Thanks for the reply. I've had my fair share of Aptus issues, I bought mine second hand which had a load of issues, worst chilly weather failures (not even sub-zero required), changed e-box, better but still cold weather failures, then after much pressure on Leaf I finally got a replacement back and this one works stable in the cold, and is overall pretty stable. Except for the bugs I think the Aptus is a great back for tech cam use, I really enjoy the focus/sharpness check capability in such an affordable back.
The only issues I've had (in addition to this column write error) is that sometime funky things happen when it runs out of power, worst case it writes something strange to the CF card for the last shot image so it cannot continue using it until reformatted (rare, and no images lost but do bring extra CF cards if you don't have a computer nearby). I've noted that the beep sound sometimes disappears. I've assumed that these are typical Aptus bugs, but Leaf have never admitted that they exist when I've asked them.
It's only the column write error that causes some real agony though as you can never be 100% sure that the image is okay. The column error does not show up in the image in the back (I guess unless you switch image so it rereads it from the CF card and happen to zoom to 100% in the right location, a location which varies) so you don't really know.
The last write errors occurred with a Sandisk 8 GB Ultra 30 Mb/s. I think I've had it with a Sandisk Extreme 60 Mb/s too, but I'm not 100% sure. The 30 Mb/s is actually not on the supported list while the Extreme is.
Supported cards list:
http://www.phaseone.com/Search/Article.aspx?articleid=2246&languageid=1Formatting procedure:
http://www.phaseone.com/en/search/article.aspx?articleid=1542&languageid=1I've heard that the Aptus CF implementation is a bit sensitive (meaning: buggy), but only to the extent that it should work if you follow the above instructions. I follow them, except for that I use that Ultra 30 Mb/s too (assuming that the slower Ultra would be even nicer to the Aptus CF implementation). Maybe column errors occur due to the Ultra? Maybe column errors is a symptom of some particular CF problem (wrong model, wrong formatting or something), it would be great to know if it's a work-aroundable problem or if it's just one of those bugs you have to live with.