Sent my M9 off to Kolari Toiday

B

Benjamin Marks

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. . . asked for their no-rush sensor cover replacement service. Dunno whether it will come through on the test shot below (f:16, infinity focus, blue sky) but there were significant greeblies in the pix. Not as obvious with the lens wide open, but resistent to all cleaning. Same symptom as for the original sensor replacement by Leica NJ about seven years ago. All in all, this seemed like a better "fix" than a new camera. At least at the price. We will see how the "new" set up does in about a month.

Ben



L1012221 - Ben Marks M9 Test Shot.jpg
 
Also looks like a scratch on the cover glass.

Is this a sensor with the newer BG55 glass, or the original S8612?
 
Yup on the scratch, Brian. Not sure how it got there, but it shows up on pix at smaller apertures. Found out about it after a trip to Iceland. Grrrr.
The replacement cover will be SchottBG61 Glass, which is advertised by Kolari as corrosion proof. Their write-up on it is here: |Kolari| Repair Service for the Leica M9 Camera – Kolari Vision

Looks like the transmission is similar to the original filter.

Seems to me like they are only replacing the filter, not the sensor.
 
Good to know- both my M9 and M Monochrom are BG55. The Dye used in the Color Filter Array was also changed with the BG55.

Kolari changes only the cover glass. The new BG61 has less UV sensitivity than either the BG55 or S8612. I use a UV filter on my lenses.
 
f.hayek said:
Did you inquire with Leica as to their opinion regarding the ditzels?
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You know, I didn't. I had the original sensor cover corrode -- looked just like this, but worse. When I had Leica do that earlier replacement under warranty, I understood that I was getting essentially a pristine version of the sensor that had gone bad and that the inherent flaws were still there. This was a strategy to buy time, was not expensive (to me, at least) and let me keep shooting with my lenses.

I figure one of two things will come from this experiment with Kolari. Either I will shoot the camera for another five years, at which time the prices on used M11's will have come down a bit and I will have a fully functional camera to sell, or I will keep shooting it (I like the sensor well enough and have never felt like I was suffering from lack of resolution from this camera).

But leaving an expensive piece of gear hobbled was just frustrating -- ultimately a non-choice. And since the point of having those wonderful lenses is to use them, I need a platform to do that.

FWIW, there was a period in the early 2000's when my disposable income and Leica's prices were aligned reasonably well. But Leica's current pricing model (while perhaps necessary) has put new cameras like the M11 firmly beyond my reach. I don't like it, but there is not much I can do about it. So ya fix what ya got, and keep clicking. . . .
 
Sonnar Brian said:
Good to know- both my M9 and M Monochrom are BG55. The Dye used in the Color Filter Array was also changed with the BG55.

Kolari changes only the cover glass. The new BG61 has less UV sensitivity than either the BG55 or S8612. I use a UV filter on my lenses.
Click to expand...
I will post some test pictures when I get the camera back this fall. That picture above was taken with a modern 50/2.8 collapsible, on which I happen to keep an IR-cut filter. My other filters of that type from the M-8 days sit on a shelf as I generally haven't felt I needed them with the M9.
 
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Benjamin Marks said:
You know, I didn't. I had the original sensor cover corrode -- looked just like this, but worse. When I had Leica do that earlier replacement under warranty, I understood that I was getting essentially a pristine version of the sensor that had gone bad and that the inherent flaws were still there. This was a strategy to buy time, was not expensive (to me, at least) and let me keep shooting with my lenses.

I figure one of two things will come from this experiment with Kolari. Either I will shoot the camera for another five years, at which time the prices on used M11's will have come down a bit and I will have a fully functional camera to sell, or I will keep shooting it (I like the sensor well enough and have never felt like I was suffering from lack of resolution from this camera).

But leaving an expensive piece of gear hobbled was just frustrating -- ultimately a non-choice. And since the point of having those wonderful lenses is to use them, I need a platform to do that.

FWIW, there was a period in the early 2000's when my disposable income and Leica's prices were aligned reasonably well. But Leica's current pricing model (while perhaps necessary) has put new cameras like the M11 firmly beyond my reach. I don't like it, but there is not much I can do about it. So ya fix what ya got, and keep clicking. . . .
Click to expand...
So it’s the original sensor that was replaced with another original and now it’s rotting.
 
I bought a used M9 with the sensor and board replacement done by Leica repair. So far it has held up. If it fails, and it is not showing any signs of failing, I'll take it up to Jadon at RedDotRepair. He is about two hours from me and always a fun guy to talk with. And he does good work. The other local store is run by hooples. Nine months for a J8 CLA. And it was not done right. Needless to say I did not bring it back for them to make it right. It is a shame as that was once a very good shop.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
Always happy to expand my vocabulary with a new insult, or two. Thank you! ;)
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It is from my Jr. College days. Judy Coughlin, a student nurse and a smashing fox, was dating a buddy and that was hers for a real jerk. I never heard anyone else use it. I just found out it is Hungarian plural for jerk. With a name like Coughlin she was Irish but maybe mom was Hungarian. She was a doll, her eyes were so beautiful they could crush your heart. And smart, she was smart.

I am glad that Judy has helped you out, too. ;o) She would laugh and be pleased.
 
So the M9 is back from Kolari with the new sensor cover. The issues seem resolved, although there is a bit of dust on the sensor, which is annoying since I paid $100 extra for the "deep clean" option. That said, it is a vast improvement over the "greeblies" that the sensor was producing when I sent it off. Here's two test shots, one at f16 of the blue sky to to see what could be resolved at the sensor position and one at 2.8. Both 160 ISO and shot on "A". I still say that the modern version of the 50/2.8 is one of the best corrected lenses I have ever used. No corrections other than considerable down res-ing of the DNG for posting here. The on-card size of the files is 17MB. The pix posed below are 250 KB and 486 KB, so an order and a a half magnitude less resolution.

Turn around from Kolari was 2 weeks, despite choosing the "take your time, don't charge me more" option. But I guess that depends on their workload at the moment that the camera is sent in. So: happy customer, more or less.

L1090959 - Post Sensor Cover Replacement.jpg


L1090965 28 Close Focus.jpg
 
Looks good- and a good solution for the glass corrosion problem.

17MBytes on the card- means you are using the Lossy compression scheme. The algorithm is extremely bad for shooting at high ISO, cause a lot of color noise. At base ISO- will not do much unless you start increasing the exposure in post processing. The uncompressed DNG is much better means 34MBytes per image. The latter- offers much better post processing for exposure correction.
 
You are a font of useful information, as always, Brian. You know, I have had the DNG setting on Lossy for a couple of years now and have not had any complaints. But your post has made me reconsider that, and I have just changed the setting to Uncompressed, and we'll see how that does. My guess is that I will forget about it, just as I did with the "Compressed" setting, as long as I am happy with the output. I do love the look of the files from this camera and the things that I actually do with the files (post here, make Blurb books) usually require me to jettison a lot of that data anyway. Still, nothing wrong with having as much data to start with as possible.

From my perspective, fixing the sensor (I hope) permanently, means that this camera has years of life left in her yet.
 
Like a lot of M shooters, I have a fairly extensive lens library in the M-mount. It is really the M lenses that I want to keep using. Eventually, there's an M11 in my future. But Leica products cost so much these days, the only way I will get into an M11 is to buy one used. So the M9 has to last long enough so that M11 prices have come down to something more reasonable.

Either that, or I'll figure out a way to adapt M lenses to a Sony or other mirrorless platform. But I don't like the wide-angle performance/compromises that I have seen so far, and let's face it, M-lenses are really a tiny portion of the market (e.g. not likely that a major manufacturer is going to work out the coding for good performance with the M-wides. So, the resurrection of the M9 is a great thing.
 
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