Chat about the Mark III AF, Canon customer service, your experiences, etc.

This is a thread for just chatting about the Mark III in general, as well as if you have had AF issues, dealings with Canon customer service, whatever. Just a thread for friendly venting, commenting, complimenting Canon, the Mark III, or any issue similarly related that just doesn't belong in the official AF thread which is properly designed to be a useful tool for folks to come and see the latest info on the AF problem.

As for me, I have come to be extremely suspicious of Canon due to their silence on the issue. I have a return authorization number right no ro have mine checked out, but until the fix is officially in, I may delay in sending it in.

I know that I am not alone in my frustration with Canon for not being more candid and we still wish Canon would come out and say they either have it fixed, or let us know that they are trying and that they will do its customers right no matter what so owners of the Mark III no longer have to worry they have a dog that won't hunt. Lol.

A thread like this was suggested when posts began being deleted on the official thread because they did not fall within the official rules of that thread. So grab a cup of coffee and feel free to post here about your experiences, frustrations, happieness, joy, whatever regarding the AF issue and Canon's response.

Joe

Well, I'm pretty much in standby mode til 1.1.1 is available and we'll see what it does. I'm also anxiously awaiting results from the Rob Galbraith "investigation" I think that will actually be the proof of the pudding. I somehow doubt that 1.1.1 is going to address his issues since it has appeared before any results of that investigation, but with the lack of communication from Canon, who knows except them.

KAC

I agree, Galbraith will be the acid test. Once he gets either a fixed camera, or a new firmware that is supposed to be a fix, his word will mean a lot.

I haven't been on much lately, I see this thread is scaring people away.

Joe

Most of my shots are acceptable. I do have the problem of the lens/camera hunting as I have heard of other people complaining, I can see it going in and out of focus rapidly. This happens in One Shot mode. My AI-s mode is really quite good. I will be going to the races on the 29th of this month and I will be giving the camera a good workout. I sent mine back with the hope that Canon had a silent fix going on, but to my dismay all I got back was AF is OK and sensor cleaned. I read somewhere that the firmware 1.1.1 did fix the problem of hunting, if that is the case I will be extremely happy with my new Mark III.

JBF wrote in post #3974498
Most of my shots are acceptable. I do have the problem of the lens/camera hunting as I have heard of other people complaining, I can see it going in and out of focus rapidly. This happens in One Shot mode. My AI-s mode is really quite good. I will be going to the races on the 29th of this month and I will be giving the camera a good workout. I sent mine back with the hope that Canon had a silent fix going on, but to my dismay all I got back was AF is OK and sensor cleaned. I read somewhere that the firmware 1.1.1 did fix the problem of hunting, if that is the case I will be extremely happy with my new Mark III.

JBF, I believe I've also head that the 1.1.1 fixes a "hunting" problem. Possible even that could be causing my OOF shots. I can always hope, right?


KAC

belmondo wrote in post #3974760
I actually experienced 'hunting' the first time recently using my 16-35L. It was something of a shock. For a minute, it took me back to the old days of the 10D and a certain Sigma lens.

Is that the new one Tom? I am thinking of getting one an selling my 17-40 but not sure if it is worth the $$.

I was going to thank you in the other thread before it was closed and comment about your Macs. As for Macs, I jumped ship just after MS Windows 98/2 as it was close enough to the same as Mac and at my job we used MS. I did the upgrade thing all the time also. I got the student discount for a long time back when the discount was huge and I could actually feel old and buy new at very little cost.

My current Sony Vaio is getting old, the "W" key is missing the cap on it, I have a new keyboard coming in any day now. I keep going to the Apple site and drooling, but when I build my own laptop the way I want, with the additional monitor, it tops out at like $5k. Pretty steep, and then I would have to get Mac software soon, or use pc stuff on it for a while. Ugh. Especially now that I have discovered how to get about any software I want for the PC without spending much. Another story. I wonder how well pc software actually does operate on a Mac? That is a huge issue for me!!

I do like the new Canon printer I just bought. The Pixma Pro9000 is fast and I love the large pics I can print!

I figure any day now 1.1.1 will be out and this nightmare just might come to an end and we can all brag about how many images are in focus out of a burst. That day will come,

I've rambled enough, I can tell the pain pills are kicking in. Oh, yeah Tom, that was what I was gonna say before I began rambling, thanks for the well wishes you gave me in the other thread.

Joe

This thread seems to be a repeat of the one that beat the MKIII to hell a few months ago. I'm not sure if that is the intent or not. If it is, what is the point. If venting makes you feel better then I guess go ahead. I think that the best approach is that you write to Canon support if you think you are experiencing a problem.

I had one of the first MKIII's in Canada and it has functioned basically flawlessly since getting it. Was it that way out of the box, no. As with any body I find it always takes a period of time for the photographer to get the camera tuned to their way of shooting. My last couple of 1 series bodies prior to this was easy as they all had a common menu system. The MKIII's come with a whole new menuing system and it does take some time to get used to these. After tweaking a number of the menus I have the camera humming along just fine for me. I probably have more keepers from this camera than I do my MKII.

I have always had alot of respect for the testing that Rob Galbraith did. However, in this case I think that he has lost faith in this camera to the point where his objectivity is in question, imo. I have no doubt that there was merit in the questions he was raising but it has also been reported across the internet that not all bodies were experiencing the problems. I personally helped a couple of local shooters get their cameras working properly. They took it out of the box and jumped on the Galbraith bandwagon. When I showed them the menus to change they had a whole different take on it. We have to realize that these cameras are a very complex electronic units which need to have the user preferences tweaked to your own personal likings.

Today I spent some time at the Canon CPS Expo in Toronto which was a by invite session to see some of the Canon products that you normally don't get a chance to see and also to speak to a number of the reps. I had the chance to spend some time with one of the senior engineers in attendance and they are still working on this issue. They certainly don't seem to be denying that there is merit in this but it is apparently alot harder to isolate when it is not consistent across all bodies. The one thing that I did take away from my conversation with respect to this subject was that Canon is going to stand behind their product and make good on it.

I had the chance to play with the 1DsMKIII today as well which I had already pre-ordered. They had a few preproduction models there. For all intensive purposes it looks identical to the 1DMKIII and you won't notice much difference between them until you start to look at the images. They also had all of their high end printers and video equipment there. There are some damn cool printers in their lineup.

I have had a couple of poor experiences with one of their Canon Service Centers. It is amazing that the difference in service levels from one center to the next. If I do have an issue now, which I haven't in quite a few bodies, I send it to the one center in Canada which has always served me well. It is about as far away as I can get but the one closest to me has staff that has such a crappy attitude I just can't bring myself to going in there anymore.

ssim wrote in post #3974986
This thread seems to be a repeat of the one that beat the MKIII to hell a few months ago. I'm not sure if that is the intent or not. If it is, what is the point. If venting makes you feel better then I guess go ahead. I think that the best approach is that you write to Canon support if you think you are experiencing a problem.

I had one of the first MKIII's in Canada and it has functioned basically flawlessly since getting it. Was it that way out of the box, no. As with any body I find it always takes a period of time for the photographer to get the camera tuned to their way of shooting. My last couple of 1 series bodies prior to this was easy as they all had a common menu system. The MKIII's come with a whole new menuing system and it does take some time to get used to these. After tweaking a number of the menus I have the camera humming along just fine for me. I probably have more keepers from this camera than I do my MKII.

I have always had alot of respect for the testing that Rob Galbraith did. However, in this case I think that he has lost faith in this camera to the point where his objectivity is in question, imo. I have no doubt that there was merit in the questions he was raising but it has also been reported across the internet that not all bodies were experiencing the problems. I personally helped a couple of local shooters get their cameras working properly. They took it out of the box and jumped on the Galbraith bandwagon. When I showed them the menus to change they had a whole different take on it. We have to realize that these cameras are a very complex electronic units which need to have the user preferences tweaked to your own personal likings.

Today I spent some time at the Canon CPS Expo in Toronto which was a by invite session to see some of the Canon products that you normally don't get a chance to see and also to speak to a number of the reps. I had the chance to spend some time with one of the senior engineers in attendance and they are still working on this issue. They certainly don't seem to be denying that there is merit in this but it is apparently alot harder to isolate when it is not consistent across all bodies. The one thing that I did take away from my conversation with respect to this subject was that Canon is going to stand behind their product and make good on it.

I had the chance to play with the 1DsMKIII today as well which I had already pre-ordered. They had a few preproduction models there. For all intensive purposes it looks identical to the 1DMKIII and you won't notice much difference between them until you start to look at the images. They also had all of their high end printers and video equipment there. There are some damn cool printers in their lineup.

I have had a couple of poor experiences with one of their Canon Service Centers. It is amazing that the difference in service levels from one center to the next. If I do have an issue now, which I haven't in quite a few bodies, I send it to the one center in Canada which has always served me well. It is about as far away as I can get but the one closest to me has staff that has such a crappy attitude I just can't bring myself to going in there anymore.

Sheldon, I have the utmost respect for you and your photography skills, but I WILL NOT listen to another round of "it's the user, stupid"

My friggin camera is broke, I've sent it to Canon for repair twice, I've asked for a replacement or my money back and I still have a doorstop. I understand that this may not be an easy problem to fix, but as of today Canon has yet to publicly acknowledge that a problem exists. This is totally abhorrent to me. I'm doing my best to give them a couple more weeks, but with posts like this I may just lose my cool.


KAC

ssim wrote in post #3974986
This thread seems to be a repeat of the one that beat the MKIII to hell a few months ago. I'm not sure if that is the intent or not. If it is, what is the point. If venting makes you feel better then I guess go ahead. I think that the best approach is that you write to Canon support if you think you are experiencing a problem.

I had one of the first MKIII's in Canada and it has functioned basically flawlessly since getting it. Was it that way out of the box, no. As with any body I find it always takes a period of time for the photographer to get the camera tuned to their way of shooting. My last couple of 1 series bodies prior to this was easy as they all had a common menu system. The MKIII's come with a whole new menuing system and it does take some time to get used to these. After tweaking a number of the menus I have the camera humming along just fine for me. I probably have more keepers from this camera than I do my MKII.

I have always had a lot of respect for the testing that Rob Galbraith did. However, in this case I think that he has lost faith in this camera to the point where his objectivity is in question, IMO. I have no doubt that there was merit in the questions he was raising but it has also been reported across the Internet that not all bodies were experiencing the problems. I personally helped a couple of local shooters get their cameras working properly. They took it out of the box and jumped on the Galbraith bandwagon. When I showed them the menus to change they had a whole different take on it. We have to realize that these cameras are a very complex electronic units which need to have the user preferences tweaked to your own personal likings.

Today I spent some time at the Canon CPS Expo in Toronto which was a by invite session to see some of the Canon products that you normally don't get a chance to see and also to speak to a number of the reps. I had the chance to spend some time with one of the senior engineers in attendance and they are still working on this issue. They certainly don't seem to be denying that there is merit in this but it is apparently a lot harder to isolate when it is not consistent across all bodies. The one thing that I did take away from my conversation with respect to this subject was that Canon is going to stand behind their product and make good on it.

I had the chance to play with the 1DsMKIII today as well which I had already pre-ordered. They had a few preproduction models there. For all intensive purposes it looks identical to the 1DMKIII and you won't notice much difference between them until you start to look at the images. They also had all of their high end printers and video equipment there. There are some damn cool printers in their lineup.

I have had a couple of poor experiences with one of their Canon Service Centers. It is amazing that the difference in service levels from one center to the next. If I do have an issue now, which I haven't in quite a few bodies, I send it to the one center in Canada which has always served me well. It is about as far away as I can get but the one closest to me has staff that has such a crappy attitude I just can't bring myself to going in there anymore.

The other thread was more specific. This thread is what it is, people can vent, ask questions, etc an not have to stay on rigid guidelines as with the official thread. The official thread is done well, as it is for those folks who wish to find out what the latest info is on the AF issue, this thread is to discuss all the other stuff we used to like to discuss in those popular threads. Join in, don't join in, that's ok, I think this is a bit looser here.

I'm envious, you got to play with the 1Ds. Did it have the look and feel of an awesome $8k camera? Did you get to see any images directly out of it? Were they noticeably better than with other cameras with much less MP? I have given some thought to buying one myself and dumping the M3, I just don't know if I would like the FF as I see the 1.3 as such a great compromise.

Damn WWWWW key on this keyboard is broke, gonna replace the whole board, lol,, now I have to hit a tiny little thing sticking out of the w whole. Funny how such a little thing is so annoying!

ssim wrote in post #3974986
This thread seems to be a repeat of the one that beat the MKIII to hell a few months ago. I'm not sure if that is the intent or not. If it is, what is the point. If venting makes you feel better then I guess go ahead. I think that the best approach is that you write to Canon support if you think you are experiencing a problem.

I had one of the first MKIII's in Canada and it has functioned basically flawlessly since getting it. Was it that way out of the box, no. As with any body I find it always takes a period of time for the photographer to get the camera tuned to their way of shooting. My last couple of 1 series bodies prior to this was easy as they all had a common menu system. The MKIII's come with a whole new menuing system and it does take some time to get used to these. After tweaking a number of the menus I have the camera humming along just fine for me. I probably have more keepers from this camera than I do my MKII.

I have always had alot of respect for the testing that Rob Galbraith did. However, in this case I think that he has lost faith in this camera to the point where his objectivity is in question, imo. I have no doubt that there was merit in the questions he was raising but it has also been reported across the internet that not all bodies were experiencing the problems. I personally helped a couple of local shooters get their cameras working properly. They took it out of the box and jumped on the Galbraith bandwagon. When I showed them the menus to change they had a whole different take on it. We have to realize that these cameras are a very complex electronic units which need to have the user preferences tweaked to your own personal likings.

Today I spent some time at the Canon CPS Expo in Toronto which was a by invite session to see some of the Canon products that you normally don't get a chance to see and also to speak to a number of the reps. I had the chance to spend some time with one of the senior engineers in attendance and they are still working on this issue. They certainly don't seem to be denying that there is merit in this but it is apparently alot harder to isolate when it is not consistent across all bodies. The one thing that I did take away from my conversation with respect to this subject was that Canon is going to stand behind their product and make good on it.

I had the chance to play with the 1DsMKIII today as well which I had already pre-ordered. They had a few preproduction models there. For all intensive purposes it looks identical to the 1DMKIII and you won't notice much difference between them until you start to look at the images. They also had all of their high end printers and video equipment there. There are some damn cool printers in their lineup.

I have had a couple of poor experiences with one of their Canon Service Centers. It is amazing that the difference in service levels from one center to the next. If I do have an issue now, which I haven't in quite a few bodies, I send it to the one center in Canada which has always served me well. It is about as far away as I can get but the one closest to me has staff that has such a crappy attitude I just can't bring myself to going in there anymore.

This is great news. What I am getting from this that is positive, is that I can lay out 8 Grand for the 1ds and my wife will not recognize that I bought another new camera because it is identical to the Mark 3. At this point , this IS good news.

Interesting, Sheldon. It makes sense that the 1Ds MK III is going to look and feel very much like the 1D MK III. I suspect it's a camera I'll never own, but would love to play with one sometime.

This thread will be whatever it becomes. There are numerous other threads that have come and gone recently, all dealing with various areas of frustration people are feeling towards Canon. I don't think they represent an attitude of the majority, but they seem to attract a fair amount of attention.

There is certainly another side to the story, that being that most people are happy with Canon. Unfortunately, those folks aren't nearly so vocal. Perhaps that's just human nature. Maybe it's just the nature of forums.

Anyway, people seem to want to vent, and there are no prohibitions against it as long as the discussion remains orderly and open to opposing points of view.

kenyc wrote in post #3975084
Sheldon, I have the utmost respect for you and your photography skills, but I WILL NOT listen to another round of "it's the user, stupid"

My friggin camera is broke, I've sent it to Canon for repair twice, I've asked for a replacement or my money back and I still have a doorstop. I understand that this may not be an easy problem to fix, but as of today Canon has yet to publicly acknowledge that a problem exists. This is totally abhorrent to me. I'm doing my best to give them a couple more weeks, but with posts like this I may just lose my cool.


KAC

In other words, Sheldon, stuff it. If you even suggest that there isn't a problem with your camera, you're going to make certain people really angry.

I know you think you have a good camera, but that just proves how little you really know. Your MK III is a P.O.S. Might as well accept it.

belmondo wrote in post #3975507
In other words, Sheldon, stuff it. If you even suggest that there isn't a problem with your camera, you're going to make certain people really angry.

I know you think you have a good camera, but that just proves how little you really know. Your MK III is a P.O.S. Might as well accept it.

see Tom, what you just did is exactly what we are all trying to avoid. Kenny did not say anything like that at all and he already said many many times that he believed the people that are happy with their camera. i also think that some mkIII's are just fine and i really do like hearing people like Sheldon and Jim saying that their cameras are working as they should.

what Kenny said (and i agree with him 100%) is that at this point in time, saying that it is probably a user error is just unacceptable. there have been way too many amazing photographers with tons of experience under their belt that said that the camera they have has a problem.

For the outlawed:
Maybe not waiting for 1.1.1.
Maybe waiting for a recall.
See
http://www.naturescape​s.net/phpBB2/viewtopic​.php?t=112118

kenyc wrote in post #3975084
Sheldon, I have the utmost respect for you and your photography skills, but I WILL NOT listen to another round of "it's the user, stupid"

My friggin camera is broke, I've sent it to Canon for repair twice, I've asked for a replacement or my money back and I still have a doorstop. I understand that this may not be an easy problem to fix, but as of today Canon has yet to publicly acknowledge that a problem exists. This is totally abhorrent to me. I'm doing my best to give them a couple more weeks, but with posts like this I may just lose my cool.


KAC

I don't think that I insinuated that this was "stupid user" (your words, not mine) without saying there was another side to this. I think that you have to admit that this is certainly a possibility in alot of cases. I thought that I
had said that I did agree that it does have merit in many instances. The thread was give your experience and that is what I had done. I do feel for you if yours is not up to standards.

To reiterate what I heard from the Canon people is that it is harder to isolate when it is intermittent across bodies.

My experience has been pleasant and that is all I was conveying. I was not trying to infer that those that know how to handle this body and are experiencing problem were making this all up. If this is how you read it KenyC, my apologies, it was not the intent.