Canon 1D(s) Mark III - New AF Fix (U.S.)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...=2112&id=56399

[Robert Amoruso]

Wow,

Semi-official acknowledgment that the AF system is funky. I was just getting ready to send mine in for re-calibration and a sticky lens lock pin.

[c.w. moynihan]

Thanks Axel..I missed this post. Great timimg for us...send it in while spring migration is about to start. Guess I will wait until spring is over before I send mine in.

[Doug Brown]

No rush for me, since I use center point only and center point AF is quite good on mine. I'll still send it in for the fix though.

[James Shadle]

WOW another new fix:confused:.

I'm sure the Mark IV or V will autofocus as well as the 50D does.

[arash_hazeghi]

Guys, I came close to purchasing the 1DMKIII just for BIF several times, every time I backed off after seeing the internet reports of AF not being able to perform as advertised (especialy the famous Rob Galbraith report), what is your opinion? Do you have problems tracking with 1DIII? For now I am using my 40D but I love to have a pro birding body :)

[Roger Clark]

This is kind of scary. I thought it was fixed last time. I hesitated on the 1DIII (having a 1DII).
It makes me concerned about a 1D4. Why so long and so many tries to get it fixed?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I think the problem is that we have to speculate. Maybe it's a cultural issue, but I would prefer to know that they know about problems and work on it. I read several times that people even hope that Canon silently fixes AF issues in new firmware versions without acknowledging them. If customers think like that then you know that you have a real problem.

[Doug Brown]

I find that the Mark III does very well for BIF.

[James Shadle]

Doug,
Are you a center sensor man?
James

[Doug Brown]

Yes James, I am.

[Cliff Beittel]

Yes James, I am [a center sensor guy].

I'd say 1/43rd of a camera's autofocus function is nothing to crow about. My 1Ds mark III also did fine for flight shooting using the center sensor; now I finally understand why so many "easy" static shots were soft--my usual practice is to manually select the sensor over the eye after composing, so that the servo AF can react to any small change in head position. If they just hadn't provided those other 42 sensors, which worked so well on the EOS-3 and EOS-1Ds mark II, all would have been well.