Etienne said:
Brilliant. Canon should ignore an issue that they have determined is real.
Well that ought to drive product improvement.
It is attention to detail that makes a product, or an artist, great.
A known issue that might cause an error of 1/3 stop exposure is significant.
Fix it ... it's that simple.
This isn't simply a matter of attention to detail, it's a matter of engineering. The engineering was for a meter that operated correctly form 1 to 20 EV w/ a 50/1.4 (t/1.6) lens. You can ignore that, you can stick your fingers in your ears and scream, "it should be fixed!" over and over all you want, but the simple reality is that the camera was designed to work properly over a specific range of light levels and, so far as I can tell, does so and beyond.
To recall the camera and issue a fix is tantamount to fixing something that literally isn't broken unless you use the camera outside of the designed conditions. It sets a precedent that with sufficient wailing and gnashing of teeth a product's specs can be altered after it was designed and released.
BDD said:
I disagree. Canon (or any other manufacturer) should fix all acknowledged issues. Especially those that they have admitted to and is fairly known to camera users who frequent forums and sites like CR. They can't afford for the word to get out that they won't do anything.
No they shouldn't just fix all acknowledged issues. Only issues where the product is deficient in functioning where it was designed to function, should be addressed with anything more than a workaround. The 5D3 wasn't designed to meter correctly at -10 EV, or -5EV, or 0EV. Under some cases it may, more often than not it performs better than the design specs indicate it should, but if you're relying on the meter outside of the designed parameters you're in undefined territory and may not get an accurate reading regardless. No company should be under an obligation, perceived or otherwise, to fix an issue that only occurs outside the designed operating range.
Turn off the LCD on top of the camera.
That solution would work for now. But imagine Ferrari telling the owners of their 458 Italia (has computer displays next to the tachometer). After having shelled out 300k on their dream sports car. "Just turn off the display...you have still the tachometer". I don't think it would go over too well.
Your situation isn't even remotely comparable. A more apt one would be that Ferrari owners were complaining that their car knocks or otherwise doesn't get it's best performance when being run on 87 octane gas instead of the designed 91+. Then go on to insist that Ferrari should actually redesign the engine, and recall the car so that it does run correctly on a fuel it wasn't designed to run optimally on in the first place.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
That's the problem here. Yes, there's an "issue". Yes, Canon has acknowledged it. No the issue doesn't appear to occur inside the specified operating range of the camera, in fact it seems to occur at a point more than 4 stops below the specified operating range. Yet that's not good enough apparently. Well following that line of thinking neither is the ISO performance at 1600 or higher, nor is the AF performance with lenses that have a max aperture of f/16, nor is the fact that the viewfinder doesn't have 5/8" of nose relief. I can make a case that all of those are deficiencies with the camera, should I get enough people to whine about those, should Canon redesign the camera for them too too?
Maybe a product shot of "thread count" at 104k ISO?
