Looks like I’m getting drunk again tonight. We’ve just released another service notice fuckup notice for the EOS 1D/1Ds Mark III cameras, this time concerning oil spots on the camera sensor. To view the full notice, click here (Canon USA version) or here (Canon Europe version).
I’m telling you, the Lord knows no mercy when Canon is concerned these days. If you own a 1D and or 1Ds Mark III, let me, again, apologize on behalf of Canon USA and Canon Inc. for the trouble you’re going through with these cameras. At least be happy about the fact that we are finally acknowledging the problem and are offering to fix it for you, and this, ofcourse, after waiting for two years now while many users have been complaining about this on forums everywhere. At least two years is a lot faster than waiting 3 years to release a service notice for the 5D mirror falling off, right? That fucking camera was obsolete by the time we admitted the problem and actually offered to fix it. Anyway, please keep wasting your time by sending in your affected equipment to us constantly, having to rent replacements for that important assignment that is coming up, and keep spending cash on shipping and insurance too, but feel comforted by the fact that we are doing these repairs for you free of charge. Yep, absolutely free! Isn’t that so kind of us to do that?
I wonder how long we’ll have to keep thanking users for “their patronage and support of Canon products” here at Canon USA while Canon Inc. keeps screwing up theoretically good products. I mean, seriously, look at the following picture:
Oil?
How, exactly, does that pass quality control inspection? If you ask me, it almost looks like Kyokoshiro on the assembly line shot his load into the mirror box and failed to clean it properly. They had better start doing something about the sexless society in Japan because obviously it is having really bad consequences for everyone (read here and here for background, quite interesting). How can anyone function in such a society? No wonder Kyokoshiro can’t seem to do a good job on the assembly line anymore. You try working almost all day long, not actually seeing your wife much at home, and not being able to have sex for months. Then you see a 1D Mark III body moving towards you on the assembly line with an open lens mount, and strange things start to happen.
Canon Inc. already started sending workers home early recently in order to fix this problem. Let us all pray that this will have a positive influence on the 1D Mark IV.
A while ago a fuckup notice was also released for the G10 relating to lines appearing on images. The G10 already got trashed on DPReview for poor image quality (lots of noise), and fuckups like these are really not going to help us to sell it. I’ve got quite some emails about G10’s just dying on users too. Back in november 2008, Daniel left the following comment here on my blog:
I’m convinced Canon doesn’t do any QC anymore.
Had to return my first G10 as it has a damaged CCD which shows up as a line in every frame. I’m not kidding. I have the CR2 files to prove it!
My 2nd G10 has a distorted peephole, I mean the viewfinder. But I’m just too tired. Decided I’ll live with this one and maybe fix it near end of warranty.
At least Daniel now knows he wasn’t crazy when he saw the line appearing in his images. Quality control is a serious problem right now at Canon Inc. I’m almost 100% sure this is because of all those sexually frustrated workers. No wonder I walked in on Maeda a while ago while he was busy tenderizing his meat.
Check this comment from Barnett for another real-world example of what we’re causing our users here at Canon:
Chuck, I am really, really sorry about my comments making you lose 3 days. But you have to understand that we photographers too are very frustrated. Right now there is not a single Canon camera I can buy that does not have focus issues – never mind the 5DMkII that you deliberately crippled.
Just to give you an example. Last week I did some photographs for a large car rental company. I used my 5D and 85mm f/1.2L. After the shoot the customer chose the photo they want. And you guessed it, when I opened it on my PC, it was out of focus. I emailed the client, showing them another photo, and asking if they did not rather want that one, because it is err… so much nicer. They were not falling for that, so I had to admit that the picture they chose was also a bit, err… motion blurred. Well, they were not impressed, just told me that there is no time to re-shoot and they have to have that one and they are printing it 3m wide and putting it up in their new conference room where people will walk right up to it and look at it closely.
So you see Chuck, I am losing customers just as fast as you are. And this week my worst nightmare came true – I found out that my direct competitor just bought a Nikon D700. Do you have any idea how fucked I am now? Sorry, I have to go, I am suddenly not feeling very well…
Really, this stuff is just very bad.
No wonder that Danish hotshot photographer had the following to say about Canon:
As I mentioned earlier, because the margins are small between the top end Canons and top end Nikons, usability is the real tie-breaker. Nikon has a far better reputation for listening to their photographers than Canon, and this is plainly illustrated by the features available in the new Nikon D3X. (In fact, Nikon listens so much, that I am expecting a phone call from them to talk about their new camera next week.)
The Canon Mark II, 16mp, was a nightmare in terms of usability. To change basic settings you had to free both hands and press three buttons at once. To review an image, press two. This camera was a joke and any photographer shooting with it for five minutes prior to release would have told them so. Even Canon’s basic point and shoot cameras launched at the same time had better usability options at that point. The Canon 1Ds Mark III was greatly improved in terms of usability but it now risks being compared to the new Nikon D3X and frankly, it looks like a joke again.
…
The Canon has lower noise levels and the lenses perform generally better, but what does this matter if your images are more out of focus, if the camera is much harder to work with on a daily basis and if you can get the same results form a Nikon by just choosing the right lenses and get another 3 mega pixel on top?
Well, Mr. Arcurs, you have to understand that for Canon engineers in Tokyo, these days nothing at all is in focus. Petting the one eyed snake everyday, often multiple times, isn’t very easy on the eyes. Or so I’ve heard… *cough*.. you know..err… not that I would know… or that I have any experience with it myself… err.. whatsoever. Ahem.
The good news is that at least Canon Inc. seems to have decided to step up and fix their mess. Hopefully this will continue in the future and response times will be significantly shorter. The best thing ofcourse is to not fuck up in the first place. I can’t tell you guys how stressful my job is these days because of all these issues.
And it seems at Nikon things aren’t going very well either. A 62.8% dive in profits, whoa. I guess Ken Rockwell’s D3x boycott is really doing stuff to the poor folks at Nikon. You may recall that Hitler wasn’t very amused either. Looks like nobody is buying the $8000 D3x. What can I say, other than: told ya so.
The world is your studio, and the street your home after you go broke getting one of these!
Anyway, I’m off to get seriously drunk now.
Fake Chuck Westfall 
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The world is your studio, and the street your home after you go broke getting one of these! <– I lol’d
I guess I will have to strongly hold on to the 40D we have at school, sadly there’s nothing else that I would like to get now. Oh canon, when will you listen?
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That explains why a 5D Mark II update is taking so long. Those engineers playing with the one eyed snake can barely code after all that carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m guessing they need some Geishas to help them in the coding dept so they at least get to write 100 lines a week!
Well I am staying with 30D. I know all too well what badly missed AF looks like. 24-70L is just crap because it is so out of focus most of the time. Oh well, at least one lens works – 200/2.8 from the last decade. It is great fun to do group shots with this lens, you actually need a megaphone.
And you know what? Canon EOS 5 (film) had better centre AF point!
Now go and get D700 equivalent out in the market or I’ll get the real thing.
That all sounds so familiar. On my 1D MkIII and 1Ds MkIII bodies f/1.4 (eg on 35mm f/1.4L or 50mm f/1.4) means 3 or 4 sharp (-ish) images out of 5, and 1 or 2 blurry ones.
And my customers too always choose the one that is blurry for that “super-large print as large as you can make it, money is NO OBJECT”. No kidding. Every time I have heard “money is no object” it is for a picture where out-of-socus, unfortunately, IS an object.
Please God give me a camera that focuses reliably, every time.
Fakechuck, please tell your Fakecolleagues that $12,000 for two cameras in a year means that real-I would like them to be able to focus.
Not using any of Canons 50mm lenses will be a good start. They are all shit. The 35L should be ok though.
I’d really like to see a 50mm 1.4L without any focus shift or back focus issues priced around £600 – £800.
1.4 is plenty fast enough and I want L build quality in all my lenses for which I’d pay the L premium.
It’s all lenses. The bodies are inconsistent. Take ten photos under controlled circumstances at f/1.4 and up to 4 will be unsharp (focused in front or behind).
Just wait until you try the 50mm f/1.2 L lens. A whole new world of pain will open up for you.
We’re still waiting for Canon Inc. to give us the green light to issue a fuckup notice for that one.
Hey Fake Chuck,
On the lens front can you tell me why there seems to be a global availability problem with Canon lenses at the moment ?
Has it got to do with Canon Inc. giving factory workers too much time off to… um, be with their familes ?
Or are they just messing with our minds by limiting supply to increase demand ?
It’s bloody near impossible to get L lenses this side of the world at the moment, and all the Canon reps seem to be as useful as tits on a bull…. Where on earth do Canon recruit their staff from ?
Oh Michael, by the way the general Canon rule of thumb when taking photos is to take ten times more than you need, weed out the 90% blurry ones then present the remaining 10% good ones to your client… It’s why the 1d3 has 10fps – so you can get one good in focus shot per second…. Chuck really needs to be more specific on this procedure in his white paper for the upcoming 1d4.
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