In my experience Leica will extend courtesy repair out of guaranty in many cases.
They didn't do that with my M8. Instead they charged me as much for the repair as a working user M2 would cost here on RFF.
While they state "Cosmic radiation (eg: on flights) can cause pixel defects." Neither of my digital M bodies has been on a flight or anywhere near the upper atmosphere before these pixel errors occurred. In fact, they haven't been past about 1000 feet above sea level so the atmosphere would help to attenuate the affect of cosmic radiation on my CCD. And cosmic radiation shouldn't cause permanent damage, it will cause a spike in a particular transistor or transistors which can appear as hot or dead pixels, yes but they won't be repeated like the problem I'm having.
It also appears that in manufacture of the CCD is where many hot, stuck or dead pixel errors occur. In my case, I have a stuck red pixel peaked at 255 in the left lower quadrant of the image, so the right upper quadrant of the sensor. This red pixel and occasional cyan line appear in every photo despite the signal excess of the photo site being reached or passed.
According to the ISO standard, most consumer electronic devices of this nature are allowed 2 dead, 2 hot or 5 stuck pixels or a combination of two per/megapixel. The old standard and new are slightly different but the numbers still remain the same. These are manufacturing defects, not ones from cosmic rays.
As for the batch issue, early Leica M8 cameras were plagued by it. Some M9 cameras have been affected, mostly with stuck pixels in one particular channel, usually red or green and they get sent to Leica for fixing.
Now, considering that my M9 has had two incidents of the same channel with the same line in the same quadrant (though a few hundred pixels away) within 6 months of each other wouldn't you consider that unacceptable? Every single M8 I have known the owner of has had to go back to Leica for hot pixel fixing. My old D2H never had a single faulty pixel and it had an LBCAST sensor, closer to a CCD than a CMOS. I took that camera up flying around the world twice and on numerous missions over the Pacific with the Navy. Not one faulty pixel. And that was 7 years ago.
This is a manufacturing defect and Leica knows it which is why they cover it under warranty. If they simply indemnified themselves with the cosmic radiation excuse, they wouldn't have to fix any cameras.
As for out of warranty repair, there is no such thing as an out of warranty Leica M9 right now. There will be in 6 more days though.
So, in summation, while cosmic rays may cause pixel defects, they shouldn't cause them with such frequency in the same camera. If it is in fact the case then Leica needs to get on board and do what other companies do, make the problem not appear to our eyes.
The problem is one of manufacture and the warranty service we get from Leica proves that. They did cover their backsides for 9/10/11 though by saying that cosmic radiation may cause pixel damage so they won't have to continue to service our cameras after the 2 year warranty is up.
Leica sensors exhibit stuck and hot pixels far too frequently.
Leica also needs to treat the customers of their top shelf cameras like they just bought a top shelf camera. With better warranty service, warranty period upgrade availability (which is not available to US customers) and more reliable products.
Can you pass on the secret of how to get out of warranty/guarantee service on a digital Leica to help save the rest of us some money?
Phil Forrest
