Works in room temperature, not in cold, likely error?

[torger]

My Leaf Aptus 75 back did not work in the cold, so I paid the price and got a full repair, e-box replaced. I got better, now it works flawlessly in room temperature (it could have hickups before, troubles to boot etc even in room temperature), but it still fails in cold weather. The last test I did was in -5C (23 F), i e not an extreme temperature.

The failures occur only when the back has become cold (ambient temperature), and then it can miss pictures and lock up, and instead of the beep sound that indicates it is ready for the next shot it sometimes emits strange noises instead and locks up. This happens even when battery indicator shows full battery. When battery is low more strange things can happen, write errors to CF cards and stuff. Low battery in room temperature is no problem, then it runs without errors until battery is out.

I have one new Leaf original battery (manufactured 2011), and a larger battery which is older. Failures occur with both these, even when batteries are freshly loaded. I shoot with a tech cam with copal shutters and flash sync.

As it works flawlessly in room temperature I'm assuming that it is unlikely that the error is caused by sync cable or CF card. I'm also assuming that while a bad sync cable could cause pictures to be missed, it would not lead to strange noises out of the speaker or lockups (which I get), so I don't think that is the problem. Maybe CF cards can become bad in cold and cause troubles, but I guess it is more likely that if a CF card works in room temperature (as it does) it should be no problem in the cold.

I want to dig more into this problem and try to isolate and point it out as exactly as possible before I contact the dealer again.

Anyone that has any idea of what the likely error is?

 

[jotloob]

I have followed your thread on LULA for quite some time .

I had a very similar issue with my CFV-16 some years ago and the back had to be sent to the factory twice .
As a matter of fact , the specifications say it very clear .
Operating temperature is : 0-45 C /32-113 F . Thats , what is guaranteed .
I believe these specs are valid for all digital backs , with very little tolerances
like , might be just +- 2 C .
If some devices work fine below or above these limits , you are just lucky and its nice to have .

 

[torger]

Yes I'm aware of the guaranteed range. It is like with Canon and Nikon pro DSLRs, as far as I know they don't guarantee operation in say -20C or give any guarantees at all for their weather proofing. But professional photographers expect a certain standard, and these companies strive to fulfill that with field testing etc, it would be a disaster for them if their gear get a reputation of being unreliable in the field. Not guaranteeing more in the tech spec is more a formal thing. You can't have a pro camera which can't be used outdoors in the winter.

Maybe the medium format companies are different, I don't know. Most pro shooters work inside a studio anyway. I would not be surprised if the end result will be that Leaf says to me that they have fulfilled their tech spec and they won't do anything more. I would be disappointed of course and would have to sell the gear to someone in warm climate, but not surprised. In their marketing material they claim to be reliable, but this is a real test if this is true.

No matter how high quality products a manufacturer makes, they can occasionally fail, and you don't know for sure if the manufacturer is serious about reliability until you have a failure and you get to see how they handle it. In that way I find it kind of interesting to go through this process, but if I got to choose I'd rather want it work by now. I really like the back -- when it works.

 

[torger]

I had a very similar issue with my CFV-16 some years ago and the back had to be sent to the factory twice.

Did they fix it? Hasselblad is actually a brand I'm looking into switching to if Leaf fails to fix my problem. The climate in Sweden (Hasselblad) is a bit different than the climate in Israel (Leaf), so maybe they have a little bit better understanding of that a camera must work in subzero temperatures .

 

[Geoff]

My Leaf was fine in temps as low as 19º F - except for rapid battery use. No other issues. Maybe Yaya has a point that one of the ancillaries (cord, card) is strangely acting up in the cold? Can't hurt to try. Wouldn't be the first time something wierd... Best of luck.

 

[torger]

My Leaf was fine in temps as low as 19º F - except for rapid battery use. No other issues. Maybe Yaya has a point that one of the ancillaries (cord, card) is strangely acting up in the cold? Can't hurt to try. Wouldn't be the first time something wierd... Best of luck.

There seems to be no lack of examples of Leaf Aptus 75 backs working in very cold weather, so it *should* work, but mine does not. Remains to be seen if Leaf cares or not.

I find it unlikely that a bad cord/shutter could cause a back to lock up. I shall try with yet a different CF card. My card is new though and formatted properly, only used in the back. I tested the card thing already before sending in for repair, but I shall do it again. I would be very glad if the error is on my side, but the tech cam interface is not exactly complicated, not much that can go wrong.

My own guess is that there is something with the power circuits in the back that is bad, that power feed becomes unstable when cold, perhaps only to the "imaging module" which seems to be some sort of separate thing, which maybe is not affected by the e-box replacement. I shall try with firewire feed to exclude any battery issues, but now it is warm weather until after the weekend.

 

[Geoff]

How about trying the freezer for the back, and keeping everything else warm?

 

[torger]

How about trying the freezer for the back, and keeping everything else warm?

Maybe I'll try that, it will be a bit complicated to operate the back inside the freezer though, and I don't want to move it too quickly between freezing temperature and room temperature which would be mean to the electronics. I'll see if I can find a suitable deep box to put it in though so the cold air does not escape as soon as I pick out the back from the freezer to test it.

(When working outdoor I pack the camera bag in room temperature and there's typically 1 hour or so until the first picture, so meanwhile the gear gets cooled down slowly inside the bag. And when getting home I leave the gear in the closed bag until it has reached room temperature again. That way I never get issues with condensation or other problems related to fast temperature changes)

 

[Geoff]

Perhaps outside could be a good moderating in-between zone?

 

[torger]

Perhaps outside could be a good moderating in-between zone?

Yes that would work nicely. The freezer test sounds like a good idea by now .

Something like this:

1) put the back in a box in the freezer with battery, 2) wait until cold (about -18C), 3) bring out the box outside (about 0C currently), 4) attach a warm shutter through warm sync cable (camera attachment not necessary) to trigger image taking, insert warm CF card, 5) provoke a failure 6) replace with warm battery and test if it fails then 7) feed power through firewire and test if it fails then.

If it fails both with warm battery and firewire feed with the warm CF card (all which has proven to work well when all is in room temperature) then I guess the problem sits in the back. We'll see.

 

[jotloob]

Did they fix it? Hasselblad is actually a brand I'm looking into switching to if Leaf fails to fix my problem. The climate in Sweden (Hasselblad) is a bit different than the climate in Israel (Leaf), so maybe they have a little bit better understanding of that a camera must work in subzero temperatures .

Yes , the problem was fixed .
But , i must say , that I never used the back at temperatures lower than -5C and I can not say , at what temperature the electronics were , when I attached the back out of my anorak .
I can't speek for the technicians , but I believe , if they could build backs , which can operate successful at much lower temps , they woud have already done so .

 

[Pemihan]

For the fun of it I just tried to put my Aptus-II 7 attached to my Cambo WRS with lens, cabel and cf card in the freezer for 30 minutes.
I took it out and it powered up and shot a couple of shots with no problems.
The only issue I have experienced (which I also experienced in this test) in the cold is that the back sometimes "resets itself" meaning that if I have turned down the volume of the beep it is turned up again and if the screen is set to "out" it goes back to "in".

 

[jotloob]

For the fun of it I just tried to put my Aptus-II 7 attached to my Cambo WRS with lens, cabel and cf card in the freezer for 30 minutes.
I took it out and it powered up and shot a couple of shots with no problems.
The only issue I have experienced (which I also experienced in this test) in the cold is that the back sometimes "resets itself" meaning that if I have turned down the volume of the beep it is turned up again and if the screen is set to "out" it goes back to "in".

I believe you right away , but its not guaranteed . That means , if you operate your back at temperatures below the specs , the back can fail , but must not . That can differ from back to back out of the same series .
I also believe , that electronics can work at far lower temperatures , for example for space missions , but it is surely a question of cost .

 

[torger]

I did not manage to trigger any failure in my first freezer test (-23C), back detached shot black frames into the lid with the help of a wakeup sync cable (just pressing wakeup button, no shutter attached). Shall test more later when I'm home long enough to do another test.

I'm a bit surprised as I've had some sort of issue every-time I've been out in cold weather, and I've not (yet) been out in as cold as -23C as this freezer is. I did not keep it in for very long though, maybe it had not become cold enough. (Un)fortunately the issue seems not to be dead easy to repeat...

The battery indicator showed almost empty although the battery was full, so storing the batteries separate inside the clothing and attach only when shooting is probably a good idea.

 

[yaya]

Hang on a second...are you using a wake up cable with the Aptus? If so then that could be the problem as the Aptus does not require any wake-up signal.

All you need is a simple Leaf sync cable, one of the top two in this article: Knowledge base for Phase One and Mamiya Leaf users

For the CF card make sure it is formatted as a single FAT32 volume and do not use it in any other camera unless you format it after that.

Yair

 

[torger]

Hang on a second...are you using a wake up cable with the Aptus? If so then that could be the problem as the Aptus does not require any wake-up signal.

All you need is a simple Leaf sync cable, one of the top two in this article: Knowledge base for Phase One and Mamiya Leaf users

For the CF card make sure it is formatted as a single FAT32 volume and do not use it in any other camera unless you format it after that.

Thanks. I know all this though . I don't use the wakeup cable normally, it's just a cable I happen to have laying around. I used that in this test as a trick to remove the shutter and other cable out of the equation. By pressing the wakeup button on the cable I simulate a normal shutter cycle, so I can test the back with no camera parts attached.

It's not the kapture group kind, it's the type of wakeup cable that looks as a normal cable but has a tiny push button in the attachment, so one can indeed use it as a normal cable too.

 

[yaya]

You mean this one?

So now you need to try the back with that cable and with a different lens/ shutter...

 

[torger]

You mean this one?

So now you need to try the back with that cable and with a different lens/ shutter...

Yes that one! I will do the test but probably after the weekend, will be travelling.

 

[torger]

Had it out all day the past weekend in -10C, with no failures. I kept the battery warm in my clothes and only slapped it on when I made the shot. Haven't succeeded in recreating the failures I had at first, so I don't really know what it was.

The only strange thing I've had recently is that the "beep" sound after an image has been recorded stopped being emitted (i e the back became silent) in the middle of a shoot, but that happened in room temperature. The sound came back again after a reboot. Maybe it is a similar problem as reported by Pemihan above.

Hopefully it is normal behaviour.

 

[torger]

Okay, today it failed again at -1C. I ran one battery empty so it said no more pictures could be taken. Slapped in a full semi-cold batteri (had just put it in my pocket), took one picture, then it locked up with the green lamp blinking. Removed the battery tried with another big battery, boot failure. Power down, some white noise out of the speaker, then power up again, and then it started working again.

I've not had time to shoot much since I got it back from repair, but will hopefully be able to do some the coming days and I'll see if I can see some pattern. Changing batteries and not having warm batteries seems to be something that can trigger failure. But it is not that easy to repeat.

If it eventually starts working as it did today I can sort of live with it, but as I have had a complete repair I was expecting better function, especially since everyone is telling med that a Leaf Aptus should normally be reliable.

I've dropped the dealer that handled the repair a line describing the problem so I'll see if they have any idea.