Sadly this only PROVES that Canon pre-released the ill-fated 1DMKIII well ahead of its time frame to try and beat the Nikon D3 muscle.
Canon's after fixes, including the recall was a move that cost them more dearly than if they had held the 1DMKIII ~~ but then again they took so long to, they'd have probably lost as much market share, but they'd have kept more face.
Canon are known to use firmware to lock out feature on a price per model basis. As you may know, a few firmware hacks have been broken in the past.
Nikon however, are on record as stating categorically and backed up by guru, Tom Hogan that the D100 was physically impossible to be updated by the consumer.
Nikon also said it was impossible to add more ram [Buffer] to the D1x, that's despite two stripped models showing a buffer port already in place and when it was too late, Nikon offered to add in extra memory [which Canon were already offing in their purchase price] and in a last ditch effort Nikon still could not sell their D1x with the extra buffer ~ bye, bye Nikon for five years.
Canon 1D series is now in the SAME sort of position and have made many of the same mistakes, miss-judgements and are losing market share in this class, though not as drastically as it effected Nikon.
Nikon have five year plans for their cameras, many slightly ageing camera get offered more features via firmware ~ this is a planned move by Nikon and outlined above, does not always work.
Canon, don't generally add feature via firmware, they have no history of it and have been known to launch cameras so advanced that five years later the competition is only releasing similar models.
So the basic philosophies from both are different.
Canon tend to offer everything per price, model has a short shelf live before NEW model arrives.
Nikon tend to plan a five year shelf life with sweeteners via firmware scheduled in advance to instil life into ageing products.
Sydor25 wrote in post #6581893
Canon did add the ability to use the joystick on the Mark III to select the auto focus point with a firmware update.
I wish they would add the ability to increase the minimum shutter speed (C.Fn I-12) from 1/60 to at least 1/500, this would greatly increase the usability of the auto-ISO function.
