). I found out after much trouble shooting that the issue I'm about to describe was brought about by a bad card (Card B).

As most of you have reported and we all practice, I reformat a card in camera before shooting. I did this with Card B. Unbeknownst to me Card B was faulty. When I reformatted it, nothing actually happened. The card was not formatted and so none of the images were being saved onto it. It turned out that Card B contained video shot in 2017 even after formatting. However, when inserting Card B into my computer it did read as "LEICA M." So the camera was able to do something.

The next morning I removed Card B and put Card A back into the camera. When I reviewed the images on the back of the camera (presumably from Card A) guess what... the images being played back were those shot on Card B. How could this be? Was I losing my mind? I was really scratching my head for a bit there before I realized what had happened.

 

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED

When I reformatted Card B and it failed, there was no error message, no indication that the card was not functioning. I just shot and shot and shot, and when I played the images back they all seemed fine. In fact they were fine, but they were not being saved onto the card. They were being saved to internal memory. So the next morning when I put Card A back into the camera and pressed PLAY, I was seeing images on Internal Memory, not on Card A. This made it look as though Card A contained none of the images from the previous day. It was scary. I didn't realize what was happening and had assumed that perhaps the images were both in Internal Memory AND on Card B, so I reformatted the Internal Memory and put Card B back into the camera. Now when I pressed PLAY I got the dreaded "NO IMAGES TO DISPLAY." So now it seems that I had no images on Card A, and no images on Card B. I put Card A back into the camera with a now blank Internal Memory and when I pressed play I did indeed get images from Card A which was a huge relief. 

Once back in my office I determined the cause of the confusion on-site at the shoot. I must say the entire experience made me lose faith in using my M11 as a professional camera. I'd never had an issue like this, and like most of you I have had corrupt DNG files from time to time. So...

Is there a way to determine where images you review on the camera LCD are pulled from (i.e. Internal Memory or SD)? Can you change this in the menu system? Can you switch "on the fly?" When I look at the menu it seems that the only options for where to save images are using a combination of SD and Internal Memory. Maybe I want an option that never uses Internal Memory. Can I do that?

 

RANT...

This was by far the most disconcerting experience using digital Leica cameras. I've had the M240, M262, M10, and M11. Why are we still in the digital dark ages with these $9k cameras? On my train ride back from the shoot I found myself contemplating bailing on Leica in favor of Canon which I have used for decades without any such stupid programming issues. Leica clearly has the design of the M right. It's always their programming that isn't up to snuff. They are a small company and I can live with longer than ideal repair times, slow to market new products, but a camera that behaves in unpredictable ways on a professional shoot is well, unprofessional. 

I hope my story helps someone from feeling temporarily insane like I did for a minute. Maybe Leica can fix this in yet another firmware update.

Sometimes the best way to figure out some quirky way that a particular camera does something is to be in that kind of panic situation. its definitely scary and annoying in the moment but at least you learn something new about your camera that can be very valuable in the future.

[jaapv]

11 hours ago, Photoworks said:

not all cameras are the same. The Sony format will delete everything, and nothing can be recovered anymore.

Sorry to bring this up, we don't care about sony here LOL

So it does an overwrite. Good for Sony - until you format a card by mistake.

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[JNK100]

On 5/14/2024 at 10:14 PM, FlashGordonPhotography said:

Well, there are two things here that stand out to me.

1. You used a card from 2017 in a camera from 2024? It probably didn't *fail*. It just couldn't write fast enough to satisfy the camera. Any card that old I have has long been relegated to being used as a *thumb drive* like device. I wouldn't be putting it in a camera. Even if it did work it'd slow the camera to a crawl.

2. You didn't lose any images. The M11 is the first M with dual memory available and it's done its job perfectly. When you used a card that was unsatisfactory it made sure you didn't lose any files. Which is exactly what it was supposed to do. So not unpredictable as you say but unexpected for you as you weren't aware of it.

Had you used any of your previous M's the results could have been MUCH worse. As it is you're lucky to have had a camera with dual memory available to save your arse. I'd be thankful. Not bitter. On a camera without dual memory in use you'd likely not have those images to view at all.

Gordon

I couldn't agree more.

Why blame the camera if the card is faulty?