Leica M9 Special Warning

[gillavi]

A couple of weeks ago I got a new Leica M9. All excited, I put in the best SD card on the market, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 8GB. It took only a few hours of taking pictures before the card crashed and the camera become unresponsive until I removed the card. I wasn’t worried at the beginning. I was in love.

A few days after, I had a high profile portrait photo shoot for an important client. Of course I took the M9 and my beloved Leica 90mm with me, together with a new SanDisk SD card, not before installing the newest firmware update. It was a very long photo shoot with heavy production, a tight schedule and sweaty assistants. It was just before that end of the photo shoot that the other new SanDisk SD card Extreme crashed inside the M9, making the camera dead and the card unreadable in any device. With all the embarrassment, I had to reshoot everything all over again with my backup equipment.


SanDisk were kind enough to replace the card immediately. “Bad batch” is was I was told. I got new SanDisk extreme pro cards from another batch. The same problem came back after one day. Both cards died again, erasing all of the images I created for my clients while shooting, causing me an enormous loss.

This time, I decided to replace not only the kind of cards but the camera itself and to get another M9.

I opened the new M9 Box, took the camera out, charged the battery, put a SanDisk Ultra card this time and went out to check the new one. The first issue I noticed was how slow the camera was writing to the card, but I was ready to live with that for the reliability. And by slow, I mean ridiculously slow. Much slower then the M8.

Today, 5 days later, the camera started to behave very strangely with. I could see the pictures that I had just shot on the screen but then after few moments it disappeared from the card. Occasionally the camera got stuck stating “writing” indefinitely. I waited up to 20-30 minutes after shooting just one frame before removing the battery to fix it. Other times it said “no sd card”. The card was formatted in the camera minutes before used.

When I got back and downloaded the files, most of them were “written” but as 0 KByte files. Tried both DNG and Jpeg.

I Googled to see what other people have to say about the M9 and SanDisk SD memory cards. I found many users with the exact same problems, all suffering from it with the newer versions of SanDisk cards.

I just decided to get rid of all my SanDisk cards at the moment. 95% of the complaints are from people with SanDisk Ultra/Extreme, but some reporting similar issues with Lexar as well. I don’t know if there are more SanDisk users and they are driving the higher number of reports about SanDisk or this is uniquely a SanDisk problem.

Following is an image of the print screen of the Leica M9 saving 0 KBytes files:

I highly recommend avoiding the Leica M9 until this problem is acknowledged and solved by SanDisk, Lexar and Leica.

You can read more at:
http://www.gillavi.com/blog/leica/leica-m9-sandisk-failure/

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

What a nightmare.

 

[yoyo22]

Have you contacted the Leica customer service?

 

[drinkingeye]

what a terrible experience! I use 3 different ScanDisk extreme III cards with my M9 (4, 8 and 16 GB) - fortunately never had such a problem!
All the best to you and thanks for warning us!
cheers

 

[horosu]

Well, I use only two SanDisk Extreme III cards (bought two years ago) and never had a single problem with them (or the M9 for that matter).


Regards, Horea

 

[JonasYip]

i've had no problems with 4GB SanDisk Extreme III cards since I've had the camera (Jan 2010).

But I did have a problem with a SanDisk Extreme 8GB... the first one I used got fried in the M9 and is no longer readable anywhere. I was on a trip at the time, so at the point I just stopped using the 8GB cards in the M9 and stuck to the 4GB ones and have just kept that up ever since. Therefore I don't know whether the failure is repeatable, but it could be an incompatibility with that particular card (extra sensitive SD controller vs some voltage at the edge of spec, or whatever).

In any case, no need to avoid the M9 if you find a known good card. In my case, 4GB SanDisk Extreme III == no problems. Some of my other 4GB cards didn't work at all (Transcend, Kingston?).

j

 

[gillavi]

Contacted Leica rep at the beginning. they recommended on the Ultra. Of course it didn't help.

I returned the camera today and selling all of my Leica equipment, as a professional photographer I can't count on it anymore.

Today the Leica rep said they well aware of the problem and working on a solution. I think it's a shame that they didn't issue a warning for the clients.

I'm done with Leica and very sad for that.

Gil

 

[gillavi]

One of the more comprehensive threads about the subjects from April:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1038&thread=37984216

and on the LFI forum:

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

I returned the camera today and selling all of my Leica equipment, as a professional photographer I can't count on it anymorel

Canon has never let me down, but it’s not cheap.

 

[squinza]

Was it your first M9?
Such problems happen and have been reported before, I would never begin an important job with a completely new camera (and possibly a completely new system). Especially if it gets stuck on the very first day...

 

[gdmcclintock]

I had problems with SanDisk cards and switched to Lexar 133x SDHC cards. So far, so good, but reports like that of the OP worry me.

 

[Instantclassic]

What a horrible experience.

 

[MartinP]

Also, it is worth remembering that the most faked brand of SD cards is indeed Sandisk. The proportion of faked cards is very high, even from apparently reliable sources due to long and mysterious supply chains.

To be on the safe side, you could contact Sandisk about the possible fakes and where you bought them.

 

[gillavi]

Hi Hi, happened with my first and my second M9. Was shooting with M8 and other M film cameras for years.

The cards were originals. 2 of them been sent to me from SanDisk has a replacement. The other ones were bought from B&H, Adorama and Kurland.

I couldn't sleep because of that and has i don't think I should not sleep because of a camera I just got rid of my all Leica system.

I think the greatest shame is that Leice knows about that since April/May and do nothing to notify the users.

 

[user237428934]

I think the greatest shame is that Leice knows about that since April/May and do nothing to notify the users.

You have a source for that statement?

 

[gillavi]

Yes, the Leica rep today over the phone said that they know about it at list for a few weeks. The internet is full with people complaining about the problems to Leica since April.

 

[peter_n]

I don't read the digital forums on the LUF as I won't go near the digital Leicas, but I seem to remember talk of a compatibility list a while back. I assume Leica has one that is published.

The first thing I consulted when I bought my DSLR is the manufacturer's published compatibility list and I bought the SanDisk cards that were specified. They were not the fastest on the market at the time but they have been very reliable.

 

[Ben Z]

I'm still shooting with 2GB cards, the same ones I used successfully with my former M8. An assortment of Sandisk and Kingston. One Sandisk card refused to get recognized by the M9 from day one although still works fine in other devices.

What I do notice is that write times seem to be very much longer since the last firmware update, so I think there might be a glitch in there.

Sorry you have had to abandon the camera as a professional. There is certainly more to a "professional camera" than simply professional image quality...something Leica might need a reminder?

 

[Fraser]

Not good at all,
Touch wood never had any problems but the only Sandisk cards I have are old ones I always use Lexar in all my cameras.
Its not just Leica all the major camera companies have had problems with cameras for different reasons remember the Canon 1d Mk111 focus issues and Nikon have only just started making good cameras!

 

[yoyo22]

Yes, the Leica rep today over the phone said that they know about it at list for a few weeks. The internet is full with people complaining about the problems to Leica since April.

The internet is full of people complaining - right.
But how many other M9 cameras are out there whos owners have no problems with their SD-cards?
So far I used two different Sandisk Ultra II and some Transcend cards without any trouble with two different M9 cameras and I've never had any problems.