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D-Lux 4: Lots of Pink Bands


volk

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I finally got my D-Lux 4 yesterday and I'm pretty amazed by it. But I keep stumbling on something that just can't be "normal". I get lots of vertical lines and bars on the LCD. THese don't show up on the final image but it's very difficult to compose or judge white balance when they are there. They are most pronounced when the shutter is depressed halfway to focus.

 

I've attached a photo to show what they look like. Notice that it's not even a bright day, very overcast and the bars are very pronounced. When the light source is brighter the results are even worse.

 

I love this camera but it's hard to believe everyone is shooting through this kind of distortion. Should I be ignoring this because it is normal? Or am I doing something stupid that's causing this?

 

Thanks!

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I recentlky bought a DL4, too, but have not sen that banding. Have you upgraded to the new firmware? That might solve the problem.

 

That was the first thing I did when it arrived yesterday. But I hope it ends up being something simple like that!

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I had similar stripes in the C-Lux/panasonic fx display. Not as broad stripes as in your picture but the same. It disappeared later by itself.

I haven't found out what the reason of the malfunction was. Maybe climate effects (humidity, temperature).

Just wait and don't be irritaded. It will disappear by itself.

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I think what you're seeing is glare / flare caused by shooting into very bright light like the sun. The D-Lux 4 LCD display seems to show some more-than-usual problems when shooting into bright light. I'd be willing to bet that you don't see this problem when you're not shooting into the light.

 

Bruce

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I think what you're seeing is glare / flare caused by shooting into very bright light like the sun. The D-Lux 4 LCD display seems to show some more-than-usual problems when shooting into bright light. I'd be willing to bet that you don't see this problem when you're not shooting into the light.

 

Bruce

 

Shouldn't the flare be in the picture as well which isn't the case.

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It's normal, at least on mine. Try taking the picture. You shouldn't see the pink bands. Other compact cameras do the same thing. I'll bet if we had UV coatings on the lenses and lens hoods, we wouldn't see the pink bands anymore.

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Shouldn't the flare be in the picture as well which isn't the case.

 

Sorry! I wasn't as explicit as I should have been. What I _meant_ to say was that I've seen many instances where the LCD shows many flaws like this that seem to be caused by very bright light, but these problems do not necessarily show up in the photo.

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Thanks for the replies so far. I still haven't solved it so I sent Leica an email. Hope to hear something soon.

 

brucek: Unfortunately I'm not shooting into the sun in the image above, in fact it's a cloudy day. The sun came out a little later though and the entire lcd turned bright pink.

 

famz: I checked the lcd brightness and it's at zero. Turned it all the way down to -3 and still does it.

 

rob_x2004: Good question. It seems to do it under brighter conditions but doesn't have to be extreme conditions. And it doesn't require a direct light source (ie into the sun). The above shot is a cloudy day and there is no direct sun. I'd say that if I just walked around on a sunny day shooting random shots it would do it 80% of the time. Sometimes green bands sometimes pink. Sometimes the whole screen and sometimes partial.

 

oldnikonman: Thanks for the link. Looks like it wasn't solved. After reading it I'm pretty sure that some folks are thinking of the occasional pink lines caused by a hot light source. I'm definitely seeing something much more extreme. Just about any time I take a photo outdoors the LCD flares pink.

 

So where am I on this? It seems as if everyone's Leica did this there'd be a lot more complaining and I don't see any. So I'm assuming (hoping?) mine is an anomaly. I'll try and get an exchange from the dealer.

 

Thanks again for the thoughtful replies. If anyone has any more insight I'd love to hear it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Now that's more like it! I just got my replacement D-Lux 4 from JR.com and this one works fine. Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and replies. Now excuse me while I tend to chargin' up that battery. A good friend just bought a Lamborghini Gallardo this week and I can't think of a better first subject for the Leica.

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It's perfectly normal and discussed in the manual. Not an lcd issue but a sensor issue. You're seeing light from one sensor bucket spilling into adjacent buckets.

 

When you take the shot, the camera removes it. All digital cameras have this "issue" -- again, it's a characteristic of the sensor.

 

"A reddish vertical line (smear) ap-pears on the LCD monitor during picture-taking.

 

* This is a characteristic of CCDs, appearing on bright subjects. Some unevenness may occur, but this is not a malfunction.

* Streaks are recorded with motion pictures, though not with stills."

 

p. 79 in the manual

 

My D-LUX 4 exhibits this.

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Now that's more like it! I just got my replacement D-Lux 4 from JR.com and this one works fine.

 

Thanks for that. Good to know it isnt endemic to the species. The camera is still on the backburner for me, I dont need one rightnow, so I check out what people say occasionally.

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It's perfectly normal and discussed in the manual. Not an lcd issue but a sensor issue. You're seeing light from one sensor bucket spilling into adjacent buckets.

 

When you take the shot, the camera removes it. All digital cameras have this "issue" -- again, it's a characteristic of the sensor.

Yes, this is called “smearing” and is in fact perfectly normal. It happens when the electrical charges accumulated within the sensor pixels are read out while the sensor is still exposed to light, which only happens with live view or when recording movies. When recording still images, the sensor is read out while the mechanical shutter is closed, so smearing is not an issue.

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Didn't think the DL4 had a mechanical shutter?

It has – nearly all the compact digicams have a mechanical shutter. It isn’t used for limiting the exposure time – that’s what the electronic shutter is for –, but to prevent smearing. Naturally, the mechanical shutter needs to be kept open continuously for live view or while recording movies, which is why smearing can be an issue in those cases. With sensor pixels getting smaller all the time, we actually see more severe cases of smearing now than we used to. This isn’t limited to the D-Lux 4/LX-3.

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