Part #2 shouldn't be necessary... that's probably what turns people off.
M240: The not so good, the bad and the ugly
- Thread starter krötenblender
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Part #2 shouldn't be necessary... that's probably what turns people off.
Lss
Well-known
I have never used the M typ 240, so I make no claims about how that camera works.
I think I live in a different world of memory cards. Any digital camera I have ever tried and any other device that uses memory cards (and the total is several dozen) just works whatever card I throw at it (*). This includes the Leica M8, which has never shown any issues with any SD card under any circumstance. I use old and cheap ones on this one, as it is an old and expensive camera and that's what the spec says. I also use my memory cards as regular mass storage cards, whenever I need to transfer files offline. And continue using them in camera regardless of this. It all works without any issues because it is supposed to work like that. This is not magic.
The menu on my NEX-5N currently cannot be accessed. I delete files in camera to gain space. You guessed it, no issues in months of doing this.
(*) I have had corrupted/lost images on a Canon DSLR years ago. The card was pretty new, bought from a reputable seller, formatted in camera before use the very same day, and it had only been used in that one camera apart from downloading shots from previous shoots. I tossed the card away. The issue may have been the camera, too, but it was likely a bad card.
I think I live in a different world of memory cards. Any digital camera I have ever tried and any other device that uses memory cards (and the total is several dozen) just works whatever card I throw at it (*). This includes the Leica M8, which has never shown any issues with any SD card under any circumstance. I use old and cheap ones on this one, as it is an old and expensive camera and that's what the spec says. I also use my memory cards as regular mass storage cards, whenever I need to transfer files offline. And continue using them in camera regardless of this. It all works without any issues because it is supposed to work like that. This is not magic.
The menu on my NEX-5N currently cannot be accessed. I delete files in camera to gain space. You guessed it, no issues in months of doing this.
(*) I have had corrupted/lost images on a Canon DSLR years ago. The card was pretty new, bought from a reputable seller, formatted in camera before use the very same day, and it had only been used in that one camera apart from downloading shots from previous shoots. I tossed the card away. The issue may have been the camera, too, but it was likely a bad card.
rogazilla
Level 2 Newb
I think at the end of the day. M240 is what it is. We can discuss how the firmware is suppose to be built and how other camera don't have any memory card problem.
At the end of the day, the one that's tried and true is the Sandisk 95mb/s.
To date, all the cards I use I format in camera only. I import through lightroom and put the card back into camera and I format in camera. I have not had any trouble with any of my cards and it hasnt slowed down. YMMV.
I think in the end of the day if some normal procedures are used and multiple cards are tested. maybe something is wrong with OP's camera and should probably be looked at.
At the end of the day, the one that's tried and true is the Sandisk 95mb/s.
To date, all the cards I use I format in camera only. I import through lightroom and put the card back into camera and I format in camera. I have not had any trouble with any of my cards and it hasnt slowed down. YMMV.
I think in the end of the day if some normal procedures are used and multiple cards are tested. maybe something is wrong with OP's camera and should probably be looked at.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
SD Formatter is quite straightforward. I didn't find it neccessary with new cards, an in-camera format was just fine. Older cards, with corrupted areas benefit.
willie_901
Veteran
This is excellent preventative advice. While it is possible to do otherwise without consequence, following this advice eliminates of certain types of SD card problems.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
And lock the card before downloading into the computer.
Vince Lupo
Whatever
Other thing you should not do is to work on a photo directly from the card -- download the photo from the card onto the computer, then work on it. If you double-click on an image on the card and work on it in say, PhotoShop, when you put the card back into the camera and then try to 'playback' the images, what you will get when you come to that particular image is not the image, but a black screen with the filename (see below), plus it will take forever to go from the previous photo to that one in playback. Like the issue I was having by using slower cards, I thought it was a problem with the camera. Once I figured it out, I made sure to download a given photo first before I worked on it in the computer.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Not only that, but the camera checks the card on startup. If it comes across what it considers corrupted data or file structures, the startup will take ages.
Vince Lupo
Whatever
Wonder if the OP is 'working' on photos directly from the card? If so, then that could indeed be part of the issue.
willie_901
Veteran
Yes, yes, yes!
Good to know about the older cards tip. I'm not saying it isn't straight forward, I was just saying that it is generally unnecessary with any other camera.
JPSuisse
Well-known
Hi Krötenblender!
I think you may be hitting on my problem with Leica electronics. They are simply not as robust as I would expect for whatever reason.
Long story short, I sent my m8 to Leica Germany 3 times with a very rare but occasional intermittant lock-up with flashing red light. Solms could never find the problem, even though I told them the conditions under which it happened. Finally, I sent the camera to Leica US. They immediately recognized it a component failure and fixed it for free even though out of warranty because I had made the first complaint 3 years earlier. Since then the m8 has really been perfect.
You might have a similar problem that a component is just not in tolerance and causing strange behavior that is not a clear defect. Start up time is not "part of the specification." I know a couple other owners who have had such quirky behavior. Anyway, I didn't loose many pictures over the time, and thanks to Leica US the problem got caught. Send back now so it is at least documented before the problem causes a serious failure.
Cheers, John
I think you may be hitting on my problem with Leica electronics. They are simply not as robust as I would expect for whatever reason.
Long story short, I sent my m8 to Leica Germany 3 times with a very rare but occasional intermittant lock-up with flashing red light. Solms could never find the problem, even though I told them the conditions under which it happened. Finally, I sent the camera to Leica US. They immediately recognized it a component failure and fixed it for free even though out of warranty because I had made the first complaint 3 years earlier. Since then the m8 has really been perfect.
You might have a similar problem that a component is just not in tolerance and causing strange behavior that is not a clear defect. Start up time is not "part of the specification." I know a couple other owners who have had such quirky behavior. Anyway, I didn't loose many pictures over the time, and thanks to Leica US the problem got caught. Send back now so it is at least documented before the problem causes a serious failure.
Cheers, John
krötenblender
Well-known
I will reply to some of the points made in the thread here and summarize them in one post:
I don't do any editing in camera or on SD card ever. All pictures are first imported to my computers hard-disk and then further processed. My computer is never allowed to write to SD cards.
Write speed is not important at startup time for the camera. I get the same results in different cameras with write protected cards. The M, switched to live view, only checks at the very end of the startup if the card is writable and displays a warning.
The Lexar Professional SDXC-II 128GB has the extra line of contacts, that are not used by the M, but without using the faster interface, I found statements, that it is still able to give a reading speed of 104MB/s, which is two and a half times faster than the card, with wich I first experienced the long startup time.
However, since some insist, that only with very special cards, formatted with only a very special formatting program (only exactly 42 minutes after full moon in leap years while standing on my head...), I also did that: a new Transcend (I'm sure, someone will say, that Transcend is totally wrong) 64GB SDXC-I with 60MB/s WRITE speed and even much faster read formatted with the highly recommended SD-Formatter program: All the same startup time of nearly 13 seconds.
Some replies also ignore the precondition, that I'm talking about: The card has nearly 2000 RAW images on it and also that many jpegs. Removing half of the images also reduces startup time significantly, but not by half, so there is an offset. Probably the about 1.4s that one can get with a fresh formatted empty card.
I also wrote to the german Leica customer service, but besides an automatic robot-answer I did not get any reply, yet. Maybe, they are too busy right now or they simply don't see any problem with 12-14s startup time, when the card has that many RAW on it.
What does seem to get recognized, is that I don't only think, that 13 seconds startup time are unacceptable. I think, there are more flaws than that. Probably the 13s don't even break the internal SW specification of the M. But then it is the spec, that is flawed. All SD cards I tried, were also tried in a Olympus E-M1 with the same preconditions. With that camera, the startup time simply were constantly fast, no matter how many pictures, if formatted in camera or not or written with the computer or not. That camera is always quickly ready. And this is im my picture a big flaw in the firmware from Leica. Also to say, the cards only work fast and good, when formatted not in camera but with a special external program is a hint of a flawed firmware. A camera should be able to format a card on their own correctly. Otherwise the firmware IS FLAWED.
I don't do any editing in camera or on SD card ever. All pictures are first imported to my computers hard-disk and then further processed. My computer is never allowed to write to SD cards.
Write speed is not important at startup time for the camera. I get the same results in different cameras with write protected cards. The M, switched to live view, only checks at the very end of the startup if the card is writable and displays a warning.
The Lexar Professional SDXC-II 128GB has the extra line of contacts, that are not used by the M, but without using the faster interface, I found statements, that it is still able to give a reading speed of 104MB/s, which is two and a half times faster than the card, with wich I first experienced the long startup time.
However, since some insist, that only with very special cards, formatted with only a very special formatting program (only exactly 42 minutes after full moon in leap years while standing on my head...), I also did that: a new Transcend (I'm sure, someone will say, that Transcend is totally wrong) 64GB SDXC-I with 60MB/s WRITE speed and even much faster read formatted with the highly recommended SD-Formatter program: All the same startup time of nearly 13 seconds.
Some replies also ignore the precondition, that I'm talking about: The card has nearly 2000 RAW images on it and also that many jpegs. Removing half of the images also reduces startup time significantly, but not by half, so there is an offset. Probably the about 1.4s that one can get with a fresh formatted empty card.
I also wrote to the german Leica customer service, but besides an automatic robot-answer I did not get any reply, yet. Maybe, they are too busy right now or they simply don't see any problem with 12-14s startup time, when the card has that many RAW on it.
What does seem to get recognized, is that I don't only think, that 13 seconds startup time are unacceptable. I think, there are more flaws than that. Probably the 13s don't even break the internal SW specification of the M. But then it is the spec, that is flawed. All SD cards I tried, were also tried in a Olympus E-M1 with the same preconditions. With that camera, the startup time simply were constantly fast, no matter how many pictures, if formatted in camera or not or written with the computer or not. That camera is always quickly ready. And this is im my picture a big flaw in the firmware from Leica. Also to say, the cards only work fast and good, when formatted not in camera but with a special external program is a hint of a flawed firmware. A camera should be able to format a card on their own correctly. Otherwise the firmware IS FLAWED.
robert blu
quiet photographer
This is very scaring...and unacceptable in my view...something can go wrong in a sophisticated product unfortunately but Customer Care should do what is supposed to do...
robert
krötenblender
Well-known
It's four days now. Since I'm not in any pro-service contract with Leica, I can wait another few day. My guess anyway is, that they will tell me, that under the described preconditions, the startup time is normal behavior.
theblackbrick
Member
This is freaking me out! 😱😱😱
1.- With pretty much any other camera in the market you can use any brand, capacity, and speed memory card you want (unless the camera can't use a brand new type of memory card or the card exceed the capacity the camera can handle). But basically you should be able to buy a "standard" card and use it. Depending card and camera it might be faster or slower ... But 14 seconds no.
2.- Since the beginning of times (well not really, but you'll get the point), cameras have formated their memory cards. Actually was always the recommended procedure by the camera makers.
Now let's say I'm on a trip. I don't bring my 15" mac book pro with me. I'm there to travel and see places and people. "Oh my god!!! I lost the little pouch where I had my spare memory cards!!! No problem, I'll go to any electronics store, or Walmart or Walgreens and get a memory card to keep going on my trip. Oh! But I don't have a laptop to format my card!" :bang:
REALLY?!?!?! Cards NEVER should be depending in having a computer with you to format them. Insert in the camera, format, and go. That is the main reason I didn't pull the trigger on the MD. I love that camera, but for some things (other than downloading and procesing) it makes me be attached to a computer.
So if what you are saying it is true and that is what Leica recommends ... Epic failure Leica!!! Epic!
3.- Read #2
4.- i have never deleted the files from any memory card, unless i did it by mistake, but never on purpose. Always after done with my importing I put the card in my card case in the side of cards ready to use. Whenever I'm on the field and need a new card, grab one from the "ready to use" side of the card case, format, keep shooting. Done that my whole life with many different camera models and many different brands (never Leica tho). All my cameras started in the time they supposed to start and never had a problem with a card, let's knock on wood.
Huss
Veteran
Don't get freaked out. I just format the cards in my Ms. Never have used a computer to do that. Never have had any issues. To delete, I just reformat, again in the camera.
I use whatever SanDisk card costco sells...
I use whatever SanDisk card costco sells...
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Yes, using SDCardformatter to prep cards prior to use, I found a miniscule improvement in performance. Not much, certainly not enough to worry about. I have tossed in Transcend, Sandisk, Sony, HP, and Lexus cards without thinking about it.
I've read about a dozen freaky stories on the net of problems with the M8, M9, M typ 240, etc, about cards, almost every week. Yet, most of the folks I know who use these cameras extensively have never had a single problem, and never cared what cards they shoved in.
I guess the fact that most of them don't read the various forums makes them fearless... 😀
G
Ronald M
Veteran
What irritates me is lack of port for connection to computer.
Waiting for my M9 sensor to go bad
If the lenses were not so good, I would not buy the camera
Waiting months on end for service
Waiting for my M9 sensor to go bad
If the lenses were not so good, I would not buy the camera
Waiting months on end for service
user237428934
User deletion pending
Why that? The format-procedure stated above is for the super cautious people and that's not me.
I always format a card in the camera and never had a problem with M8, M9 and M240 in recent years. I even used cards that were formatted in other cameras (different brand) with raw files from that camera on it without any problem.
But I admit that I never ever had 2000 images on one card.
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