I can't help starting this new thread, because I want us loyal early adopters and all customers to be treated fairly by Canon.
First, I'v shooting Canon for 15 years. I have two 5D3’s. Neither of them showed any “noticeable” effect. Both of them are still within 30-day return period. I AM packing them up today and sending them back for full refund.
Canon’s response to this light leak issue is unacceptable. For a $3,500 camera for which many of us have waited and saved, Canon should STOP shipping the defective products immediately. Whether it affects real world shooting or not, it is a product with defect. If Canon wants to earn trust from its loyal and prospective customers, be bold and offer to swap out the defective units unconditionally free of charge.
I know many of us do not want to lose the camera for some short period of time and that's why we have been defending Canon including myself. BUT, forgiving the bad business practice can only encourage abuse of the customers.
Remember iPhone 4? Apple ultimately paid the price by issuing $15 to all its owners. Some lawyer is probably happily laughing right now when they saw Canon's response.
I am writing to Canon today. This is not the solution. And this is not over yet.
I do understand why people may feel a bit unhappy about receiving a non-perfect product. I'm a 5DIII owner myself, and while I would of course prefer if the camera didn't have this issue, I don't think that Canon is handling this poorly. They are offering a fix (I called and verified this with canon china) and not just an "inspection", so for those of you who think this is a big problem, just send in your cameras!
No company would do a recall because of a phenomena of this kind. This time the community happened to stumble over this before Canon did, but there are and will be bigger problems than this with any newly launched products. Most of the time the manufacturer rectifies this in subsequent production batches without the public ever knowing. If a design or manufacturing problem causes product failure or the product to perform out of spec, a recall would be the right thing to do, but this is not the case with the light leakage.
Am I annoyed? I tiny bit perhaps, but as this will not affect me I've decided not to send in my camera. To demand a recall of all shipped units is neither realistic nor called for.
In this case, I'm sure the canon management team were even discussing to issue a statement saying that the product performs according to specifications and no further actions will be taken. Luckily for Canon they didn't choose this route, as it would have been a PR disaster and, good for us, they will fix it if you want. As they should.
