Shut Down Notice 3-Year Anniversary!

Today it’s exactly 3 years ago that Canon Inc. tried to make me take down my own blog and failed miserably. It didn’t occur to me before, but Canon Inc. must have REALLY loved my blog to have wanted to take it down on Valentine’s Day. I sat down today thinking and asking myself if I’ve really been doing this blog for so long. It’s almost unbelievable to me. It’s like I began this blog yesterday and today it’s already 3 years later. How time flies.

And how much has changed ever since that day too. While I was constantly frustrated by Canon Inc. back then, these days I find myself writing more about Nikon fuckups. How times have changed! I’ve said it before recently, but it seems like the dawn of a new era here at Canon. Everywhere I look people are of the same opinion. Canon and Nikon appear to be trading places. If I were you Nikon morons, I’d pray to God the D4 won’t have autofocus issues!

Remember when I said:

Especially point 2 is going to be a huge problem from now on. Seeing how Canon Inc. were doing their best to listen to the feedback we were giving them during the development of the 1DX and other new models, I just couldn’t continue to give them hell on my blog like I used to. It just wouldn’t be fair. I wanted to write about the positive developments, but obviously I can’t discuss unannounced camera models here on my blog, and also, I didn’t want to get too optimistic too soon. I’ve done that in the past and got burned. It seemed like Canon Inc. were listening, but you never really know until the official announcement is made and everything is pretty much set in stone.

Now, you might say it’s just me, but check this out:

If I had to summarize one theme of Canon’s work on the 1D X it has to be “we’ve heard you”. Canon as done so many things to catch up with the Nikon D3s and D3x as well as extending its lead in video. Of course if they just did that then there would be little to be excited about, but I’m pleased to say that this is just the beginning.

Even Moses had the folowing to say:

Could 2012 be the year where Canon makes a serious comeback in the professional photography industry? Well, from the looks of it, it’s going to get very exciting for photographers using Canon equipment.

I’m telling you, times are changing for Canon. I’m fucking energized! We’re going to fucking rock this industry like never before. This is no time for Nikon to be releasing a D800 with color banded, color dithered, and noisificated blurry images! We’re going to fucking own the D800. Just wait and see.

And wherever I look, even Nikon morons can’t help but admit that the D800 image quality is crap:

The Nikon D800 sounded like a dream come true, especially the one without the AA filter. I was even thinking of having the AA filter removed on my D700 at one time. After one of the posters posted that fake Chuck Westfall link though, I realized that perhaps the D800 ISN’T what I want. The guy who writes for the site might be a total crazy Canon guy, but the pictures don’t lie.

Exactly, pictures don’t lie. And I’ve shown in previous posts how much truth they’re telling us. As a side note, I liked this reply on that comment:

Think you’ve missed the oint of ‘Fake Chuck Westfall’. Chuck Westfall is Canon USA marketing’s faux techie who pops up with each Canon release saying how brilliant it is. Fake Chuck Westfall takes the whole thing further for comedic effect. Either you like broad satire or you don’t.

So really, things are looking positive for Canon. However, I am worried about one thing, and that is that Canon Inc. are getting a bit unrealistic about their pricing. I don’t know what the fuck they’re smoking in Tokyo these days, but it can’t be good. Yes the 1DX is an outstanding camera, but $6800? Really? Does it have to be that expensive? I’ve given my feedback on this, believe me, but I think the Japanese are getting a little too overconfident after all the positive reactions. The 1DX is almost $1000 more expensive than the D4.  Even the C300 was a bit too expensive for most at $16000. And the G1X, it’s an awesome camera and it fucking annihilated everything in and above its class as far as image quality is concerned. But $800? That’s a bit too expensive for a compact camera if you ask me.

And now we’ve got the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens at $2300!! Again, almost $1000 more expensive than the older version! Don’t get me wrong, the lens is absolutely fantastic!! I’ve been shooting with one for the last 3 weeks on my 1DX and I keep being amazed with how good it is. But $2300? That is pushing it a little.

$900????? WTF??

To be fair, it’s not just Canon Inc. who’re going crazy with the pricing. Nikon announced the pricing of the WT-5 wireless transmitter for the D4, and it’s almost $900!! Nine hundred dollars for a fucking small piece of plastic with an antenna! Now THAT takes the cake! I mean really, how much can really be in that tiny piece of plastic? The whole webserver functionality is inside the goddamn camera. And they charge $900 for a fucking antenna? Perhaps they saw how Scott Kelby went nuts over it and could certainly see him paying $900 for this. From the way Kelby went crazy for this transmitter, I’d even be willing to bet that he’d pay $5000 for it. Especially considering what he had to use before this LMFAO, namely the Nikon WT-4 “Wireless” transmitter. If you want to know why I’m laughing my ass off, read this.

Sad... just... sad...

And some of you have complained about the lack of IS on the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens, and I have to say that we’ve had a few prototypes with IS but ultimately Tokyo decided to go with the non-IS version. The conclusion was that the lens was already too good to add IS to it. It’s so sharp that it’ll take a lot of movement on your part to introduce any kind of blurring in your images. In fact, I would recommend that you intentionally shake your hands a little while taking pictures with this lens to introduce a little motion blur, just so that your images won’t appear to be over sharpened. Yep, it’s that sharp. And before you mention it, yes, yes, I know even Tamron has one with IS, but I explained previously in a comment why Tamron’s 24-70 needs IS:

Tamron lenses are worthless. Just Google it, they fall apart if you just bring them into sunlight. No self-respecting professional wants to be seen with a Tamron lens in public. Understand that. Now the 24-70mm f/2.8L II is a great lens. It’s so great it doesn’t need IS. The Tamron has IS because the glass elements inside the lens are loose and shaking all the time because of their shitty engineering. So they put in some IS to try to compensate for that. But even the IS mechanism is loose and bangs around inside the lens so it sucks anyway.

So there you go.

This IS problem people keep bringing up is really a non-issue, just like the headphone jack issue. Someone put it nicely in the comments of a previous post: If you need a headphone jack, buy an iPod.

So anyway, I’m off to play with my 5DX now. Talk to you all later!

UPDATE:

Nikon MB-D12 Ass Rape

After posting this I came across this piece about the new grip for the D800, the MB-D12, which costs an incredible $600 (on Nikon’s site). This is almost as bad as the Canon ST-E2 Ass-Rape. I think the Japanese (both Canon and Nikon) are preparing to are pentrate us bigtime.

Are we trying to take down Canonfilmmakers.com?

You Can't - Canon

It was just brought to my immediate attention that apparently the owners of the website “Canonfilmmakers.com” are experiencing legal trouble. See their post here. Indications are that Canon Inc., as usual, are acting like the goddamn fucking Gestapo again going around bullying innocent customers and fans. They did the same thing a while ago to Canonrumors.com and of course also made me try taking down my own blog a few years ago. Let’s also not forget how they had Vincent Laforet, eternal peace, love and blessings be upon him, take down his video ‘Nocturne’ a year ago or how they threatened a Korean photographer if he didn’t keep his mouth shut about the issues with the 1D Mark III. And the list goes on.

All of this is, of course, in the spirit of “kyosei“:

A concise definition of this word would be “Living and working together for the common good,” but our definition is broader: “All people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future.” Unfortunately, the presence of imbalances in our world in such areas as trade, income levels and the environment hinders the achievement of kyosei.

Addressing these imbalances is an ongoing mission, and Canon is doing its part by actively pursuing kyosei. Truly global companies must foster good relations, not only with their customers and the communities in which they operate, but also with nations and the environment.
They must also bear the responsibility for the impact of their activities on society. For this reason, Canon’s goal is to contribute to global prosperity and the well-being of mankind, which will lead to continuing growth and bring the world closer to achieving kyosei.

At Canon, our customers are number 1!

And to foster good relations with our customers, it is of course only natural that we bully them around and take down their websites, which they spent years working on promoting the use of our products and around which they’ve also built a nice community consisting of even more of our customers, while we’re obviously completely fucking blind to the fact that their work ultimately benefits us and our customers too. And all of that just because the name of their website contains the word “Canon” in it, which, in case you didn’t know, we fucking invented. Makes sense right? If this kind of behavior doesn’t foster good relations with people, then I don’t know what will!

When we say that our customers are number 1 here at Canon Inc. that probably means that we piss on them. It makes perfect sense in japanese english. “Haha, I pissing on you! You in number 1 position! Haha! We are achieve kyosei now!”

Allow me to quote myself on “kyosei”:

Canon Inc. can take their fucking Kyosei corporate philosophy and cram it you know where. Do you know what hinders the achievement of kyosei??? HUH?? DO YA?? Let me tell you what hinders achieving kyosei, you stupid, ignorant bastards: It’s the fucking morons running the company!

I’m trying to get more information about this Canonfilmmakers issue from management here at Canon USA but everyone refuses to talk to me about this. That’s not surprising since they no doubt know I’ll be airing everything right here on my blog along with some good Canon Inc. bashing. So if there’s anyone out there with more information, send it my way at fcwestfall@gmail.com. And not to worry, I won’t reveal my sources even if they send me to Guantanamo Bay and waterboard me to death. Please show your support to Canonfilmmakers.com; this shit has got to stop.

Update:

It seems like Canon Inc. may have overlooked the fact that the owner of Canonfilmmakers.com is called “Jon Connor.” You’ve got to have huge balls or be a total fucking moron (more likely in Canon Inc.’s case) to mess with someone named Jon Connor. Check the video below to see what I mean:

As you all know, in the not too distant future Jon Connor will fight Skynet (Artificial Intelligence). But it looks like right now he’s first going to have to deal with Canon Inc. (Natural Stupidity), an arguably more frightening threat.

Canon Inc.’s despicable corporate practices

Korean Photographer fucked by Canon Inc. with the 1D Mark III

I don’t know how I missed this 2 years ago, but I feel that it’s important that I blog about this even if it’s a bit old news. Because believe me, nothing has changed at Canon Inc. as far as their attitude is concerned. This story broke during the time of the great 1D Mark III debacle that I often still have nightmares about. In the past I have blogged here about what an absolutely horrifying period of my career that was, and believe it or not, I’m still visiting a shrink once a week to talk about it. The story is about a Korean photographer who bought the 1D Mark III only to find out that it had autofocus issues. Rob Galbraith has written about these issues at length, and I’m not going to discuss them here again and open old wounds from my past. The shrink told me I should look ahead now and try to forget about that phase of my life. But I do want to discuss the contents of the article, it’s in Korean, but I’ve been sent the translation and it’s a scary and at the same time heart breaking story. The photographer writes:

I’ve purchased an overpriced lemon and am totally wasted physically, emotionally, and financially. It’s such a stress!

So I feel somewhat satisfied that they would post my story as streaming news on their web site even though this is a small local media. Furthermore, this company uses Nikon so I feel a lot more comfortable about this because I may have doubt whether they would be fair on this story if they’re using Canon themselves.

They had an interview with me yesterday and today they’ll go shoot Canon Korea, which had threatened me (even though not in a direct way). Would they admit the truth or not? Please stay tuned. The news will up on their web site in a few days.

[Canon released a model with defects even after the beta testers raised many issues.]

And then the problems indeed did arise, they are pretending they don’t know anything about it and they’re just trying to earn time. This is a very outrageous business mindset. The CEO of Japan Canon headquarter and the CEO of Canon Korea should acknowledge their wrongdoings and apologize to the consumers sincerely.

I am giving up my copyrights. As long as you won’t modify my faces, you can use any of the pictures on this site. Medias welcome! Journalists, please please use the pictures as much as you want!

Now think about this for a moment. Read the above again, and think about what that means.

It is one thing for a corporation to release defective products to consumers and then pretend like they are not aware of these issues. That is already a problem. But it is far, far, faaar worse when you release defective products to professionals who depend on these products to earn their income, people who have a business that relies on these products, and then pretend like there’s nothing wrong!!!!

This Korean photographer was obviously devastated, having spent his hard earned money on what Canon Inc. pretended was a top of the line fully working product, only to find out that it had issues. Imagine his frustration when he found out what he had invested in. The guy drove around in Korea with banners on his car trashing the camera, for fuck’s sake, he must have been frustrated to no end. Now, let’s be fair here, nobody is perfect and we can all make mistakes, even, and perhaps especially, large corporations such as Canon Inc. We can all understand in the end, even though it may be painful, that mistakes can (and likely will) be made. But what is hard to forgive, is when you make a mistake and then just refuse to admit that, FUCKING LIE ABOUT IT, and refuse to take responsibility and correct the mistake and clean up your mess. That’s when everyone’s blood starts to boil and that’s when you don’t have to expect any kind of understanding whatsoever from anyone.

The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3”

And that, my friends, is when the shit hits the fan for Canon employees such as myself. I can’t tell you how stressful things can get for me. I like to be honest and people know I’ll always try to help where I can, but things get fucking difficult when Canon Inc. forces you to lie. And since I don’t lie, all I can do is just keep my fucking mouth shut. Because trust me, those bastards in Japan can be real assholes. Don’t get fooled with all the fucking corporate philosophy of Kyosei bullshit and all that goddamn crap. When they have the chance to fuck you over, they’re going to fuck you over. And people are being fucked over everywhere around the world by Canon Inc. right now as I type this.

Korean Photographer fucked by Canon Inc. with the 1D Mark III

You don’t have to take my word for it, just look at what that Korean photographer said about Canon Korea threatening him. Remember how Canon Inc. tried to make me take down my own blog 2 years ago by sending their army of lawyers after me? Remember how we had to take down Vincent Laforet’s, eternal peace and blessings be upon him, video “Nocturne” last year? Those Japanese are bullies, and when I once said that Canon Inc. had their gigantic corporate cock up our collective asses here at Canon USA, I wasn’t kidding. Canon Korea probably couldn’t act fast enough to threaten that poor Korean photographer. You have to admire his courage to do what he did. Similarly, Galbraith must have had a fucking huge pair of balls to openly challenge Canon during the 1D Mark III fiasco of 2007/2008. I’m sure he probably needs a wheelbarrow to carry his balls around.

But seriously, these are all despicable corporate practices. Canon Inc. would have been perfectly happy to continue selling the defective 1D Mark III to everyone without ever fixing anything (and we know they never really could fix anything) if Galbraith didn’t stand up and make a big deal out of it. They knew about the issues but still went ahead with the release. And the thing is, this is not an incident. It’s fucking policy, for Christ’s sake, it’s business as usual! The same thing can be said about the EOS 5D mirror getting detached, an issue which they admitted only after the 5D Mark II was released. The same thing can also be said about the EF 50mm f/1.2L lens, of which they have yet to respond to complaints we’ve received from everywhere around the world. Well let me let you in on a little secret, the “solution” Canon Inc. is currently working on, is correcting the problem with this lens in a second version that’ll be on the market soon, while trying to buy time and continuing to sell the old version with issues like there’s nothing wrong. No, your defective lens will not be replaced or fixed, you will just have to suffer with it now and give Canon Inc. more of your money in a few months to get the new version. It’s the same strategy they used with the 5D mirror issue. Once the 5D Mark II was available, suddenly they sent a note to everyone notifying them about the problem with the mirror falling off. They knew that most people would just upgrade to the 5D Mark II, and that after 3 years, not many people would send in their camera’s for repairs, thus saving costs. It’s the same strategy they wanted to use for the 1D Mark III and that Galbraith fucked up for them to a certain degree.

If they’re not using scare tactics, then they just spend as much cash as is needed to buy good publicity. The next time you read a review of a Canon product on one of those popular sites and magazines that are loaded with Canon ads, think about if you want to trust their opinion. The next time you catch a reviewer trying to bend reality, ignoring obvious advantages/disadvantages, or spending way too much words in his conclusion trying to make a Canon camera seem similar to a competing  camera, think about what I’ve written here.

And not to go all John Harrington on you here, but if there is such a thing as karma, I think Canon Inc.’s balance has got to be on the negative side. All of you fucking Canon executives, and I’m not only talking about those of you here at Canon USA, but worldwide, if you know about this, you’re working to keep this system of exploitation and deceit going. You all have a goddamn conscience! Grow some fucking balls and do the right thing for once! Stand up against those fuckers! You cannot pretend like it’s not your fault, and keep “just doing your job” while lying to customers and essentially stealing from people all over the world causing them a great deal of inconvenience. If you continue like this, you are just as guilty as Canon Inc., and karma will catch up to you.

I hope you think about this.

On Canon Taking Down Nocturne

Vincent Laforet (left) and Eolake Stobblehouse, separated at birth?

A HUGE flood of email is currently taking down our corporate network here at Canon USA as people write in to complain about why we told Vincent Laforet, eternal peace and blessings be upon him, to take down the video ‘Nocturne‘ – a video shot by Laforet using our latest WMD against Nikon and Sony, the 1D Mark IV.

Let me say right away that I personally have NOTHING to do with this. So please do not direct your anger at me. Some of those emails that I managed to read before my computer crashed because of the heavy email traffic, were such that I started to fear for my life.

Truth is the fucking boneheaded Japanese are at it again. Really, how stupid do you have to be NOT to want to take advantage of this kind of free viral marketing? I just recently wrote about the Japanese not understanding the first thing about marketing, and in case you were still not convinced this is another example. In another post not too long ago, I even wrote:

We need a totally different approach to marketing when the 1D Mark 4 gets launched. I really hope that Vincent Laforet, peace be with him, will be able to look at the 1D4 and do something really spectacular again so we can seriously start kicking Nikon’s ass. Lord knows we need it.

And then what happens? We get the fucking 1D4 bodies just a few short weeks before launch, we ship one to Laforet to check it out, who goes out of his way to use it and create something cool and exciting, and then what do we do? We ask him to take it down.

This is the shit I have to put up with every goddamn day here at Canon. No wonder most of the cool photographers choose Nikon. I have really given up all hope that those conservative bastards at Canon Inc. and our upper management are going to realize we’re currently living in the 21st century, a time of the Internets and social media.

After the launch of the EOS 7D, and now the 1D Mark IV, I was finally seeing a brighter future for Canon after such a long period of countless fuckups. But this reminds me once again that things can never really change for the better if we don’t take care of one of our biggest underlying problems: Clueless management.

Canon Inc. can take their fucking Kyosei corporate philosophy and cram it you know where. Do you know what hinders the achievement of kyosei??? HUH?? DO YA?? Let me tell you what hinders achieving kyosei, you stupid, ignorant bastards: It’s the fucking morons running the company!

I need a couple of drinks.

EOS 1D Mark III Autofocus Fix – For real this time. Seriously.

This morning I was  sitting behind my desk, going over some new information Tokyo sent me last night about the new EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens, when all of a sudden all phones inside my office, including my cellphone started ringing simultaneously. While I was initially looking around, trying to understand what the hell was going on, my computer started going “You’ve got mail, you’ve got mail, you’ve got mail, you’ve got mail” continuously while emails kept arriving every second. At this point I jumped up and quickly closed the door to my office, pulled out the phone cables, turned off my cellphone and disconnected the computer from the corporate network. A quick look at some of the email messages made clear what was going on.

We’ve just released some new firmware updates for the EOS 1D/Ds Mark III cameras as Galbraith is reporting here. And completely in line with our recent release of the service update for the 5D mirror falling off, after 3 years, we’ve also released two new service updates for the EOS 1D/Ds Mark III cameras, this time after 2 years (we’re making progress it seems), regarding the autofocus issues and ERR99 messages many users have been reporting. Check them out here and here.

So I just want to use this opportunity to tell everyone to please stop calling me and emailing me about this. I have nothing to add to what you can read there for yourself. After what happened the last time, I am staying as far away from this as possible. Let Canon Inc. handle it themselves, it’s their mess after all. Suffice to say that I really hope that this new autofocus fix for the 1D Mark III is going to solve your problems.  If not, expect another service release sometime in 2011. Judging from the frequency of the latest service releases, and after performing some quick statistical analysis, I’m expecting the service release for the 5D Mark II autofocus issues to arrive sometime in 2010. Please be patient until then.

Canon Inc. seems to be putting a lot of effort into trying to improve the image people have of the EOS 1D/Ds Mark III autofocus system. They’ve recently launched a new website where they’re trying to show everyone why they think it’s very good. Especially the “Canon’s AF Philosophy” section is quite entertaining good. Apparently this AF Philosophy at Canon Inc. doesn’t include other cameras like the 5D Mark II and 40D/50D.

In one of the sections you read stuff like this:

The most common request was that of greater freedom of composition. What they said was, “We want the AF points increased and spread out to the edges of the screen.”

I guess that doesn’t apply to the 5D Mark II. It seems Canon Inc. thinks 5D users don’t need freedom of composition and more AF points, even though I know for a fact that the feedback I’ve been sending them the last few years has been saying the opposite.

I hope they start to understand soon in Tokyo that all this marketing bullshit is not going to make the products somehow work better. Only the actual release of good working products is going to do that. And once they do that, my work is going to be a lot easier.

Doggy Strikes Again

In other news, I haven’t yet heard anything from Doggy, our promotions specialist from Lube & Lube. Seems like he’s laying low for a while planning his next strike. It kind of reminds me of that Stephen King movie “Cujo.” I feel like I’m trapped in the car, after an initial attack from Doggy, and it’s all quiet now, it almost seems like he’s given up and went away. And I’m sitting up, looking around out of the windows of the car, trying to see of he’s really gone, when **WHAM!!** Doggy suddenly bangs his head against the window, pressing his big bloody teeth against it while growling like some kind of monster. It’s scary as hell. I mean, you know he’s out there, but you just can’t tell when he’ll strike again.

I’m gonna go make me a nice cappuccino now and try to take my mind off of these scary thoughts.

Interview at Black Star Rising Blog

Over the weekend I got interviewed by Scott Baradell over at the Black Star Rising blog. Check it out here. Many thanks to Scott for the opportunity. There’s a lot of new information there and I hope you will all enjoy it.

In the past week the blog really got a lot of exposure on the Internet, it got mentioned on many of the popular technology news websites and blogs around the world, in many different countries and languages. This is all thanks to Doggy, our very own promotions specialist, and ofcourse Canon Inc., my employer, who provided the funds for this marketing campaign. I and many frustrated Canon users around the world are very grateful.

To Canon and Loeb & Loeb: Thanks for the traffic!

Note: I’ve added a third update now at the bottom.

Traffic to my blog increased after Loeb & Loeb implemented their online marketing plan for my blog.

First let me take a moment to welcome all the new readers of my blog, I hope you’ll enjoy the existing content like many others have done in the past, and will stay long enough to enjoy future content. Due to my very busy work schedule at Canon USA I’m not always able to update the blog very frequently, but I do try to do so at least once a week. Also note that the content here is specifically geared towards serious photo geeks, photographers and others in the photography industry.

As many of you know, we’ve been quite arrogant in the past here at Canon, and still are. Communicating with our customers really isn’t one of our strongest points as a company. For example, just recently we finally released a service notice, after knowing about this problem for almost 3 years now and many users suffering the consequences, for the original 5D mirror falling off. If you think this is just an isolated incident, think again. The timing of the service release is ofcourse related to the 5D Mark II being “available” now, and since the 5D is going to be discontinued soon anyway, there’s no danger in admitting to the issues. In the same way, if Galbraith wasn’t so persistent after we kept denying, most of the world would never have known about the 1D Mark III focus issues. And we still haven’t said anything about the EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM focus problems that many are experiencing. As of right now, we’re still not saying much about the focus issues with the new 5D Mark II, let alone the vignetting problem. And lots more. That’s why I’ve been here at Canon USA working my ass off trying to participate online as much as possible, answering questions from customers through email, etc. etc., while trying not to get fired by my shortsighted superiors at Canon Inc. Having been in the business myself as a photographer in the past before I joined Canon USA, I feel for all of you. So last year I finally decided to start this blog as the first step of improving our communications with customers and allowing me to be a lot more open and frank about various issues.

Since the launch of this blog back in September 2008 I haven’t done much to promote the blog and get the word out about it. But apparently I was able to convince Canon to finally do something about promoting my blog and make some company funds available for it. So we hired the marketing experts at Loeb & Loeb, and they came up with a brilliant plan to promote the blog online. You can read all about that here. And as you can see from the image above, after the implementation of their plan, traffic to my blog increased exponentionally. After Thomas Hawk blogged about it, it got on Slashdot and the rest, as they say, is history. Needless to say, I would highly recommend our pals at Loeb & Loeb if you are looking to give your website more exposure online.

I have to tell you, sometimes I do wonder myself if I am working for a camera manufacturing company or the mafia. Seeing as how Canon likes to approach things sometimes, I can get confused. Last year one of my superiors in Japan actually wanted to send a ninja to DPReview’s Phil Askey “for handle him,” after DPReview posted a negative review of the EOS 50D. So it is no surprise that the good people at Canon Rumours are afraid to say anything about the shut down notice. They’ve had their own issues with Canon last year. A thread on the DPReview forums, discussing Canon’s shut down notice also seems to have vanished. From my website statistics logs, I can see that the thread existed at the following URL: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=31008091. I visited that thread yesterday and today, and know for a fact that it existed. This morning the thread was already up to 4 pages before it got taken down. Another thread discussing the issue still appears to be up: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=31018366. One can only speculate about what exactly happened to the missing thread. This is the first time I’ve experienced censorship on DPreview myself, but I have heard about it in the past.

Anyway I have to sign off now to take care of some work and then leave the office early today to go home and be err….bang.. err, I mean… be with my family. I expect to be tired and unavailable for the rest of the day. Thanks for your understanding.

Update:

I received some screenshots of the thread on DPReview which was deleted:

Deleted thread on DPReview Forums

 

Deleted thread on DPReview Forums

Now I know I wasn’t hallucinating when I saw that thread.

Barnett points out in the comments below that our pal Douglas “Doggy” E. Mirell from Loeb & Loeb is indeed a promotions specialist. Looks like we got the right man for the job. He took the blog mainstream like only he could: Doggy style.

Update 2:

Looks like DPReview is at it again. I received a screenshot of yet another thread that got deleted. The thread existed at http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=31037898. Click on the image for larger view.

DPReview Deleted Thread

 Update 3:

Fake Chuck Westfall threads are dropping like flies over at the DPReview forums. Received another screenshot of a thread which existed at: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=31042825. Click on the image for larger view.

Deleted Thread on DPReview

Viva la revolucion, indeed, LOL.