-Official- 1D MK III AF Thread. Firmware? Hardware Fix Is IN!!!

Hello everyone,

My name's Barney, from Amateur Photographer Magazine in the UK. That's my picture on the (copyright) page above, and those are my words next to it.

So - the 1D Mark III. Where shall we begin? Before you dismiss my article entirely, it is important that I make a few things clear from the offset.

Firstly, journalists (at least in the UK) do not get any information from Canon before the public. Canon UK has yet to issue an official statement about the hardware fix for the Mark III, and I didn't know that something like this was in the pipeline.

Secondly, Amateur Photographer magazine does not rely on advertising revenue alone, and as such, 'keeping Canon happy' is not something that interests or benefits us. In the same issue as my second test on the 1D Mark III (page 32-33 for residents of the UK) I gave Canon's M80 viewer a terrible review, and Canon will be hoping to sell a lot more of them on the run-up to Christmas than they will £3000 DSLRs.

In my test - for those of you that have read more than just the one section reproduced on this thread - I described a lot of the press reaction to the 1D Mark III's focusing since it became available as 'bandwagoning'. I do not include Rob Galbraith under that umbrella, because he actually appears to have the experience and the lobbying power to make a genuine case for there being an AF problem. Most photographers and journalists do not have enough experience in sports and action (or on earlier generations of the 1D series) to make that call, but he does. Fair play to him. I wish I could get 9 cameras out of Canon for testing, over the course of several months but unfortunately that just isn't possible, and I have other cameras to test.

However, the majority of the UK press reaction in particular has simply been to jump half-heartedly on that bandwagon, without taking the time to properly examine the issue. One magazine just reproduced images from a close-range fast series that no camera could have kept up with, just so they could say 'there's a problem!' and not look like they didn't find one. Other magazines have conspicuously avoided testing the Mark III at all. Much of the internet debate leads right back to Galbraith, and some of the most vocal posters (at least in other forums that I've visited) have probably never even picked up the camera.

When I first tested the Mark III, way back in Spring, before production samples were in the hands of consumers, I didn't find a problem with the AF. I will not apologise for that. You can only report on what you find. I tested it with my readership in mind - people that will aspire to own one, but who, like me, are not professional sports/action photographers.

The second time I tested it, with an eye specifically on Ai-servo AF performance, I did find a problem. But what was the problem? All the information I had from Canon, both first and second hand, from talking to professionals, suggested that the camera simply needs to be set up correctly.

After a lot of fiddling about with it, and I should stress *in the complete absence of any suggestion from Canon that there was a genuine fault* I concluded that there appeared to be some truth in that. However, if you read my test (the full test) again you'll notice that I conclude that the camera's performance does fluctuate "for no apparent reason". In my verdict I expressed concerns about its inconsistency too. That, taken in isolation, is a pretty damning statement about a flagship DSLR.

Everyone on this forum has a perfect right to disagree with me and criticise what I wrote, but in the final analysis I did all I could, and I hope people reserve their ire for Canon.

Regards

Barney Britton
Technical Writer
Amateur Photographer Magazine (UK)

Barney - respect to you for getting on here and responding to people. Much better than hiding away. Well done.

Looks like you are the victim of rather unfortunate timing from Canon more than anything else. Luckily, being a weekly magazine, I'm sure you can put an update in the next issue.

Gotta respect the man for coming straight onto this forum and explaining his review. Nice one Barney.

I agree many thanks for a quick reply, as I was one that did email you.
You may find that these forums, are pretty well run, and you will gain a lot of genuine information as to peoples feelings to photography, and equipment, with problems posted and generally good help from members to try and solve these problems.
The Mk 3 debate has been on going since its release with many tests carried out to try to ascertain what the problems are and how best to try and overcome.
Hope you can take some time to read through them.

Good Luck

Anke wrote in post #4194295
Gotta respect the man for coming straight onto this forum and explaining his review. Nice one Barney.

Explaining his review? Maybe the person who originaly posted it should have posted the whole story and may not have been a misunderstanding at all? Now that Barney has revealed the full context of the article some of us who will never get to see that magazine can make an informed decision on it.

I agree with Barney here, if that had only been posted in the first place.

barneybritton wrote in post #4194266
Hello everyone,

My name's Barney, from Amateur Photographer Magazine in the UK. That's my picture on the (copyright) page above, and those are my words next to it.

Anyone notice the Copyright infringement dig?... Rightly so in my opinion, a link should be placed to this type of article to avoid breach of copyright...

Kennymc wrote in post #4194372
Anyone notice the Copyright infringement dig?... Rightly so in my opinion, a link should be placed to this type of article to avoid breach of copyright...

not sure a link would even be right as its a subscription site and test reports cost £3. Quoting from the article would be fair enough.

Kennymc wrote in post #4194372
Anyone notice the Copyright infringement dig?... Rightly so in my opinion, a link should be placed to this type of article to avoid breach of copyright...

Agreed Kenny.

Barney - I respectfully disagree with your comments about the problem. *the vast majority* of professionals shooting with the Mark III have noted issues. That's why many of them aren't ordering anymore Mark III units, or have went back to the trusty Mark IIn. We have a LOT of respected shooters here, who are highly talented, and whilst they might not be 'professionals', are knowledgeable, experienced and have no reason to lie about the performance of their Mark IIIs. Many of them have done a variety of tests and repeatedly faulted the unit. This has happened on far too many Mark IIIs to be isolated as Canon would like us to think.

I'm one that indicated that it was both a hardware and software (i.e. firmware) issue - some AF issues were being caused by the firmware, others by the hardware. With liberty, I'll quote a previous post of mine that you probably have not seen, which expresses my thoughts on Canon, and the Mark III issue:

This is why I'm so damning of Canon, I firmly believe that Canon is lying, tried a cheap fix, and knowingly kept its customers waiting, when it new the answer, for an unnacceptable period of time. I use Canon gear, that doesn't mean I'm in love with them as some people on these forums are. I'll criticise the hell out of Canon if I firmly believe that they've done wrong by their customers.

Your magazine might be different to many other magazines, my experience is that MOST magazines get pre production samples well before the public. And that advertising certainly does dictate what the magazine says about a product. This applies not only to photographical gear, but to a lot of other electronic gear (I see this problem in Hi Fi mags all the time).

At least you did report issues in the secondary test, kudos for you doing that. It does appear that the Mark III AF problem only appears in certain circumstances, and if you're testing the camera quickly, you probably could happen to not notice it. For those reasons I'll forgive your original review Good to see you coming on here to answer your critics btw, that takes guts and I respect that.

Dave

dpastern wrote in post #4194475
Your magazine might be different to many other magazines, my experience is that MOST magazines get pre production samples well before the public. And that advertising certainly does dictate what the magazine says about a product. This applies not only to photographical gear, but to a lot of other electronic gear (I see this problem in Hi Fi mags all the time).

Well I can tell you that a lot of magazines in Denmark seperate editorials from advertising so advertising never influence reviews. You can even see a really bad review of something on the same page that has an advert for the same product and that happens because the editors do not let them dictate by advertisers and the editors never know which adverts go into the magazine where.

tommykjensen wrote in post #4194493
Well I can tell you that a lot of magazines in Denmark seperate editorials from advertising so advertising never influence reviews. You can even see a really bad review of something on the same page that has an advert for the same product and that happens because the editors do not let them dictate by advertisers and the editors never know which adverts go into the magazine where.

And that's how it should be. I just find it amazing Tommy that not a single magazine has recognised the problem. I mean, Rob [Galbraith] and a host of other experienced professional shooters have all noted the issue, including many well respected shooters here. So that leaves me to suspect that either the problem wasn't noted by magazines because of inadequate testing, or glossed over for financial reasons. If the first option is the case, then one cannot trust magazine reviews, since they are not in depth enough to honestly judge a product accurately, at least via my logic. That then makes me wonder, why buy said magazines? I know a lot of people buy magazines for the 'howto' sections etc, but a lot also buy the magazines for the test results.

I guess the best way to make a decision (and it is commonsense I do admit) is to read the magazine reviews, read Internet based reviews by respected testers, and go out and test the camera itself in the shop. Of course, the average consumer can't test the cameras in the shop to the extent of finding out issues like the Mark III AF issue.

Dave

Kennymc wrote in post #4194372
Anyone notice the Copyright infringement dig?... Rightly so in my opinion, a link should be placed to this type of article to avoid breach of copyright...

The image has now been removed.

Thanks Dave, I think we're pretty much of the same mind here actually. I appreciate that I have only seen a small amount of the vast correspondance that has been generated by this issue and, inevitably, a lot of people here haven't read all 6000-ish words that I've written about the camera either.

Just to clarify one thing though - although we were able to see and handle a pre-prod Mark III, the memory card bay was glued up. The first camera I was able to shoot with was a full-production model. It wasn't a quick test, either, by any means (I wish it had been!) but as I have said, AI-servo was only one of many many aspects of the camera that I evaluated, and the first time I did my test, in the environment I chose to perform it, the camera did brilliantly. That's what I said at the time, and I stand by that now.

You may be right about the majority of professionals having complaints by the way (I've heard very conflicting views from those I've spoken to) but at the time of my original test, production samples of the 1D Mark III were not yet widely available. My test sample was part of the first shipment to the UK. Things are different now of course, hence my second test.

Thanks to everyone that's replied to my post.

Barney

Yeah, that sounds pretty fair Barney. It probably explains why some owners said that they couldn't fault their unit, and others could. At least the 40D doesn't have any AF issues, and the 1Ds Mark III shouldn't either.

Out of curiosity, what is the point of allowing a pre production model to be seen by a magazine, but glueing up the memory card bay! I mean, I can understand wanting to make sure that no images get out unauthorised, but that's what NDAs are for. Any magazine company slipping out unauthorised sample images would be in big legal trouble I suspect. Does Nikon do the same thing?

Also - slightly off topic, have you had a chance to play with the D3/D300, and if so, how do you think it generally compares with the Mark III units?

Dave

tommykjensen wrote in post #4194510
The image has now been removed.

One thing though, I think the copyright act allows 5% of a body of work to be replicated elsewhere for public consumption in 'fair use' terms. I know the posted image was more than 5% though, so it deserved to go.

Dave

Hi Dave, you'll be pleased to know that I was in Tokyo for the launch of the D3/D300, and from what I saw out there, and have seen since, I think they're very exciting cameras!

As for why manufacturers veto images from pre-prod cameras, I guess they're just extremely protective over non-finalised units, especially now that people can leak images so easily on the Internet. It was the same with the D3 - although I have since seen images, I wasn't allowed to take any.

And the scan from my article wasn't removed because of copyright issues, because the poster made it clear where he had sourced it, but because without the rest of the test it was misleading and out of context. It was removed on the suggestion of a moderator - that didn't come from me.