Last week, the proverbial shit hit the fan. Going over some landscape photos I shot the week before I noticed that the sensor was getting dirty again, since several specs showed up on photos shot with a smaller aperture.
After adjusting the zoom level in Adobe Lightroom I started to repair the damage with the clone/heal tool. Al went well, until I ran into some weird looking specs of dirt.
Specs with halo-like rings on the Leica M9 @ 400% zoom
Not having seen images of sensor corrosion, I kew instinctively that this was not caused by dirt on the sensor. A simple Google image search on 'Leice M9 sensor corrosion' gave me several samples of what it might look like.
Thankfully, Leica will replace the sensor free of charge (some handling fees might apply). And replacing the sensor would mean that the entire camera needs to be disassembled. And that means that I get a completely serviced M9 camera back (in about 5 weeks).
I can only say: sure, a Leica camera costs more, but you also get more customer service in return. My M9 is over 6 years old. 4 to 5 years out of warranty (pending on the country you live in), and they fix it for free. Try that with your average 6 year old (DSLR) camera.
Two Thumbs Up.
UPDATE: Found another example. This time corrosion (left) and dirt (right) next to each other.
