very encouraging update on this issue
Better than no reaction, though I'd like to note that the Canon rep was writing about developing and "enhancing", maybe that's just corporate sugar-coated writing style, but chose not to simply state that the 5d3 will be brought to the same af assist speed than the older models with the next fw update :-o
I think its appropriate to question, indeed. Corporate speak is very carefully worded and sometimes we must parse and interpret ... here's my read:
"enhancing" means "yup we see the problem, oops our bad, we know how to fix it, but we're not calling it a fix because that would imply that we agreed there was a problem in the first place -- so we're casting this as an enhancment so that people see that we are responsive to the issue, while we enhance the loyalty of that portion of the installed base who doesn't know or care about it."
As for any commitment to bring the 5d3 af assist speed up to that of older models; I wouldn't expect them to publish any such goal, even if they do it. Since this is a rumor site I hope its cool if I postulate:
1.We know that the 5D3 AF system itself is uber capable compared to the others against which it is being compared for AF
speed. AF
accuracy, especially is a key benefit of the 5D3 and I suggest this is accomplished by a more sophisticated closed loop feedback mechanism that requires perhaps additional cycles to converge on "success" with some retry-credence ruleset. This means many variables, including the lens, hardware performance, algorithm design and the code implimentation itself, contribute to the overall performance.
2. there may some algorithmic tuning or even coding errors that can be addressed to improve AF speed, and this appears to be the case. That aside, there is still an implied trade-off between accuracy and speed (imho) for such a capable AF system. IF Canon can provide both speed and accuracy, all the better of course, but if there remains a trade-off perhaps they will provide a choice, i.e. a custom setting that helps define the AF behavior in low light.