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

torger

Active member
More shooting, more failures. This morning I was shooting about 20 images in -10C with a fresh warm battery before it failed. Then I replaced with a fresh warm battery, but failure continued.

I think what it has problems with is writing to the card. After rebooting it said "Insert disk" on the first screen, without the beep though. Regardless of battery and remove reinsert card, rebooting etc it did not start working. So I gave up, packed up and walked towards home.

But 15 minutes later I packed it up again, started it up and then it worked for a while, but after a few images I noted that the green lamp did not stop blinking, the interface was locked but I could still take a couple of images before it changed to blinking red and I could not shoot more. I'm assuming that what was happening is that it was again failing to write to the card, but the imaging module has a buffer so you can shoot a couple of extra images but when the buffer is full and write problems still persist the back is locked.

I rebooted and then it start working again and this time it continued working, I could not repeat the error. I was now in the sun though so the gear was becoming warmer too.

It's a bit messy all this because it happens often enough to cause trouble, frustration and lost images, but is very hard to reproduce when you want to test.

I'm now making fresh formatting of a number of CF cards to have more to test with when I get the next failure. Perhaps it is a dodgy CF card. Can CF cards become dodgy from cold?

I'll format on a windows PC using this guide:
http://www.phaseone.com/en/search/article.aspx?articleid=1542&languageid=1
 

torger

Active member
Failure of the day;

Weather has been warm and sunny, only -3C this late evening, when I have made some more formal stress testing. I've had the camera in a shed all night to have it completely cool. Batteries warm though. Under this warmer condition its harder to provoke, I estimate that an error occurs in about 1 out of 50 images, and in this case a reboot helps. Earlier in the evening I had an error in +1C too, which actually is within official operating temperature (0C to 40C), so Leaf can't say it's working according to spec either. It's however quite hard to provoke the error at 0C.

In colder conditions my experience is that errors happen more often and reboot does not always help.

So what happens? In these warmer conditions I see two type of errors. 1) black images which have nil samples in them, ie not a normal black frame due to missynch, but some strange file. 2) green (or red) lamp blinking forever, ie there's blocking on writing to CF. When I navigate away and try to delete a file the attached error message is shown "The imaging module could not perform the operation that you requested. Press on/off button to restart the Leaf Aptus". At powerdown in this state the back sometimes makes a white noise from the speaker.

In colder conditions I've also had GUI lockups but I could not recreate that in this temperature.

The back has been tested with different (warm-kept) batteries, different sync cables and different CF cards, one of the integrity tested (no errors), all formatted according to Leaf's instructions on a Windows 7 PC, using compatible brands. Both FAT32 and FAT16 tested. Failure has been provoked with all combinations.

To me it seems likely that the error is with the CF writing unit.
 

SergeiR

New member
That line of Leaf backs (not sure about newer ones) with active cooling has issues with temperatures. Hot or cold. Both. You got good working range from about 0 to 28c. below or higher - it goes a bit ... funny. I cant really explain why, but i seen it happening too often to be a coincidence. I suspected power supplies, CF cards.. many other things.

Honestly sayin' Leaf techs at MAC center seems to be very very little in line with real life and no help at all, unless is something truly mechanical. So i just developed habit of bringing film backs..

They never quit. They just shoot away.
 

torger

Active member
That line of Leaf backs (not sure about newer ones) with active cooling has issues with temperatures. Hot or cold. Both. You got good working range from about 0 to 28c. below or higher - it goes a bit ... funny. I cant really explain why, but i seen it happening too often to be a coincidence. I suspected power supplies, CF cards.. many other things.

Honestly sayin' Leaf techs at MAC center seems to be very very little in line with real life and no help at all, unless is something truly mechanical. So i just developed habit of bringing film backs..

They never quit. They just shoot away.
Thanks, I have been suspecting that my Aptus 75 back is indeed not faulty, but that it simply is not better in chilly conditions than this. "Going funny" is a very good description, because various errors occur, and in a stressful situation you may not be observant of what really happened other than something locked up, made a funny noise, a file was corrupt, it missed a frame etc.

Various Leaf representatives do claim that the product should be reliable even under those conditions though, so I'm a bit confused. I'll see what my dealer says, communication with them is very slow though.
 

torger

Active member
Phase One / Leaf web support just got back, and I got it on black on white that they're not serious about outdoor photography, quoted below.

I've got two "lemons" in a row :cry:, and they just don't take responsibility :mad:. The thing about reliability is just no more than marketing b*llsh*t, if you're unlucky and get into trouble they ditch you.

I'm not particularly happy about having spent €2000+ on repairs with the only result lowering minimum work temperature from +5C to +0C :banghead:. If they had informed me from the beginning that their backs suck this much I would have sold it to a studio photographer, instead of this waste of time and money :angry:.

I'll make some more noise though, haven't yet heard back from my dealer.

Hello,
I am sorry if there is a misunderstanding about the capabilities of the hardware. The unit you have listed has an operational temperature of "0°-40°C (32°-104°F), Humidity: 15%-80% RH (non-condensing)".
As you have stated you are shooting in temperatures of -10°C there is a large potential for improper operation. If you have experienced an error at 1°C then this is something we can focus on, however these errors only occur at that temperature AFTER the back has been subject to unsupported Operating Temperatures we cannot ensure it will perform properly until after it has been rebooted.

The hypothesis you have purposed regarding the CF card is highly unlikely. The entire board stack is replaced when an E-Box is replaced, the unit is basically brand new with the exception of the CCD when an E-Box replacement is performed. If there were an error with the circuitury you would experience it in all other operational temperatures, not just lower temperatures. The reason we cannot guarantee proper operation below 0°C is not due to soldering or contact changes, it is simply due to the electronic signal changes at extreme temperatures. A signal delay that is expected to be a value of X due to operational temperature resistance, at an extremely cold temperature is much, much faster and therefore certain signals cannot even be detected as they are present and then gone before detection is even possible. This is not something specific to the Aptus 75, it is a basic principle of electronics.

As we designate operational temperatures with the hardware, the fact that this occurs outside of those operational temperatures (aside from the one instance mentioned at +1°C) shows that your system is working "as good as it should" as this is what we can guarantee. Other user may claim that their units operate at colder temperatures but we could not possibly base the operational quality of your unit based ont he claims of other users. There are too many variables involved in such claims, including the truth behond those claims on top of perhaps completely different workflows.

Based on the information in this case, it is not conclusive that your repair has failed in any way. If you can quantify the error that was seen at +1°C we would be happy to continue investigation, however if the errors are only present when outside of the manufacture operating temperatures I am afraid that there is no cause for concern regarding an "improperly working unit".

I apologize for any misunderstandings regarding the operational limitations of the unit and look forward to recieving more relavent information with the reported error within operational limitations.

Kind Regards,
Phase One Support
 

SergeiR

New member
Thanks, I have been suspecting that my Aptus 75 back is indeed not faulty, but that it simply is not better in chilly conditions than this. "Going funny" is a very good description, because various errors occur, and in a stressful situation you may not be observant of what really happened other than something locked up, made a funny noise, a file was corrupt, it missed a frame etc.

Various Leaf representatives do claim that the product should be reliable even under those conditions though, so I'm a bit confused. I'll see what my dealer says, communication with them is very slow though.
Well.. If you are QUICK.. you can still do it. Albeit active cooling will bite you in backside very fast.


Snow is here by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr
 

torger

Active member
Indeed, I have managed to shoot in the cold. It's work against the clock though, and you never know when it's going to fail, perhaps when you are about to complete the best shot of the day. I would not go hiking or drive far with this system.

Possibly by killing the fan and storing the back inside my clothes between shots could make it work decently well.

However, for me reliable photo gear is a great value in its own, it's a measure of quality, and I like to use high quality products. This is obviously not one of them, and as seen in the reply from Phase One / Leaf support above they don't care :mad:.

The simplest consumer DSLR can do much colder conditions than this back. They must be using very poor quality components to get it perform this bad, and this in a back that originally cost $30K. It's a scandal.
 

torger

Active member
Further communication with Phase One / Leaf support confirms that the active cooling and open vents of the Leaf Aptus and Leaf Aptus II backs make them unreliable in colder temperatures, and that they won't do any action as long as it works within 0-40C. So it looks like my back may perform just like a normal Leaf Aptus back, at least according to the manufacturer's view on what normal operation is.

It's the first time I've managed to get an official statement from the company that the open vents and fan is a problem. Unfortunately the statements I got from Leaf representatives before I committed to this back was the exact opposite, that it would be no problem and that the back can handle cold temperatures without trouble. In that statement I naively included the assumption that if I got trouble they would fix it.
 

SergeiR

New member
:) well.. at least my engineering degree and childhood spent in experimental physics lab proved to be not complete waste when it comes to analysis ;)

I shot with almost ancient by modern standards 4x5 graphlex in -40C ;).. froze me fingers off, but went out with good images...
 

torger

Active member
I've calmed down a little, and I shall start looking for workarounds :). As it's mounted on a fairly bulky tech cam, I could add an isolating foam collar or something to avoid the cold air-flow without interfering with handling. It would be great if the fan could be disabled somehow, without taking the back apart and cutting the cable that is...

I'm suspecting that the fact that the fan always runs at full speed when mounted to a mechanical camera may make up the whole difference between working in freezing temperature and not working. If the air would stand still the components would be able to heat themselves a little. As far as I understand all reports I've got from users having it work successfully and reliably in cold temperatures are those that have it mounted to SLRs that make the fan temperature-controlled.
 

torger

Active member
The latest in this issue is that I sent it back for re-repair, it was away 5 weeks (it's on its way back now) but they haven't found any error or done anything, even if my back actually could fail in +4C. My guess is that they don't even have any equipment to do cold-testing so they've just done some basic room temperature testing (which of course passes). I did provide a very long and detailed error description in two copies, I wonder if they even read it.

The unfortunate truth with Leaf is that if you get problems in cold or even just chilly, and some obviously do, they won't help you out. Getting a Leaf back and being an outdoor photographer is thus a big risk to take. Hopefully it's got better with the Credo series, but as I see it there is a problem in the support/repair chain when they can't handle this type of problem. Even well-designed backs can get problems if there is some partially faulty component with reduced temperature tolerance, and Leaf has so far proven that if that happens then you are on your own. My best guess with the Aptus is that it's been designed with such tight tolerances that brand new out of the factory some backs fail and some don't in chilly weather, hence the varying reports. If Leaf would take responsibility for their claims they would replace the e-box over and over again until they find a copy that works in the temperatures they claim, but they obviously don't do that.

I'll fight some more with Leaf though, I'm not happy having paid €2150+VAT for a largely meaningless repair. Going from unstable to a bit less unstable (as the original repair did) is not that big of a value since I still can't trust this back on long outdoor hikes. The root problem is still there.
 
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