My M8 needs repair

raid

raid

Dad Photographer
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Nov 2, 2005
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Hi,
I see a vertical line at the edge of the left side in each image today. Is it sectors that died, and should I contact Leica NJ to repair it? It is a faint line.
The purple tint is from using the 16mm Hologon.

L1022679-X2.jpg


L1022704-X2.jpg



I appreciate your advice on what to do. The M8 may not be worth repairing if it takes many months and if it costs a lot of money.
I recall having read that Leica may repair it for free or for a small amount of money if it is a few dead cells.
 
There is a program out there and I don’t remember but you can remap your sensor. I don’t know the name of it. Maybe some one else on RFF knows what it is. If it’s not too bad I would leave it alone might cost more to repair than to find another M8 used.
 
I agree with you. The effect seen is very minor. I could buy a Pen-F, say, and it complements my M9. I hope that someone here knows of that program that you are referring to. Thanks.

As a first step, I emailed tonight the Manager at Leica Camera NJ to ask her what she recommends me to do next about it. One person posted about sending Leica a DNG file with the issue shown in it, and then Leica would send you a firmware that is customized for the case.

I used ISO 640, and it could be that using ISO 160 results in a line that is nearly invisible.
 
If a repair or remapping is impractical there could be another solution.

Since the artifact seems very narrow (maybe just one column of pixels?) a Photoshop Action should be able to average the dead pixels with a small range of adjacent vertical pixels. This Action could be a very selective cloning operation. I suspect it would be very rare for the final result to be inferior.

All you would have to do is automatically apply the Action to every DNG or JPEG during post-production.

An extra step in your workflow is inconvenient. But this could extend its useful life.
 
Thank you for the tip, Willie. I have never used a Photoshop Action before.

I expect the line to disappear at low ISO settings anyways. Leica Camera NJ asked me for a DNG image file when I emailed them yesterday about the dead line issue.
 
I tried it again at ISO 160-320-640-1250. The dead line shows only at ISO 640 and 1250. The higher ISO settings seem to be affected. As I hardly ever set ISO above 320, this is maybe why I never before encountered dead lines.
 
Raid, what happens if you set the ISO to 160 and then set the exposure compensation to +2 or +3? That's a trick recommended on an M8 site some years ago to give higher iso with less noise. It works very well if you're shooting DNG. Let us know how it all turns out. Good luck.
 
I also remember a software called M8Raw2DNG that provided some ability to remap and eliminate dead pixels (which result in vertical lines). I have the software on my computer, and its free to distribute, so let me know if interested.

I haven't looked at this software for a long time now, so don't remember any details about it.
 
presspass said:
Raid, what happens if you set the ISO to 160 and then set the exposure compensation to +2 or +3? That's a trick recommended on an M8 site some years ago to give higher iso with less noise. It works very well if you're shooting DNG. Let us know how it all turns out. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I will check this out. Thanks. I know that deal lines only show p at ISO 640 and up. Maybe your idea works!
I will not work if I use auto exposure since images would be overexposed then. Manual exposure may work better.
 
rfaspen said:
I also remember a software called M8Raw2DNG that provided some ability to remap and eliminate dead pixels (which result in vertical lines). I have the software on my computer, and its free to distribute, so let me know if interested.

I haven't looked at this software for a long time now, so don't remember any details about it.
Click to expand...

Brian Sweeney uses it too. Thanks.
 
update: Leica Camera NJ are unable to identify the problem when inspecting my DNG file. They need the camera to be sent to them.
 
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