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Have you ever seen this? My M8 is back


Mauribix

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I would be suspicious of that particular card. I just mean consider it MAY be the problem. I would Delete ALL then format it in the CAMERA and see if that works too. I would not interchange cards between different camera types. If it is unreliable of course, better to throw it away than risk future problems.

I use all Sandisk Exreme III 4GB SDHC cards in my camera now with no problems. Be careful too there are a lot of inferior counterfeit ones around too.

Another thing worth looking at is, have you checked the firmware version in your camera since it just got back?

This is one of the many weird things my replaced camera is doing with SDHC cards...

 

I've tried a Lexar a Kingston and a SanDisk SDHC card too. 4Gb and 16Gb...

they still work like a charm with my dlux-4, and they used to be working perfectly with my old M8...

 

Here is the link where I described exactly what's going on... :(

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/93849-my-new-m8u-back-thanks-leica.html#post984705

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Art, you should find a girlfriend at Leica CS as well, this way you could go spend an holiday there any time your Summicron 28 goes to Solms to visit its own girlfriend... :D

 

Enrico, how do you know I don't have one...? :D

 

Seriously, there're some really nice people at M8 Customer Service. I would just prefer to see them for lunch, diner, "Oktoberfest", holidays... than for hardware problems. C'est la vie ! :(

Edited by ArtZ
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Enrico, how do you know I don't have one...? :D

 

Seriously, there're some really nice people at M8 Customer Service. I would just prefer to see them for lunch, diner, "Oktoberfest", holidays... than for hardware problems. C'est la vie ! :(

 

Artz, J'ai vu maintenant que tu est à Paris. Je viens souvent, la prochaine fois je t'enverrai un message. On peut prendre un café ou un verre de vin ensemble.

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Artz, J'ai vu maintenant que tu est à Paris. Je viens souvent, la prochaine fois je t'enverrai un message. On peut prendre un café ou un verre de vin ensemble.

 

Ça sera avec très grand plaisir! J'habite dans le Marais, à quelques pas de la Maison du Leica. ;)

 

Je t'envoie un PM avec mes coordonnées.

 

Amicalement,

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Artz, J'ai vu maintenant que tu est à Paris. Je viens souvent, la prochaine fois je t'enverrai un message. On peut prendre un café ou un verre de vin ensemble.

Bonjour Enrico,

Please send me a MP if you come so we will be able to see each other and with Artz....and around a beer !

Next week between 10-15 of August ?

Regards

Henry

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Don't let me down guys! What about a nice meeting in Paris by the end of summer??

Girlfriends excluded, of course!:)

 

FYI

today I've bought three new SDHC cards. Had just a problem once with the first card... But no problem after that...

It seems as if you all were right, I may have "ruined" all my cards with the dlux4, weird to accept, but then again this could mean no failure on my M9.... Oops, M8;)

I'm happy at the moment!

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Yes, I have seen exactly what you started this thread with and I think the problem is starting to show up more and more. As far back as http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/91203-missing-images.html we were talking about it. My experience is that a single instance of the "file number display without picture" can mean a whole series of preceding images will be missing when you download even if they played back in the camera. I don't know the cause but my solution has been to stay with smaller cards and to stay away from SDHC---it might be Leica-ware for SDHC, it might be counterfeit cards sold by otherwise reputable dealers, I don't care. I just want to avoid it happening again. I was never able to recover my images even employing professional recovery firms. Since the M8 seems to be particularly susceptible to this problem, I hope the engineers are at least considering a solution.

 

Joe

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Can you put a number on what you mean by "smaller cards"?

 

Yes, I have seen exactly what you started this thread with and I think the problem is starting to show up more and more. As far back as http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/91203-missing-images.html we were talking about it. My experience is that a single instance of the "file number display without picture" can mean a whole series of preceding images will be missing when you download even if they played back in the camera. I don't know the cause but my solution has been to stay with smaller cards and to stay away from SDHC---it might be Leica-ware for SDHC, it might be counterfeit cards sold by otherwise reputable dealers, I don't care. I just want to avoid it happening again. I was never able to recover my images even employing professional recovery firms. Since the M8 seems to be particularly susceptible to this problem, I hope the engineers are at least considering a solution.

 

Joe

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Can you put a number on what you mean by "smaller cards"?

 

2GB cards.

I have some larger SDHC cards but rarely if ever use them in the M8. I personally have never had this problem or any other except one time when the card, a 2GB card, was nearly full, maybe 12-15 images left, and the battery was very low. The last 5-8 shots I took did not get recorded to the card.

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After odd behavior (missing files) on flash cards (on Nikons), an analysis of the card using recovery software showed bitstrings that were compression artifacts . These could easily screw up reading of compressed forms, or even directory entries.

 

Formatting in either computer r camera did nothing since these only work at the directory level.

 

I resolved the problem by using secure erase which overwrites every byte on the card. Following this the two cards that gave me trouble behaved normally.

 

I now routinely do this as 'prep' n all new cards CF or SD.

 

I also always format in-camera before use.

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

Regards ... Harold

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Don't let me down guys! What about a nice meeting in Paris by the end of summer??

Girlfriends excluded, of course!:)

 

FYI

today I've bought three new SDHC cards. Had just a problem once with the first card... But no problem after that...

It seems as if you all were right, I may have "ruined" all my cards with the dlux4, weird to accept, but then again this could mean no failure on my M9.... Oops, M8;)

I'm happy at the moment!

 

Maurizio,

 

No problem for a nice meeting in Paris by the end of the summer. You can arrange that with Enrico tonight. I took two weeks in July and I will take two more in September. In August I stay in Paris,except, maybe next week (I'd love go to St Briac, Britanny, for sailing with friends but I don't know yet).

 

Going back to your problem (a non issue now), I don't know what to think.

 

Listen, I have a few cameras that use SD (and SDHC) cards: two M8 bodies, a Digilux 3, a Ricoh GRD 2, a Canon G10 (and until last December a Canon G9). Even if I don't swap cards every day, it happens sometimes for different reasons. I never had a problem with that.

 

Now a bit of theory:

 

Design rule for Camera File system (DCF) is a JEITA specification (number CP-3461) which defines a file format and file system for digital cameras, including the directory structure, file naming method, character set, file format, and metadata format. It is currently the de facto industry standard for digital still cameras. The file format of DCF is based on the Exif 2.2 specification.

 

The latest version of the standard is v 2.21.

 

The root directory in a digital camera contains a DCIM (Digital Camera Images) directory which contains possibly multiple subdirectories with names such as "123ABCDE", and no two directories may have the same three digit code. The alphabet characters often refer to a camera maker. Each image has a name such as "ABCD1234" for image number 1234.

 

When you insert a blank card on any compatible camera, automatically the camera will create a DCIM directory and its proper subdirectory (for Leica: 100LEICA). When you format a card on the camera, after the format process, it happens the same thing: the camera detects the fresly formatted card and creates the DCIM directory. This is trasparent to the user.

 

I don't have a Dlux 4 but I can understand when you insert a card on the M8 formatted on a Dlux 4 (or also when you insert on a DRM a card formatted on a M8), that the camera could get "fooled" if they have different EXIF versions. On the M8 EXIF version is 2.20 and in the Dlux 4 is probably 2.21, so the M8 might not be able to read correctly the directory structure created on the Dlux 4 because is newer or... maybe because the EXIF specification are not fully respected or there's a bug somewhere.

 

Besides, even if the file structure and numbering on the SD (or SDHC) card were the same on both cameras, the files aren't (different formats, different sizes, etc.).

 

But once you have formatted the SD card on a computer, this creates a new directory structure (standard FAT or FAT32) with no DCF file format. You'll get just a blank card. Inserting the card on the camera, the camera will add the DCF file format. So all problems should disapear.

 

Besides, we're using and talking of International standards: FAT, FAT32, FORMAT, EXIF, DCF...

 

I have just proceded to two tests:

 

1.- I have inserted my Ricoh GRD2 SDHC 16GB card into my newest M8 and taken some pictures. I have a DCIM directoy which contains two directories inside: 100LEICA and 10ORICOH. When I insert now this card on any of my M8s I can only see the pictures on the 100LEICA folder and, on the Ricoh GRD2 I can only see the pictures taken with the Ricoh.

 

2.-To make it more difficult, I have inserted the same card (with all the pictures) on a Canon G10... Now I have three folders (directories) inside the DCIM directory: 100CANON, 100LEICA and 100RICOH and I only can see the pictures in each directory with the right camera only.

 

Voilà.

 

Anyway, I'm happy you have found a way to use the camera. That's the most important ;)

 

Cheers

 

PS: I forgot one last thing. Wilfredo will probably remember the card which refused to work on his M8, worked flawlessly on my both M8s. I could take pictures and format it in my cameras. Weird, isn't it?

Edited by ArtZ
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Thank you Artz, now my reflections (and experiments):

 

At first, since I didn't know any spec of an SD or SDHC card I did not have any idea about their differences, but I suspected it was something concerning voltage, then I read that both use the same voltage, and just a different number of contact pins is the difference.

Now, the M8 was not born with SDHC compatibility as we know, and that came later via firmware upgrade.

The point is, what is the difference between devices that are able to read SDHC via firmware upgrade, and devices who support 'em via hardware implementation?

Secure Digital card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My guess is that SDHC support on our M8 is something like a compromise, and data have to be written on the card in a different (compatible) way than the SDHC was meant to be written. And that's explained on the wiki. :)

 

Then the partition data table is written in the MBR of the card, and that gave me a hint... could it be possible?

Is the MBR of my card the M8's Pandora box? What if I overwrite the card's MBR?

Is it possible that once the SDHC card has been written by a device who's got full compatibility with SDHC standard (Dlux4), the firmware upgrade implementation of the M8 is not enough to save you from harm?

 

Matter of fact, when I used an SDHC card on my DLUX4 and I put it back on the M8, even after formatting, strange things happened (as I wrote before).

Then I did format the card via PC and I still got problems... so I did format it again with my M8, and problems were decreasing... but still there.

The only constant here is the MBR (IMHO)... when you format the card, you don't clear the MBR automatically, isn't it?

 

 

And so I bought a brand new SDHC card, put it in the M8 and everything was working fine.

Then I put the SDHC on the DLUX4, and it worked fine as well.

I put the same card back on the M8 and... tah dah!!! PROBLEMS! (card's full, no images displayed...)

I did format the card on the M8 but it didn't fix the problem.

Suddenly I plugged the card on my PC (not my MAC) and I did format it.

Put back the card on the M8, worked for some shots, then I switched off the camera, and when I switched the M8 on again, I got "CARD'S FULL" error again.

 

SO?

 

put back the SDHC card on the reader with my MAC, format the card with a different FS (I choosed the MacOS extended), and... (probably?) overwrited the MBR. ;)

I put the memory card on my M8, I got (as I expected) the "card's full" message, then I used the in-camera formatting tool to format the card, and now the SDHC is working like a charm on my M8 again... cool, isn't it?

 

I don't have any tool to clear the MBR of an external drive at the moment, but (that's just my guess) it could be more than enough to solve these problems.

 

Now, let's find some Geek to explain how could this happen... or am I just in a vertigo of lucky circumnstances?

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You're quite right. But isn't it simpler to segregate cards between cameras?

 

Oh, yes, that's what I'll do from now!:cool:

 

I was just curious to go down the issue a little more:rolleyes:

 

Actually, since my M8 is back, I even decided to sell the DLUX4! :)

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Oh, yes, that's what I'll do from now!:cool:

 

I was just curious to go down the issue a little more:rolleyes:

 

Actually, since my M8 is back, I even decided to sell the DLUX4! :)

Doesn't your wife need a camera?

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