Right. I know what you’re thinking – “christ, not again!” And yes, those were the exact words that came flying out of my mouth when I read it too. Set the way-back machine for March 5th, 2009. It was on that date I received an email from Canon about a new “Service Notice” for the 1DMKIII referencing the ever persistent autofocus problems that have plagued the MKIII’s from the get-go. In my mind I groaned to myself… “Ah, hell – not this &*^@#! again”, but then I actually re-read the notice. Slowly…
“We have learned that some EOS 1D Mark III and EOS 1Ds Mark III digital SLR cameras have a problem in the accuracy of the AF (auto-focusing). If an AF point other than the center AF point is used, focus may become soft. For more details, please click here.
Free AF accuracy checks and adjustments will be provided for affected products.”
Hmm. What they were describing didn’t sound like anything I was experiencing… I wasn’t having difficulty with the outer focus points. My problems were soft and fudgy mis-focus with just the center AF point – or when using all AF points, the “ring of fire”. When I’d take a series of say, 10 shots, there would be some that were acceptably sharp, some that were dead-nuts in focus and then numbers 3, 7 and 8 (usually the ones you’d really want) would be grossly out of focus. After stewing over the notice for a few minutes, reading it over and over I quietly muttered to myself, “I really don’t want to send it back AGAIN. This is getting ridiculous, I can live with what I’ve got.” And that was that. I deleted the email and proceeded with life.
Fast forward about three weeks – I found myself reading this post over at fredmiranda.com. I’ll be damned if the folks who ended up sending their cameras back for this seemingly unrelated fix were suddenly singing high praise that this was “the AF fix we’ve been waiting for” and “they’ve really got it figured out!” Lots of MKIII owners were chiming in – the majority of them saying nothing but positive things.
To make a long post short, most of the responses were quite positive. One guy on page four wrote:
“The auto focus is so good now that I would bet it against anything on the market. I always thought the MKIIn’s servo focus was brilliant, but now it has been upstaged by the MKIII.”
The same fella who made that post owns 2 MKIIn’s, a 5D and a MKIII. If you’ve ever heard Canon folk talk about AF accuracy, the MKIIn is the camera that just about all others AF is measured against. It’s AF is legendary – tack sharp, dead-on almost 100% of the time. Well, a lot of the responses to that post were similar, and what Mark Fadely said on page four was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me. It was just too tempting to pass up. A poll was started, and (when I last checked) about 66% of people who sent it back were claiming to have better AF performance from their cameras. All I had to do was make a call to Canon and arrange for a free shipping label to be sent out, so I did.
I made the call late Friday night, with absolutely no hassle whatsoever. The shipping label showed up in my email on Monday afternoon. Slapped it on the same box Canon had sent the unit back in the last time around. So, on Monday March 30th the box went out the door to Newport News, VA and seven days later it showed back up. Results?
“Examination/Request Details:
AF ACCURACY ADJUSTMENT, UPDATE FIRMWAREService Details:
All adjustments and corresponding testing have been completed to Canon factory standards. Firmware was updated to the latest version.”
There were no parts replaced in mine according to the repair ticket, however, some people have called Canon to confirm what was actually done to their units and have been told that new “spacers and washers” were swapped out in their mirror box, even though it wasn’t listed on the paper that was returned to them. Now, this may be totally psychological or just a by-product of using the 5D wholly for the week but tonight while shooting out the car window with the MKIII (before even reading about the washers) I swear I thought my shutter sounded and felt ever so slightly different. “Not as harsh” would be how I’d describe the tone, although it’s difficult to put into words. Again, might just be me – or might be because of something they did in there. Really can’t say for sure and I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. There are also rumors that Canon’s new calibration process involves a computer assisted focusing calibrator which may be the reason the bodies are returning with such exact focus now. Perhaps it was just done manually by a tech in the past fixes.
My initial comments about the new AF fix? I’ll say this: There is a difference. It is slight, but oh so noticeable. You could cut yourself on most of the images I’ve gotten out of this thing in the last few days which is a change from before. The camera seems to be more accurate when it focuses and I haven’t experienced any of the weird semi-soft / semi-focused shots like I used to get before. The AF chatter seems to be reduced even further as well. Once it picks its spot, it’s locked on – and won’t jitter around as much. For me, this fix offers a noticeable, positive difference in AF accuracy so far. If you are the owner of a Canon EOS 1D-MKIII, I would highly suggest taking the time to send in your camera body for this fix. You may be very pleasantly suprised with what comes back.
Sunday is supposed to be a sunny day and I’m planning on being out in the field looking for birds and other ways to give the AF a much more thorough test. If I have any additional comments or good/bad images, I’ll add them here.
Update, Sunday April 12th:
After briefly testing out the 400 f/5.6 and the 300 f/2.8 with and without the 1.4x TC, there is a definitely a noticeable increase in AF accuracy. The latest fix from Canon gets the thumbs up from me. Small gallery of test shots and 100% crops below.
