1D Mark III & 1Ds Mark III Service

Wow, I hope the 5D Mark 2 doesn’t need a diaper change too!

odd… usually issues are “rare phenomenons”

Oil Spots on DSLR mirrors seems to be a common problem with Canon. Someone puts too much lube on at the factory and it splatters when you use the camera, or if you clean it, you pick it up and smear it all over. Canon has always cleaned it up if you complained. It seems to me that there is someone new at Canon who takes customer satisfaction seriously and that part is good. The extra lube is not.

I worked in a aerospace business where we checked all incoming parts for spec compliance, since it went on space vehicles. This includes testing every inch of electrical wiring for flaws and marking them to be cut out.

We got one shipment that was 100% bad. It seems that one of the operators in the wire manufacturing factory wanted to do a extra good job with the black pigment and dumped a large amount into the hopper. The black pigment is basically pure carbon, so the wire ended up with conductive insulation.

“I hope they can learn from their mistakes”

Obviously not. Faults with mirror lube have a long-term history with Canon. For example the oil in the mirror box of the A-1 (introduced 1978) and some similar models like the AE-1 tends to resinify, slowing down mirror movement dramatically. At least in Germany, the phenomenon is known as “Keuchhusten” (“whooping cough”) due to the noise, an affected mirror assembly makes.

BTW: This phenomenon doesn’t have an effect on the pictures produced with an affected camera aside from an enormous shutter lag, because the shutter only opens after the mirror has reached its full “up” position. Furthermore, it can be cured with the help of some fresh oil.

I am still using a 1Ds Mark II. The reason is the ISO improvement over 1Ds Mark III is too little, not really worth of the price that I am going to pay.

If 1Ds Mark IV can have 3 stops better ISO than my mark II, I think i will upgrade it.

And how many of these type of post have you made ever? 2? or do you count firmware as these types?

Funny, I just had a G10 over at Canon for such a spot.
Must of changed subcontractors for the lubricants.

It’s ironic that many Canon DSLRs and lenses are made in Japan, yet their QC is far worse than their competitors.

The old D1 and D2 had their share of misery too. Besides, the D3X is still very young. Anyway, Nikon has certainly seen some major improvements in QC over the last year or so, while Canon has gotten worse over the same period of time. The same goes for product innovation. I suspect some kind of exodus of Canon workers to the Nikon side… anyway, all this speculation fits perfectly into the Canon Rumors site. ;)

There will always be people to defend religiously Canon (or Nikon… or any brand).

Personnaly, I like Canon for their lens. The camera is just an addon I put behind my lens. As sad as I am when I see Canon make mistake, I cannot afford to switch brand just because Nikon makes camera with slightly less problem.

I the end, we never know… Maybe in the future Canon will come out with a 1 serie camera that doesnt have any fault and Nikon’s camera will have unexpected failure. It’s live and nomatter how great you QC is, cameras are hyper precision tools packed in a tiny box. They are all bound to fail one way or another, some more than others, but it doesnt mean it cannot change sides.

Who would have tough that Nikon would be high ISO king and would have news agency switching brand 3y ago? Not I.

Honestly anyone who is still a Canon apologist at this point is part of the reason Canon is able to get away with all of this. I have a 1d3 and a 5d2. I almost jumped ship to Nikon a year ago but decided to give Canon one more chance to prove they were still in the game, so I waited for the 5d2 and bought one thinking that they would have learned their lesson from the 1d3. They obviously haven’t learned anything at ALL – my 5d2 is a disaster. I am 100% convinced that Canon has almost no QC program at this point. What a sad situation for a company that has traditionally made some of the finest camera equipment in history.

This camera is spectacular! It is so easy to use, takes the absolute best pictures and it’s super fun to use. I’ve read people complaining about the lens cap, it clicks on fine, no problems. The flash works great, if you want more light in low light conditions, buy another flash. The fact that I can record video and then take pictures and zoom in while recording is terrific, I’ve used that a lot. My favorite camera, I LOVE IT!!