As some of you probably have seen I've had problems with my Leaf Aptus 75 in winter conditions. At first I had really severe problems so it was unusable under +5C. Then after a lot of trouble with Leaf dealers I finally got a full repair, replacing the E-box. It has then started to work much better. However, it is still unreliable in chilly temperatures.
Now it is hard to provoke an error at will though, it can work for 50 images in a row or more in -10C, and then it misses a image, locks up, makes a funny noise or other funny things. Often a reboot helps, sometimes it's just stuck and needs to warm up before starting to work again. This makes field work very frustrating when I can't trust the back. I've missed images due to this. The warmest condition I've had a failure in after repair is in +1C, that is within the official range which is 0 - 40C. Oh, it dropped the beep sound once in room temperature, but continued to work, got the beep sound back after reboot. One of those "funny things".
I've tried different batteries, different CF cards, different sync cables, still funny things happen now and then in cold temperatures. It seems like the errors is always in some way related to failure to write to the CF card (yes I have formatted the cards in the correct manner). I've attached an image (sorry it's poor) showing the error message when I try to delete an image when the back has become semi-locked up (sometimes it locks up completely so you can't navigate in the GUI either).
My Leaf dealer that handled the repair doesn't really respond to my questions except once every two weeks or so, which is a bit tough on my patience at this point. I've reported all this to them but have not yet had a reply.
My main question I have now is if an Aptus series back is no better than this, or if my back is still faulty after the repair. I have already spent a lot of time and money on this and I would not like to spend a lot more time to deal with the cumbersome Leaf support if there's no possibility to get this fixed in the end.
I've so far had different reports. Some say that the Aptus is very reliable, but I've got at least two reports of users saying that funny things do happen with this back, one said in general, one said outside 0-28C temperature range. The likely conclusion from that is that some of these backs are good, some are bad, ie the quality varies. If this is the case then the question is if Leaf cares if someone that got a bad back complains, or if they will refuse or are unable to fix the problem. I mean I got the E-box replaced, what more can they do? Maybe there's some poor soldering work related to the CF card contact, don't know if that is replaced with E-box or not.
My options are to complain more and try to get this fixed (it's now under warranty), or give this up, sell the back to someone living in warmer conditions and get a different brand. I like the Aptus and think it's a really good product and great for tech cameras, but I must have a digital back I can trust in the field.
(I'm having my eyes on Hasselblad as they should know about Swedish winter conditions (I'm in Sweden), and possibly it's easier to get support as they are actually located in Sweden.)
Comments?