M8 glitch-- Merged frames

[dalippe]

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I've only found one other post about this, and the thread didn't come to any useful conclusion.

 

Is there any common wisdom on whether this is a problem Leica knows how to fix or whether it is yet another glitch that we have to expect from time to time with the M8?

 

In anticipation of the most likely questions-- the battery was fully charged, and I always reformat cards in camera after downloading images.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

David

[Shootist]

Yeah get a new SD card/s.

Format the card in a PC and then in the camera.

[Vieri]

Very cool effect (NOT!!) Sorry to see that, I hope is just a glitch and will not represent itself, otherwise I am afraid it would mean a trip to Solms...

[dalippe]

Yeah get a new SD card/s.

Format the card in a PC and then in the camera.

 

Hi Ed,

 

Thanks for the advice. Could you please tell me more? Your suggestion of getting a new card seems to imply that you think the problem is a physical defect with the card. But your suggestion to format differently seems to imply that you think it is merely an inconsistent internal state that can be fixed by formatting.

 

Is this is a problem you were having and then solved? Or do you come by this knowledge some other way?

 

Thanks for any additional information.

 

David

[delander †]

I have seen this effect. It happened to me just after I had been taking and deleting a series of photographs. At first I thought it was the battery so I changed that and it still occurred, then the camera started taking a long time to write to the card, finally the camera reported the card was full when it was not. I put the card in my other M8 which also reported the card as full. There were about 60 dngs on a 2GB card.

I eventually reformatted the card in the camera and it has since been fine. There is a comment about file defragmentation in the M8 handbook page 127 caused by deleting.

 

Jeff

[delander †]

Actually is this merged frames or a partially successful write-over of an previous image?

 

Jeff

[chris_livsey]

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It is my experience that deleting images "in camera" , an M8 camera that is, is NOT a good idea. The software does not appear to handle this in a robust manner and they are better left on. Cards are now so inexpensive that saving space is not required.

[Shootist]

Hi Ed,

 

Thanks for the advice. Could you please tell me more? Your suggestion of getting a new card seems to imply that you think the problem is a physical defect with the card. But your suggestion to format differently seems to imply that you think it is merely an inconsistent internal state that can be fixed by formatting.

 

Is this is a problem you were having and then solved? Or do you come by this knowledge some other way?

 

Thanks for any additional information.

 

David

 

As others have stated it is because of a corrupted card. Could be the card it self or just a glitch on the card/camera. Even after formating a already used card in the camera the old images are still on the card, that is why image recovery software works (IE the images are still there). Doing a full format in a PC and then another in camera will help unless it is the card that is bad.

[dalippe]

Thanks everyone for your advice. Responses to various points below:

 

1. Yes, it is a portion of an old picture. I mean that the camera had merged the newframe with the old one.

2. I do not delete pictures in-camera. I've heard in various places that this is a bad idea on digital cameras in general.

3. I'll give the reformatting on PC a try, but I'm suspicious that the fundamental problem is the existence of the old image data. If all of the relevant memory locations had contained zeroes, then wouldn't the same thing have happened, only with black instead of the old image? In any event, even if this isn't the reason that formatting on PC helps, it might well help for another reason more related to the directory structure, and certainly won't hurt.

 

David

[dpattinson]

I recall this happening on a card which I 'retired' shortly after. I presumed that it was a faulty card, it continued misbehaving after being re-formatted and so I tossed it.

 

One thing that I have changed since then is that I always lock the SD card before I put it in the computer to transfer images. I format the card in the camera each time I use it, and I do delete frames in-camera.

 

It hasn't happened since on any of the other 4 cards (same type) that I've used.

 

David.

[como]

I have noticed the same effect when writing images (DNG) to my Hyperdrive. I always do this twice and so far one time it was corrupt and the other not. So I think it is not a camera fault.

 

Co

[andit]

Hi David,

 

I don't know where you bought your SD cards. The problem of counterfeit cards has staggering dimensions. The counterfeits are so good nowadays that you can not tell the difference between actual and fake by looking at the packaging. Unfortunately, the quality of these fake cards is not always up to standard and can cause erratic behavior of camera's and card readers.

 

Normally, and this goes for most point and shoot camera's, you can get away with these cards since these camera's write compressed files to the card. On camera's like the M8, where the read/write procedures are critical, it does sometimes happen that the camera encounters a bad memory sector but still writes to that address.

 

Leica have worked on the assumption that all cards that are available on the market are good - and in most likelihood, (this is my personal opinion) have not incorporated all the error checking that they should have in the firmware. This is not entirely the fault of Leica - for example if you drive a gasoline/petrol driven car, and by accident fill up with diesel, the car also does not have sensors built into the tank to say that you have now filled up with the wrong fuel...

 

Just to give you an idea. I live in one of the more rural area's of South Africa. I know for a fact that San Disk is having extreme problems with counterfeit cards. So, I decided that I would rather opt for Lexar cards. I went to a Kodak Specialist shop here in the area since they are the only ones to stock Lexar and bought a 2gb card. Inserted it into my M8 and formatted it. It took about 20 mins to format - this is not right. So after doing some research on the net, found out that this was a fake card - did not have the slot on the lower top end of the card, plus missing serial numbers. So even if you buy from a reputable dealer, you sometimes get fakes. It was not the shop's fault - they were sent these cards by their franchise head office - where they got the cards, or how these fake cards got into the system - no one knows.

 

Do yourself a favor, do a search for counterfeit SD cards in Google and follow some of the links to find out how to tell if you have fake cards or not. This may just be what is causing your problem.

 

Andreas

[jaapv]

It has been reported several times before, and has been reported in other brand forums as well. It is indeed an SD card fault. Buy another one instead of trying to "repair" this one. It might be fine, but you can never trust it.

[dalippe]

I have noticed the same effect when writing images (DNG) to my Hyperdrive. I always do this twice and so far one time it was corrupt and the other not. So I think it is not a camera fault.

 

Co

 

If I understand you, that would imply the error occurs when transferring the file from card to computer and that the image on card is fine. If so, that is good news indeed.

 

I wish I still had the card with these images intact, but I did not look through the images and notice this problem until after the card had been reformatted and put back in circulation with my M8s. But now I will be on the lookout for this, and if it ever happens again will try to simply re-transfer the file.

 

David

[dalippe]

Hi David,

 

I don't know where you bought your SD cards. The problem of counterfeit cards has staggering dimensions. The counterfeits are so good nowadays that you can not tell the difference between actual and fake by looking at the packaging. Unfortunately, the quality of these fake cards is not always up to standard and can cause erratic behavior of camera's and card readers.

 

Normally, and this goes for most point and shoot camera's, you can get away with these cards since these camera's write compressed files to the card. On camera's like the M8, where the read/write procedures are critical, it does sometimes happen that the camera encounters a bad memory sector but still writes to that address.

 

Leica have worked on the assumption that all cards that are available on the market are good - and in most likelihood, (this is my personal opinion) have not incorporated all the error checking that they should have in the firmware. This is not entirely the fault of Leica - for example if you drive a gasoline/petrol driven car, and by accident fill up with diesel, the car also does not have sensors built into the tank to say that you have now filled up with the wrong fuel...

 

Just to give you an idea. I live in one of the more rural area's of South Africa. I know for a fact that San Disk is having extreme problems with counterfeit cards. So, I decided that I would rather opt for Lexar cards. I went to a Kodak Specialist shop here in the area since they are the only ones to stock Lexar and bought a 2gb card. Inserted it into my M8 and formatted it. It took about 20 mins to format - this is not right. So after doing some research on the net, found out that this was a fake card - did not have the slot on the lower top end of the card, plus missing serial numbers. So even if you buy from a reputable dealer, you sometimes get fakes. It was not the shop's fault - they were sent these cards by their franchise head office - where they got the cards, or how these fake cards got into the system - no one knows.

 

Do yourself a favor, do a search for counterfeit SD cards in Google and follow some of the links to find out how to tell if you have fake cards or not. This may just be what is causing your problem.

 

Andreas

 

I will definitely look into this possibility. Thanks for the heads up!

[dalippe]

It has been reported several times before, and has been reported in other brand forums as well. It is indeed an SD card fault. Buy another one instead of trying to "repair" this one. It might be fine, but you can never trust it.

 

I would certainly do that if I knew which card it was! I didn't look through these pictures until a few days after the card was reformatted and back in circulation. I'll be more careful going forward, and presumably will catch the culprit if it happens again...But it is good to know that you and so many others believe this to be a card rather than camera fault.

 

David

[dalippe]

Yeah get a new SD card/s.

Format the card in a PC and then in the camera.

 

Presumably you reformat in FAT as opposed to FAT32? These are 2.0GB Extreme IIIs.

 

David