Jump to content

Ten lost images


rdubois

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 83
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

I certainly have not done a study of camera problems. However, I never heard of Canon or Nikon users worrying about lock-ups, card failures, data loss (other than on the 1DsII for a while) shooting too fast, or shooting with too low a charge.

 

So it seems to me the fact that some Leica users recommend others to use prophylactic procedures that some of these problems may be endemic.

 

Alan, All you have to do is read the forum for a while and you can see that the problems are endemic. But you can't say that on here.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Alan, All you have to do is read the forum for a while and you can see that the problems are endemic. But you can't say that on here.

 

OK I won't say that! ;)

 

The statement below was very clear to me and simply contains factual information (True or false facts but no opinion.) So I really can't see how it led to so much brouhaha. Another person posted that a card will work in one M8 and not in another. Then after a few more tries it would work in both.

 

It seems to me that if you have a card that once worked in the M8, but now doesn't, it would be a simple matter to try it in another M8 or in another brand and see if it works in that camera. It beats arguing over something that can be proven.

 

"Two of my M8-shooting buddies have had file corruptions on cards, stuck them in there Canon or Nikon DSLR and they worked just fine, put them back in the M8 and no dice...tried new cards to and same deal. Along with the frequent lockups that get cured by reboots, these card glitches indicate that as a computer, the M8 gets unstable..or at least that's what guy's I know who do computers for a living tell me."

Link to post
Share on other sites

Says who?

 

Says me. Check the earlier pages on this thread and check http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/51590-m9-redux.html and http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/58139-should-leica-abandon-m8.html. No one on LUF can question the trouble-free performance and superior quality of the M8 without being verbally drawn, quartered, and hung in a gibbet. Not only that, if you deign to question whether or not Leica can survive as a camera manufacturer, given the state of the market, etc., you'll go straight to hell after being drawn, quartered and hung in a gibbet.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with the spirit of Russell's remarks.

 

This forum does unquestionably have many enthusiastic, helpful, knowlegable, and thoughtful participants.

 

But it also hosts quite a large and vocal population of mostly amateur photographers whose primary emotional allegiance seems far more deeply anchored in the Leica brand than in photographic results. While there have been some boors who have come here just to fart in church since the M8 was introduced there have also been members who have civilly raised legitimate gripes with the camera's value and been heatedly chastised for their complaints.

 

That, plus the general tendency for the same ol' people to chew the same ol' cud here, is the reason why I now visit only infrequently and post even less frequently.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The M8 certainly divides opinion.

 

However, I agree that the same old same old goes round and round an awful lot in this part of the forum. Don't forget folks that there's a lot more to the LUF than just the M8 tab... ;)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ken,

 

Gotta love the line about farting in church. Good one! It does get kinda smelly around here. I just think some of us LEICA church goes get a little tired of the smell.

 

I confess Ken, I own Leica M8s because I am a rank amateur who is more interested in the red dot then pictures. To that end I hold up my hand!

 

What else, I am old fart with more many than brains (a dying breed - which will mean the death of Leica at some point), I am totally self indulgent - which is yet another description of why I am own those damn things and more seriously participate in this forum. All in good fun!

 

I checked out your website - nicely done Ken - good to see you are enjoying your photography, again very nice.

 

Best Regards. Terry.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest jimmy pro
Says me. Check the earlier pages on this thread and check http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/51590-m9-redux.html and http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/58139-should-leica-abandon-m8.html. No one on LUF can question the trouble-free performance and superior quality of the M8 without being verbally drawn, quartered, and hung in a gibbet. Not only that, if you deign to question whether or not Leica can survive as a camera manufacturer, given the state of the market, etc., you'll go straight to hell after being drawn, quartered and hung in a gibbet.

 

I agree 100% and I get your point perfectly...and I'm not makeing some pissy rant about useing slang like some joker did when I said "my crew"...but just FMI, WTF is a gibbet?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Says me. Check the earlier pages on this thread and check http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/51590-m9-redux.html and http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/58139-should-leica-abandon-m8.html. No one on LUF can question the trouble-free performance and superior quality of the M8 without being verbally drawn, quartered, and hung in a gibbet. Not only that, if you deign to question whether or not Leica can survive as a camera manufacturer, given the state of the market, etc., you'll go straight to hell after being drawn, quartered and hung in a gibbet.

 

Russell--You didn't pay attention to what others wrote previously, so there's no reason to believe you will now--but what you imply here is patently false. If you want to write posts on the LUF about your own experiences with your faulty M8s, that's absolutely fine. I've never seen anyone get slammed for doing that. Where you, and a few others like Barjohn and broken-record JimmyPro, go wrong and get heat is by asserting that your experiences are universal truths that are shared by all other M8 owners. You imply that since we disagree with your generalizations, we are simply hiding from the facts, afraid to face the truth, or cheerleading for the red dot.

 

Well, the actual truth is, many of us have opposite opinions and experiences with our cameras. Several people here, like me, use the M8 professionally day in and day out with NO problems whatsoever, and are quite happy with the images they produce. So, rant all you want about your own M8 and the problems you have with it--just don't damn every M8 ever made. Unless, of course, you enjoy being drawn, quartered and hung in a gibbet.

Link to post
Share on other sites

See what I mean? Didn't take long did it? Thanks, Brent, for proving my point.

 

 

Russell--You didn't pay attention to what others wrote previously, so there's no reason to believe you will now

 

 

You do indeed prove his point:rolleyes:

Link to post
Share on other sites

{Snipped}

It seems to me that if you have a card that once worked in the M8, but now doesn't, it would be a simple matter to try it in another M8 or in another brand and see if it works in that camera. It beats arguing over something that can be proven.

{snipped}

 

Yep--that's a simple diagnosis, and certainly worthwhile trying. But while I have no medical training, I know enough about root cause analysis to know that people can get fooled by what's seemingly obvious.

 

So you take your suspect SD card out of the M8 and put it in your Nikon. Then what?

 

Do you just keep shooting? Ok, try that and see if the card still works. See if the camera likes the folder structure the M8 lays down. Ah, but what if there's a formatting issue with the card itself and the M8 folder structure?

 

So you re-format the card first before you actually try it? I would, and that might make the whole point silly, since if the problem was format to begin with, you've just solved the problem as far as your Nikon goes (and the M8 gets blamed, since the card now works).

 

IOW, if you reformatted the card first in-camera, perhaps that's all it would take to fix the issue with the M8. Or perhaps the card is really messed, and you need to format it on a computer. Oh--and you need the right format too :)

 

And card and camera combos can be bad news....

 

In *addition* to the Canon 1ds2 dropping frames randomly on write, there was also an issue with the 1ds2 AND the Lexar 80x high capacity (for the time) CF cards.

 

Lexar actually recalled them and replaced them for anyone who had the issue. I know this because they got mine and sent a new one back...But oddly enough, the problem was only being seen in the Canon 1 series because they had the write speed to actually make the problem apparent. So the cards appeared to work on, say, a 10D or 1ds but not a 1d2 or 1ds2.

 

Would you blame the 1d2?! LOL!!

 

BTW--if you stick an M8 formatted SD card into a DMR and press play, the DMR will lock up and you have to remove the battery :) Different cameras are sensitive to the format and structure of the card. I'm not excusing the DMR's bad performance in this regard; a much smarter thing to do than lock up would be simply to offer to format the card :)

 

Look, I've lived with the M8's flaws from IR to dodgy service and misfocusing and all that stuff through tens of thousands of shots--but the camera just doesn't drop frames without there being a power issue (and I still think it's worse than it was previous to last firmware, but I can't prove it) or an actual card issue.

 

So I'll say it again: if your m8 has worked for thousands of shots and then drops 10, it's the card. Ditch it, move on. If it happens again, then check the camera, like you would any other camera.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest jimmy pro

I agree with much of that. Accept the part about switching cards between cameras. Of course you'd want to reformat in the different camera. But then if it works and you then take that same card out and put it back in the M8 and reformat it there, if it was a formating problem it should work, right? But I've seen it with my eyes not to be the case. So I still would conclude it's the M8. And by M8 I'm including firmware/software--whatever you call the programing that makes the camera run. Maybe the problem is hardware related. Maybe the data transfer contacts inside the M8 are such that as the card's contact plates wear a little the data transfer gets erattic. That's just a wild guess but its better then just keep on buying new cards while the old one's still work fine in any other SD device, but mantain stubbornley that it's not something inside the M8. Sure cards do get messed up, I never said otherwise. But when they do they pretty much always are messed up no matter what you put them into. And your example of a card not being able to keep up with the write speed and/or file size of a camera is a good one wrt the big-gun Canon's, but I don't get where the M8 could possibly over tax even the plain jane SD cards.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree with much of that. Accept the part about switching cards between cameras. Of course you'd want to reformat in the different camera. But then if it works and you then take that same card out and put it back in the M8 and reformat it there, if it was a formating problem it should work, right? But I've seen it with my eyes not to be the case. So I still would conclude it's the M8.

{snipped}

Sure cards do get messed up, I never said otherwise. But when they do they pretty much always are messed up no matter what you put them into. And your example of a card not being able to keep up with the write speed and/or file size of a camera is a good one wrt the big-gun Canon's, but I don't get where the M8 could possibly over tax even the plain jane SD cards.

 

Jimmy--you're right--the M8 won't overtax any normal speed SD card with its output, the way the original 1d*2s did.

 

But the M8 might not have the juice to keep writing (especially in DNG + JPG Large), because the camera overall just seems to need more current to do its thing (having a CCD doesn't help for power consumption).

 

So an edge-condition card and an edge-condition battery might just make the problem manifest in way that can be confusing. As I said, I actually think Leica made things worse with the new firmware, if only by actually reporting that there's juice left in the battery when effectively there isn't for things like continuously writing DNG+JPG :)

 

I agree completely that the M8 firmware should be better than that in terms of "don't mess me up and lose images when the power is failing." I suspect then, though, that you'd see different battery levels when shooting in S mode than C mode :) That would drive people nuts.

 

If a card's actual format is bad, you're right, if you reformat the card in the camera, the problem should go away.

 

But it doesn't always--cameras sometimes can't recover a bad format because IIRC they're just resetting a file allocation table to say "I'm empty now" and haven't actually done a low-level format. The old, potentially corrupted, potentially troublesome data is still on the card when you format in-camera.

 

I've had to low-level format a couple of CF cards for the Canons over the years to get them back to working. I have to say the new premium cards (Sandisk Extreme ivs) have given me no trouble whatsoever; mind you they're still the newest. In my experience, whenever you move one card from one camera (brand) to another, there is a risk of something unexpected there too. So I usually don't do it...

 

Having said that, I've never worried about sharing cards with the Canon 5d and 1ds2 etc... only with the DMR and M8 :) But they're totally different software, if nothing else, and I suspect the DMR actually chokes on the compressed DNGs the M8 makes...

 

I do also worry about counterfeit cards... which is why I toss 'em if I think they're going at all. There are some truly marginal cards out there (though low card prices should make this better, right?).

 

But to put it all another way: if your M8 works all the time except on one card, then I'd toss the card, regardless of if a Nikon or Canon can use it.... (and actually, I'd probably do a computer reformat before I tossed it too).

 

If you keep running into issues over more than one card, then I'd get the M8 into repair.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...