hard facts!

[nucki]

so I'm just reading some of the posts concerning erros on the 20D.
I can remember when the 10D comes up. There where lots of post concerning, backfocus, mirror lockup, etc... etc... so I thought why?

here's my answer. And I wanna here yours!

Why are cameras like the 10D, 20D, etc... having that much errors? they are not that inexpensive to say, ok, there are some troubles but who cares about a few bucks! More than 1000$ for a camera wich is not working? I have to say, that I have never a problem with my 10D and I'm still happy with it, but there are people it seems they had a lot of errors.

Are they manufactoring errors or are they just errors coming from development?

I think, that it is so hard to be on top of the marked like canon or nikon. If nikon brings out a new camera, canon has to came up with a new one within a few mounth. Maybe the development from the 20D wasn't even finished! Maybe the engeneers sad, " hey boss, the 20D isnt finished at all, there are a lot of bugs wich have to be cleaned" And what was the answer of the higher managment from canon? "who cares about bugs! put a software upgrade on the webiste! the highest priority is to bring out a camera before cristmas! and not to long after nikon or any other company!
that are the hard facts I think! everywhere is less time! so there is less time for development and for testing! and what you and me get, is a camera wich is not functioning properly!

thats the way of business!

And I think we all have to live with it! everbody wants a camera like the 1DMKII, for the price of a 300D, with a roughness of the 1Ds, the resolution of the new 1DsMKII. And all for just a few bucks!

...

let me know your thoughts!

best regards
Peter

[DocFrankenstein]

I think you're right. :(

[karusel]

I partialy agree. This definetely could be a part of the problem, however there is one other thing to consider; right now, the Canon team is probably handholding and testing a successor to 20D. There are quite surely problems at the factories as not all of the people there are 100% reliable, errors happen, machines are probably erroneous too, and people working there might not notice every machine glitch or may notice it after several units have already been messed up. Of course we're only talking about hardware, now software, that's something else. I'd assume they give software engineers certain deadlines, which are too damn close, and they have them do update after update, and somewhere in the process, well, someone screws up. But sure had they had more time, there were fewer errors, no doubt about it.

But this confuses me: why oh why don't they fully, completely and thoroughly test it, before they launch it? Is the couple' thousand customer error reporting really not harmful to sales and the whole reputation of the brand?

[evilenglishman]

I think you use exclamation marks too much!!!!!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Persian-Rice]

I agree with karusel.

I am sure that there is no way that Canon could have missed this problem with the 20D. I mean, if it was 1,2 or 3 people, you would think they are one in a million. When you have this large amount of people with problems, I really doubt this was missed.

From what I am estimating 1 of every 3-5 guys are having a problem of some sort, whether it be constant lockups or just a single one. If they had put 15 different lenses on and worked with the camera for a week or two using 2-3 testers, there was bound to be at least two lockup among them.

The 10D did not have problems to the same extent of the 20D. you had some back focusing on some lenses on some camera's an error here or there, but now we get to see 5-10 post per day stating a lockup, then they release a firmware that is killing the camera, which means they again decided not to thoroughly test these machines.

It is a shame when large companies like Canon start to get a little lazy or greedy.

[Morden]

I think you use exclamation marks too much!!!!!!!!

How can you be sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!! :P

[waynejgilbert]

Whatever the case it won't hurt sales we want our toys at any cost...

[imagesense]

I think we are resigned to accept a certain level of mediocrity for convenience nowadays. Twenty years ago if you paid over $1000 for a camera, or anything else for that matter, you expected it to work properly with complete functionality right out of the box.

Today, we just want bells & whistles. Very few want to spend their nights in a darkroom with those smelly chemicals, just to produce one good print.
There is no patience in our current society because we can have everything faster. Faster does not always equal quality. It is just faster.

I have a 300D and I really enjoy it. I also bought the 20D. I had to, like the rest of us, sit at my computer and do two firmware upgrades in one week. I will say, I was not pleased at first, but I expected that Canon was not going to blow its fine reputation on a single camera body.
It is an awesome camera and since the upgrade it is working flawlessly. Absolutely great to work with.

I also own some of the best film cameras ever made. These will work no matter what, in any situation and will never need an upgrade or a lot of servicing. I enjoy those too and shoot with film a lot.

In today's world of demand for fast turnaround, digital offers a quicker way of bringing our products (yes, pictures are our products) to market.
We can send proofs almost immediately and also see much faster whether or not we have the images we needed or we need to keep shooting or reshooting. Much easier than Polaroid and the histogram is a wonderful tool.

So for better or worse we have accepted technology and the growing pains of being participants in every company's R&D process. A process which we pay for in some ways. If we want those bells & whistles, it is the price we will have to pay to get it...and get it fast!

Lou

[mjordan]

Actually, the problem was much worse for the 10D than the 20D... at least if you go by the amount of postings that the backfocus problem generated for the 10D. There were a bunch more on a lot more boards for something like 6 months on the 10D. So I would say there were more people affected (either for real or precieved) after the 10D came out than there has been with the 20D. And as it can be seen, Canon has responded to the 20D problem a lot faster with a new release... even if they did have to release it twice.

So you 20D guys are going to have to work a little harder to be able to say your problem was worse than the 10D. :lol:

Mike

[Morden]

My 20D ate my hamster! :shock:

[Cadwell]

My 20D ate my hamster! :shock:

eeeeewwwwww messy. It's take you forever to get the sensor clean after that! :shock:

[Sherpa]

I suspect that Canon set a production start date that was set in stone with production rate to ramp up to full capacity over a few months. All of Canon's suppliers will have had to meet this start date and it's likely that some of them had to cut corners to do so. They expect a few warranty returns but over a period of time the quality will increase.

It is similar to the automotive industry which I worked in - knowing what I do about how cars are made I would never buy a new model until at least a year after it is introduced. Maybe the same rule should be applied to cameras?

[Andy_T]

It is similar to the automotive industry which I worked in - knowing what I do about how cars are made I would never buy a new model until at least a year after it is introduced. Maybe the same rule should be applied to cameras?

I'd like to second that.

I have similar experiences (working as an IT supplier for German automotive manufacturers with VERY good reputation) but it is a fact that most likely has to be accepted. Cars are tested very thoroughly. I assume the same applies to cameras. (Of course, cars are tested more thoroughly than cameras, because you are not going on the motorway with 150 mph in a camera when it might 'lock up':wink:)

But there is no way that some 10 - 100 testing engineers come up with the same number of experiences as when thousands of customers receive their products and start using them.

Software engineering, on the other hand :shock:
Leading ERP software (e.g. SAP or Oracle) has thousands of bugs that are discovered, analyzed, and provided with patches or corrections for on a daily basis. It's a shock at first, but everybody knows it has to be accepted given the complexity of the product.

If you want to have a fail-safe product in a high risks environment, you make a design like the 747 or the space shuttle and use it for 40 years. Also, you pay 20$ on a fixing bolt that has been specially tested and approved.

Still, I also have pre-ordered some pretty expensive new vehicles saying 'wtf ... I know it's not going to be perfect, but I want it NOW nevertheless'. It's just a matter of your personal compromise between known risk and lust for novelty.

Best regards,
Andy

[sdommin]

But there is no way that some 10 - 100 testing engineers come up with the same number of experiences as when thousands of customers receive their products and start using them.


My guess is that when Canon was developing the 20D, they took a few of the early production models (probably made with greater care - almost "hand-made"), and tested those. Naturally, they would have worked perfectly. I'll bet they didn't bother to test any of the regular, factory-made models.

[evilenglishman]

Whatever the case it won't hurt sales we want our toys at any cost...

actually it will - I'm not buying a 20D, at one point i was considering it.