[Leica] Firmware v. 1.196 for M9 now available

[hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson)]

To be fair Nathan, the new firmware does not in any way reduce the
performance or life span of the (Li Ion) batteries. What it does is stop
the camera operating when an older battery has irregular voltage. That
means when there is increased risk of faulty writes including banding. SD
cards issues like that have arisen for I guess a few users and they are
discussed on the forums. Well maybe not this one!. I've never seen them
myself.
They all die and the caution arises becauses the earliest M8 batteries may
now  be five or more years old and failing.  It may impact non-original
batteries should they not be performing properly too. An M9 has greater
power requirments than the M8 so you'd expect
that the batteries do work harder. I have three (originals) which get
rotated only by chance in my bag. One is about four/five years old, one
three and one two. So far so good on all of them for me with about 9,000
frames or so on my M9 (one was in my M8 for a few thousand or so frames
too).

With say a Nikon dSLR each new model might have a new battery design and
hence people wouldn't be carrying over old batteries
from one camea to another maybe?

There's also ben some re-sequencing of process steps in the camera too, I
think. I understand that trying to improve the speed has been on their
agenda for  while. The new APO Summicron 50 is in there too. Buy me one and
I'll test that for you ;-)

Cheers,
Geoff
http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman



On 25 July 2012 14:39, Nathan Wajsman <photo at frozenlight.eu> wrote:

> What a lovely way to sell more batteries at 100 Euro a pop!
>
> Cheers,
> Nathan
>
> On 25 Jul 2012, at 05:53, Jay Burleson wrote:
>
> > M9 Firmware Version 1.196
> > Performance improvements:
> > Further improvements of SD-Card compatibility.
> > Implementation of the Lens detection of the new APO-Summicron-M 1:2/50mm
> ASPH.
> > Improved power management.
> > The camera is now measuring battery stability internally. In case of
> weak battery stability, the
> > camera switches off automatically.
> >
> > Using old batteries could have lead to camera crashes and banding
> stripes under certain
> > conditions with the previous firmware versions. Especially the usage of
> nearly 6 years old M8
> > batteries proved to be critical.
> > It is the nature of Li-ion batteries that the capacity weakens after a
> certain time.
> > We recommend replacing the batteries for the M8 and the M9 after 3 years
> at the latest. Heavy usage
> > can even accelerate the aging process, and then batteries should be
> replaced earlier.
> > In case that the total amount of pictures, that can be taken with a
> certain battery, is significantly lower
> > than before with Firmware 1.196, we recommend replacing this battery.
> > New batteries can be ordered at all Leica Dealers (Order Number 14464)
> >
> > Please be aware that your settings and your user profiles can be deleted
> after the firmware update.
> > Please make a note of your settings and user profiles before you run the
> firmware update.
> >
> > Download here:
> >
> http://us.leica-camera.com/assets/file/download.php?filename=file_6178.zip
> > Instructions:
> >
> http://us.leica-camera.com/assets/file/download.php?filename=file_6840.pdf
> >
> > --
> > Jay,
> > Dripping on the shutter button here in Seattle
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
>
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> http://www.nathanfoto.com
>
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>
>
>
>
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>