The Leica M240 I bought at the end of March has not been the most reliable of cameras. Apart from having had to go back to Germany for its strap lugs to be checked (which was a sensible recall rather than a reliability issue), it has been plagued by frequent lockups where the camera just stops working. Sometimes toggling the on/off switch does the trick but more often than not the battery has to be removed. I have tried all manner of SD cards to eliminate the possibility of incompatibility. I have been solidering on, hoping that a firmware update would solve the problem. But no such salvation has appeared.
Today I was out photographing the new blue Hahn/Cock statue in Trafalgar Square when I had no fewer than four lockups in quick succession. Whether it is a file-writing glitch or a physical shutter malfunction I am not sure. But it is seriously annoying. As a result, I went straight over to my Leica dealer and deposited the M for return to base. It will now go back to Solms and, summer holidays permitting, I should have it back next month.
This is unsatisfactory in any camera, never mind one costing as much as a small car. I am not the only victim, it seems. Digilloyd reports on the lockup problem among other issues. And here again catalogues unreliability. In fairness, other users have reported absolutely no issues with the M Typ 240. All I know is that I have reached the end of my tether. Good that I have the reliable and very satisfying M Monochrom (based on the old M9) to see me through the rest of the summer. It will be a black and white world from now on.
UPDATE: My camera arrived back from Germany after three weeks. The shutter mechanism had been adjusted and the camera cleaned, calibrated and checked over. Since then I have had no further problems with the lock-up problem and am beginning to enjoy the M as it was intended.
The Leica M 240 is the most unreliable Digital camera I have ever owned ( 60 different digital cameras in the past five years) I have gone through two replacement cameras before getting one that is just usable. Even at the lowest ISO setting there are always hot pixels. The camera locks up. Then there are some serious design flaws, you can’t use a flash and a EVF at the same time. Live view magnification cannot be moved off center and as the camera doesn’t use an electronic first curtain, so there is a long delay to the actual photograph being taken in live view.
Movie mode has horrible rolling shutter and again if you are Using the EVF you can’t plug in an external microphone.
There are a lot of good and improved things over the previous M digital cameras, unfortunaly the un reliability that I have experienced will cause me to sell mine as soon as any other manufacture announces a full frame mirror less camera that will take my M lenses.
I am in the process of writing up an account of the all the issues with the camera and my dealings with Leica Germany when tring to get it fixed on my site http://adamjasonmoore.com/
Thanks for this, Adam. I will have a look at your site. My M is still at Solms after three weeks so I have no idea whether or not the problem has been rectified. The strange thing is that other contributors on Leica forums have been jumping to the defence of the M, most claim to have had no problems. One dealer I know admits that "a few customers" have had lock-up problems. I haven’t noticed the hot pixels but I will certainly look closely now I know it is a potential problem. I often wonder if the delays in production are caused because of the knowledge that the camera has flaws and rectification is needed. As a matter of interest, I acquired a second-hand Monochrom and have bonded with it in a way that never happened with the M. It feels like an M9, has most of the inherent problems of the M9 (which I can live with after long experience) but has wonderful image quality. I feel at home with it and so far have not missed the bigger, heavier, fatter M.