winzenbourg
Established
Hi all,
I recently picked up a used M8 and I'm experiencing some serious issues with it. It was said to be in perfect working condition. Most (but not all) of the images suffer from varying degrees of horizontal banding. This occurs from ISO 160 to ISO 640 in images that are underexposed, properly exposed, and overexposed. It shows up under different kinds of lighting.
I have tried the following remedies:
-New memory card (8, 16, 32 GB)
-New genuine Leica battery
-Various lenses (Leica 50, Zeiss 35, Konica 50, Voigtlander 28)
-Updating the firmware
-Shooting on auto exposure, auto ISO
I'm shooting DNG + B&W JPEG.
And the issue persists. Each time I've changed one or more of these variables I thought the problem had gone away, but it inevitably shows up again. I've read every thread on banding that I could find and haven't found something that works.
I bought this camera as a black and white only camera, but I've also noticed that it seems to be extremely sensitive to IR light. I'm shooting it without an IR filter. I previously owned an M8, but always shot it with a UV/IR filter, so can't say if they are all this sensitive, though the images I have noticed in searching around seem to have a slight purple tint, not everything turning purple. Is this normal?
As one last aside, the camera also suffers from the LCD coffee stain issue, though I don't think that is related to the banding.
Forgive the mundane test shots, but I don't feel comfortable taking the camera out of the house for any real shooting until the issue is solved.
Four shots showing varying degrees of banding:
One blurry shot showing the IR sensitivity. That's a black sweater, gold placemat, and black/brown beans:
Does anyone have any suggestions for other alternatives to fix the issue? Is my only option to send it in to Leica, and can they even fix it at this point in time?
Thanks,
Lucas
I recently picked up a used M8 and I'm experiencing some serious issues with it. It was said to be in perfect working condition. Most (but not all) of the images suffer from varying degrees of horizontal banding. This occurs from ISO 160 to ISO 640 in images that are underexposed, properly exposed, and overexposed. It shows up under different kinds of lighting.
I have tried the following remedies:
-New memory card (8, 16, 32 GB)
-New genuine Leica battery
-Various lenses (Leica 50, Zeiss 35, Konica 50, Voigtlander 28)
-Updating the firmware
-Shooting on auto exposure, auto ISO
I'm shooting DNG + B&W JPEG.
And the issue persists. Each time I've changed one or more of these variables I thought the problem had gone away, but it inevitably shows up again. I've read every thread on banding that I could find and haven't found something that works.
I bought this camera as a black and white only camera, but I've also noticed that it seems to be extremely sensitive to IR light. I'm shooting it without an IR filter. I previously owned an M8, but always shot it with a UV/IR filter, so can't say if they are all this sensitive, though the images I have noticed in searching around seem to have a slight purple tint, not everything turning purple. Is this normal?
As one last aside, the camera also suffers from the LCD coffee stain issue, though I don't think that is related to the banding.
Forgive the mundane test shots, but I don't feel comfortable taking the camera out of the house for any real shooting until the issue is solved.
Four shots showing varying degrees of banding:




One blurry shot showing the IR sensitivity. That's a black sweater, gold placemat, and black/brown beans:

Does anyone have any suggestions for other alternatives to fix the issue? Is my only option to send it in to Leica, and can they even fix it at this point in time?
Thanks,
Lucas
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