Users of L glass speak up about Canon Quality Control

[ShootTechPan]

My second L lens just died and went to Southern California. This one died on an assignment. Other owners have gotten years of use out of their gear. One reason we use Canon L lenses for work or artistic expression is supposedly due to their dependability. But how dependable are they? Hopefully this will help set some reasonable expectations as to what we can hope for from our gear.

poll notes:
-If you dropped your lens and it needed service, please don't count that as a lens that needed service. We're more concerned with lenses that failed during normal use.

-This poll is not about L snobbery, and there is definitely some excellent non-L glass, but there are also some very cheap non-L glass and I don't want to mix up the numbers with those outliers.

-The reason for multiple choices for non-repaired lenses is because a pro who has 10 lenses that never needed repair should count as 10 positive wins and not just one.

-If a lens needed to be returned to the store for a defect, please count that as a failure.

-If a lens went to service more than once, please count it as multiple failures.

I found the Digital Rebel failure poll very interesting even though it was not entirely relevant for me. If someone wants to start a Tamron or Sigma failure poll, that might be interesting, as well.

[thomascanty]

My 17-40L died 45 days after I bought it. Canon fixed it up just fine under warranty, but I did feel they were a bit slow about it. I was happy with the service overall, though.

[SDK^]

My 100-400L has been fine during the 3 months i've had it :)

[Belmondo]

No problems with mine that couldn't be corrected by repealing the law of gravity. :oops: :wink:

Everything has worked perfectly 'out of the box', and continues to do so.

[Mitch]

Did a wedding two weeks ago, most all shots were soft, couldn't use 30% of them. Scared me to death! I read and read forums for answers. Then I did three days of intensive equipment testing. I tested each of my lenses on each camera and kept rigorous records of the results. Here's what I found.

I have two 10D cameras, 50mm 1.8, 17-40L, 28-135 IS, 70-200L f/4.

95% of the test shots were either front or back focusing, in many instances quite severely. In some shots, the view finder focus point wasn't even within the depth of field (DOF). In most of the shots, the view finder focus point was at either the very front of the DOF or at the back of the DOF. Each of the lenses performed very, very differently on each of the cameras.

Now, I don't know exactly which of the cameras or lenses is the worst culprit, but I do know that the cameras are definitely performing wildly different from each other...so, one or both cameras is faulty for sure. Secondly, because the degree of front focusing and back focusing of the lenses varied so widely from one lens to the other within each camera, I am quite sure that the lenses are out of kilter as well.

I learned that we as professionals should should rigorously test our new lenses and cameras as soon as we get them. Do repeat tests to make sure of the results and keep good records in good form. From now on, I will never assume that a new camera or lenses are calibrated correctly. In fact, I will assume the opposite, and, when I get my equipment back from Canon, I will test them immediately.

The tests results were shocking to me. I was blaming myself and initially thinking how lousy of a photographer could I be? Now I know the reason for the soft images. The big issues now are: How will the equipment perform when I get them all back? What will the quality of the Canon service be? How soon will I have my equipment back? (I have a wedding on July 17th) Are Canon 10D cameras good enough and consistant enough for professional wedding photography? Are Canon lenses with 10D cameras good enough? I will keep you informed.

The moral of the story is, don't assume that cameras or lenses that you get new or used are perfectly calibrated. In fact, assume that they are not. At the very least, test your equipment before you use it on a professional shoot. With my experience, from now on, I will always test my equipment as soon as I unwrap it. I have read too many posts where one person says that their experience on a specific lens was lousy, and another person will testify that their lens was great...contradiction? No. Probably equipment out of calibration.

[msnow]

Who the heck has more than 10 L lenses? :-)

[arumdevil]

mitch, how do you do a test for front / back focus calibration?

cheers,

ps, good luck with your lenses and cameras

[mjordan]

Mitch, just curious, but if you took rigorous notes of your tests, how come you don't know which camera/lens combination gives what kind of results? It sounds easy enough to find out what is doing what. Run the tests on one 10D with all the lens and keep images and notes that go with each image. Then duplicate the same test with the other 10D, keeping the same test images and notes. Comapre them all on a very good monitor or have them printed so you can lay them side by side.

If your notes can't tell you how what camera/lens combination did what, then the test doesn't sound very reliable.

Also, do either of your 10D's have a early serial number? Those are the ones that were more prone to a back focus problem.

Mike

[Mitch]

Thanks for the comments, Arumdevil and MJordan. The test results showed specific behavior for each lens on each camera. While I can tell exactly what each lens does on each camera, I can't really conclude with absolute certainty whether it is the lens or the camera that is most, totally, or somewhat responsible for the abberations. If you have two items that are both potential variables, it's impossible to say which is off. The fact that I have two cameras doesn't help. It's just two sets of variables. Maybe one camera is perfect and the other is flawed, don't know.

I did read something disturbing, however. Apparently Canon stipulates for 10D cameras that the extent of their focus calibration is limited to putting the focus point anywhere in the depth of field...anywhere, i.e., not necessarily consistantly in the middle of the DOF or at the end of the first third of the DOF. If the 10D were officially a professional camera (which Canon says it is not) then they would calibrate more tightly. You know, the DOF for certain focal lengths and f-stops can be very large. When I am focusing with either of my two cameras, it would sure be nice to know that they were at least consistant with each other, which apparently they problably won't be. The issue is, if the focus point can be one to three inches from either end of the DOF, what if I the subject moves or my hand shakes or both (which will almost always happens), then we have a soft image. For example, 50mm at f/2.8, subject distance = 12 ft, the DOF equals 22 inches. If the focus point is at inch number 20 and my hand shakes or if I sway ever so slightly and the subject moves away ever so slightly, we will have some soft pictures. It's even worse if at 85mm f/4 at 7 ft distance the DOF=3.5 inches and focus point is at the edge of the DOF by 1/4 inch. It won't take much movement to lose that one. Personally, I think this is the primary culprit for the varying experience reported by our colleagues on lenses, not that the lenses are bad, but that the focus point can be anywhere in the DOF with the related variant ramifications. I am waiting to hear from Canon.

[Mitch]

What are the early 10D serial numbers? I bought one camera in Sept 03 (5 star Electronics) and the other in Jan 04 (from B&H)

[robertwgross]

No problems with mine that couldn't be corrected by repealing the law of gravity. :oops: :wink:

Everything has worked perfectly 'out of the box', and continues to do so.

When you got that lens repaired, didn't you get it outfitted with air bags?

---Bob Gross---

[mjordan]

Thanks for the reply, Mitch. I bought my 10D in June of 2003 and it's serial number starts with 05xxxxxxxx. I understand that the ones with problems were mostly those that started with 01, 02 and 03. But there were a lot of rumors flying around back with the early ones, so it's hard to say when Canon fixed the problem, how many actually had a problem and how many were just people that didn't know how to use them.

Mike

[ShootTechPan]

Who the heck has more than 10 L lenses? :-)

Heheh, one can always dream.... sigh :)

Looking back, I would have rather had another poll option for people who had combinations of IS and non-IS lenses which failed. Unfortunately, we're limited on the maximum number of poll options.

It's good to see all these people giving their lenses a workout. I have yet to test my lenses for gravity resistance :shock:

[davkenrem]

I just purchaesd a used 10 with a seril no# starting with #0220. Should I be concerned?




Thanks for the reply, Mitch. I bought my 10D in June of 2003 and it's serial number starts with 05xxxxxxxx. I understand that the ones with problems were mostly those that started with 01, 02 and 03. But there were a lot of rumors flying around back with the early ones, so it's hard to say when Canon fixed the problem, how many actually had a problem and how many were just people that didn't know how to use them.

Mike

[kufel]

take both of your camerasand all lenses for calibration. Canon does it under warranty, no questions asked. I took mine after reading the forums, but I did not realize that i was doing something wrong until the techie at Canon put the note "Nothing's wrong, read the manual".... I was concerned about the pics taken with 70-200 IS with 2x extender and with pics taken with 24-85 lens. Well, 24-85 is a crappy lens, pics were soft, not out of focus. 400 mm lens (640 if consider a crop factor) require a carefull handling even on tripod, they were again not out of focus but simply "shaken". But if you are getting different results on 2 cameras, definitely take them for callibration. After all of this I took some pics from a v. short distance at focal length around 105 and aperture 2.8 and the focus points were exactly in the middle of DOF (well, without measuring to the microns, that is) Ever since I do not experience any problems and if I do I know that it's a screwup on my end at the moment I release the shutter

[robertwgross]

One "L". No problems.

---Bob Gross---

[sGu]

absolutely fine, never had a single problem, superb performance.

[DS]

I had my 28-70L about 10 years, ever since I got this lens, it became my primary lens. Optics and focus are excellent, never have problem, knock knock.