Leica M9 Special Warning

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No, never had a problem with my M9 and SanDisk Extreme 16gb cards. You are either extremely unlucky with two identically faulty cameras, it is a user error, or a firmware glitch that only affects you.

You should be ashamed to call for a general avoidance of the M9 when there are clearly many thousands (hundreds of thousands now??) who are not whining. Just put your own problem into perspective, work out the % chance of it happening to somebody else and you are into the realm of it being more likely that they are knocked over by a bus than fulfilling your hysterical accusations in buying an M9.

Steve
 
The only one? Google please. You'll find many many many users like me.

Not real? you are most welcome: Http:www.GilLavi.com
This is why I reshoot on the spot with the canon. One fault was before the pro shoot so I assume is a card problem, I couldn't believed it to be the M9 problem. Unfortunately it was.

You should be a shame to write in this language. I assume you one of this other rich oldies that never really took any pictures with is camera.

User fault?! So many experienced Leica users faults that Leica admits to be the camera fault?!
 
Just went and checked my cards. Sandisk Ultra 4s and 2s. No problems in well over a year and a half with the M9, or almost 5 years with the M8 (2s only), though I have 'retired' (with curses) a couple of cheaper cards.

In June/July my M9 and M8 went 5970 miles with me on the motorcycle, and cameras, lenses and cards are stilll working fine. Maybe I'm just lucky.

Cheers,

R.
 
gillavi said:
The only one? Google please. You'll find many many many users like me.

Not real? you are most welcome: Http:www.GilLavi.com
This is why I reshoot on the spot with the canon. One fault was before the pro shoot so I assume is a card problem, I couldn't believed it to be the M9 problem. Unfortunately it was.

You should be a shame to write in this language. I assume you one of this other rich oldies that never really took any pictures with is camera.

User fault?! So many experienced Leica users faults that Leica admits to be the camera fault?!
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I stand corrected and humbly apologise. As to being one of the other rich oldies, well my age is on display, but not my wealth or lack of it. However, I still wouldn't take a new camera to an important shoot. Good luck with your new camera.
 
Very unfortunate experience; I sympathize.

My strategy is to avoid first generation products in general; not just cameras, but appliances, new car models, etc. Bugs and kinks often need to be worked out. No excuse for the companies at fault; but no surprise either that s**t happens.

I bought 2 M8.2s, each with zero problems to date, unlike the experience from many (not the majority, but still many) early M8 users. If I ever get an M9, it's likely to be an M9.2 or, at a minimum, a later M9 with firmware updates and various other tweaks.

I'm very appreciative that many folks don't follow my approach; otherwise, there would be no early adopters to surface problems.

Jeff
 
I use the Sandisk Ultra 16gb, three of them, and never a problem in 1.5 years of heavy shooting. Having said that, I would never shoot an event with one camera and never with a new one if I was being paid for it. I have often shot with two cameras shooting almost the same shots and there have been times I was grateful I did. The only time I didn't was when shooting film on MF and view cameras. My problem has been a focus shift that I have to adjust for and a sensor, the second, that needs to be replaced.
 
I've had a couple of cards fail one using the original firmware about a year ago, and again just a few months ago.

I tried quite a few recovery software packages without success. Has anyone tried the recovery service that Sandisk offer? It's a bit expensive, but supposedly can recover images that recovery software can't rescue.
 
It sounds like you had a terrible experience, one that would likely turn you away from any brand for a long, long time. At least you are still using something you can rely on.

I have been fortunate that my M9 has worked perfectly with Sandisk cards. I have many SD and SDHC Sandisks and they work in the M9.
 
I have also had problems with Sandisk branded SD cards in my Nikon gear. I now use Toshiba-made SD cards (made in Japan), and have had no issues since.
 
Gid said:
However, I still wouldn't take a new camera to an important shoot.
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Indeed. I don't want to sound unsympathetic but I wouldn't either. I'm just an amateur, so an important shoot for me is something like a vacation; a once-in-a-lifetime visit to somewhere. I make damn sure everything is working and reliable before I leave.

The OP used apparently untested memory cards, updated the firmware just before one shoot, and the camera crashed and he lost all his work. What a surprise! I'm truly sorry that this happened to the OP but I think he's mainly responsible for the outcome.

gillavi said:
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.
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He even knew it was somewhat unreliable before the first shoot but persisted with it. He took a completely unnecessary risk with a new toy and paid the price. As we all know, love is a losing game.
 
Part of our problem is the availability of big capacity cards vs 2 or 4gb cards
I prefer 2gb cards - not easy to get, and more expensive.
But when I had a problem with an 8BG card, and thought I lost 500 pix (I could recover most) with my M8, I limited myslef to approx 100 to 150 shots per card.
 
That would be rough though and sorry for your problem. It would sour me also, but then I might have tried a different brand of SD card. I have had my share of problems with the M9 and would not rely on it for something major.
 
Gil, that's terrible.........have you brought this to the attention of Leica New Jersey?

I'm having similar issues with an M8 and the "sudden death" issue, I realy had hoped that Leica had gotten their act straight and were producing a quailty reliable digital camera with the M9, sounds like they haven't.

I hope that you can get the issue taken care of, bring it to the attention of New Jersey they are very helpful there, the people at Solms have no idea what they are doing......sigh!

Tom
 
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I've had problems with Transcend card, exactly how the OP described it. With an 8GB SanDisk Extreme III everything works fine until now though.

Just another opinion from the embedded industry, manufacturers of these flash memory always have their special implementation, which can obviously cause problem when the driver is not expecting such behaviour. Normally though this is not an impossible thing to fix, covering 100% compatibility to all aftermarket flash cards is of-course impossible, but Leica should have at the very least put more effort into making sure cards from the major suppliers are compatible. Our products can handle almost any flash memory out there.

Is it still Jenoptik that does the software for Leica? This is why Leica just can't really compete with the big japanese camera makers, they just don't have the power to do it. I work in the embedded industry I know how much effort we put into assuring the quality of our products. Leica might have the mechanical quality control to perfection, but surely not their Software ;-)
 
gillavi said:
You should be a shame to write in this language. I assume you one of this other rich oldies that never really took any pictures with is camera.
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Well there is a link to some photo's right at the end of each of my posts. The fact that you didn't bother to see if I took any photo's my be linked to your extreme internalisation of your card/M9 problem. Hence your selfish call for other individuals to suffer by not buying an M9, and for Leica to suffer by what you imagine is bad publicity. You want the world to suffer if you suffer.

But consider this, if you used an untried camera on a job, and when something goes (clearly) wrong you publish this all over the internet, even your own Blog, what are your potential clients going to think if they read it? As an ex-professional photographer I would have been very worried if any of my clients ever thought the equipment I used was unreliable. Work for anybody and you shouldn't make them feel like its a chore, you shouldn't present them with worries, the job should appear to go smoothly and run like clockwork even if there are panic's in the background. Do not project your problems into the workplace, and do not project them into the gossiping public domain if you don't want gossip to start.

The cat is out of the bag in this case, but there are two levels at which a photographic assignment can turn to crap based on unreliability, one is the camera, and the other is the photographer. Addressing both should be high on the 'to do' list.

Good luck getting it sorted out.

Steve
 
Here is a video of the issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVaNXbN12KI

250sw: You should do some research before accusing people of gossiping etc. This is a real issue and quite many M9 (and M8) users are having it. Leica has acknowledged the problem and is trying to find a solution with Jenopic and Sandisk.
 
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What disturbs me here is the word "Warning". The TO seems to be on a personal crusade against Leica because of the technical problems he experienced. Of course this sucks but there isn't a camera brand without some problems. We heard that Leica works on the problem, what more can we expect?

The expectation that a manufacturer informs customers of problems that might happen is ridiculous. There are numerous users of M8/M9 that have zero problems including me with my M8. I'd only expect an active warning/information if an error might be dangerous for the user.
 
I agree on the warning part.. This is a tricky issue to solve, but I know that Leica is working on it and I hope there will be a resolution for this in the near future.

My personal experience is that my M9 is VERY picky on the memory cards. I have had failures with Sandisk Ultra, Ultra II, Extreme, Lexar Pro 8GB.

I have a Sandisk Ultra 4GB that works fine and 2 Kingston Ultimate X (Class 10) 8GB cards that seem to work without problems. I can delete, view etc.. with the Kingston card and if I try to do the same thing with the other cards the M9 crashed almost immediately.

So, until Leica finds a solution for the card compatibility, try to find a card that works on YOUR M9 and use that.
 
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