1dIII withdrawn

Scanned PDF he
http://www.fjphotography.com/pdf/EOS1DMARKIII.pdf

Seriously (and this is not a "dig" at Canon), if Canon was being the
responsible company they are indicating, they would accept faulty
units
for exchange or refund. $ 5,000.00 for a faulty camera and they
won't
accept any for exchange?

Do you think any car company would GIVE you a new car for every recall
campain? for any reason whatsoever? They fix the problem, that is
what is
important. And please read correctly "this affects only a minority
of
units in the market at this time."

Jean

Big difference between a car and a camera. Once you buy a car, that's
it - it's yours. Cameras, on the other hand, can be bought and returned
to most retail outlets. This is a good reason to return one.


Different countries, different laws, but returning things you buy is a
courtesy of the merchant, they did not force you to buy the product in their
store. The buyer makes a decision to buy, it is not forced uppon them. It
is your responsibility to make sure the product fits your needs, not the
merchant. If you buy a pair of under pants that are too small for you, is
the seller forced to take them back? Store policies and product
responsability are two different things.

Why balk at a "sales final" on a camera and plunk down 10 times that amount
on a car without batting an eyelash?

Jean

frederick wrote:

With respect, shipments are stopped, shelf stock is
recalled, the 1DIII _is_ "withdrawn" from the market.
So what whether it's permanent or not?
I didn't see a comment in Canon's letter saying "we'll start
shipping repaired units immediately" - in fact the
impression given by that letter is that they know there's a
problem, but still haven't finalised the fix.
When the camera is re-released, then perhaps owners can
heave a sigh of relief. Until then, their $5k cameras hang
under a bit of a cloud. I know I'd be seriously ****ed off,
even if I knew or thought I knew the AF was okay on the
camera I had.

I think one needs to go one step back. The problem exists
in (some of) the cameras that have been purchased and in some
of the cameras in stock on dealer's shelves.

Canon's problem is what to do next. They have several
alternatives:

(1) Do nothing and hope that nobody notices, while continuing
to sell the camera.

(2) Do nothing and hope nobody notices, but stop selling the
camera.

(3) Admit the fault and wait for folks to contact them about
the problem.

(4) Admit the fault, recall existing cameras, and apply a fix.

(5) Admit the fault and allow a return for a cash benefit.

There are probably other alternatives as well.

Now (1) certainly is an option taken by many manufacturers. However
it can backfire and really hurt a reputation.

Number (2) is in many ways worse than (1) because it raises suspicion
about the camera *unless* there is a "new" model ready to be released.
There isn't a new model, of course.

Number (3) causes fear, uncertainty, and doubt and also can be
a reputation buster since it is not at all pro-active. It is the
same as (4) while putting the burden on the camera owner to decide
to contact Canon (with all the costs that go along with that
uncertainty.

Number (5) is certainly too expensive as the returned cameras can't
really be sold. So it is a dead loss for Canon, financially.

So the best of a bad lot of alternatives seems to be (4). It does
affect reputation (as we have seen) but takes the burdon from the
camera owner. Send your camera back and we *will* take care of it
is simple advice, but costly for Canon.

It goes without saying that once the fault is admitted, all cameras
on store shelves must be recalled and fixed. In that case the cameras
can still be sold as new and the buyer is not left wondering if his
new camera suffers from the fault. (Canon will doubtless put a sticker
on all fixed and reissued cameras to indicate that there is no problem
any more.)

So I think they have done the right thing.

Moral: It is not enough to say "Canon made a bad choice". One must
offer a real choice that is better.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

just bob kilbyfan@aoldotcom wrote:

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...
Scanned PDF he
http://www.fjphotography.com/pdf/EOS1DMARKIII.pdf

Seriously (and this is not a "dig" at Canon), if Canon was being the
responsible company they are indicating, they would accept faulty units
for exchange or refund. $ 5,000.00 for a faulty camera and they won't
accept any for exchange?


Agreed. The Resellers get a refund but not the consumers. Doesn't exactly
make ya feel good, does it?

You don't know that the offical dealers get a refund. They may
not. They may just get the cameras back with a sticker saying
"Release 2".

And that's what the owners are going to get too. Yes, they will
be without their cameras for a while, but life's like that sometimes.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

Paul J Gans wrote:


So I think they have done the right thing.

Moral: It is not enough to say "Canon made a bad choice". One must
offer a real choice that is better.

Sure - I agree that they've done the right thing now.
But this doesn't explain why the delay between the 1DIII's
problems being well known and circulated on the internet for
months, nor the fact that a design flaw or component subject
to variability passed QC procedures.
Perhaps if a really bad choice was made, it was to react too
slowly in a world where bad news is welcomed by some, and
spreads like a virus.

frederick wrote:
Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

Do you think they will make an even swap for the world famous Nikon D3?

The D3 - so long as it's AF performance is up to par - is
IMO a far better executed concept than the crop sensor 1DIII.

But it won't even accept Canon lenses ...
while "Rita" yodels all day about using Canon bodies and Nikon lenses.

-Wolfgang

Robert Coe wrote:

Actually, it's "WE BELIEVE THAT this affects
only a minority of units in the market at this time." And they don't say how
they're going to fix it. (Auto recalls usually do.)

Auto recalls say "... by replacing bolt 17 of the steering
mechanism with a 8.3 V-steel nikel plated bolt of the same
diameter" or something?

-Wolfgang

frederick wrote:

The letter makes generalised statements :
"The problem can be linked to the adjustment of the AF Sub
Mirror, and we believe that this affects only a minority of
units in the market at this time."
That is not saying that repair is an adjustment job, just
that it's linked to adjustment. Reading between the lines,
they've got a design problem with the sub-mirror, probably a
QC issue that was missed, and they don't know how many
cameras are affected.

Could be a bad charge of glue that expands too much on hot days
--- which is then causing the distance to the AF sensors not
to be identical to the film plane (+/- any programmed offset),
causing thus a slight focus error.

Yes, that's pure speculation. Doesn't need to be a design problem
nor a QC issue. As to knowing how many cameras are affected,
even Canon is not omniscient. It could well be that there are
more subtle faults which also affect AF performance --- and maybe
only if both or all three are present. If Canon were to say "it
affects only 476.37 cameras" someone surely would make a fuss.
Like Richie or you.

-Wolfgang

frederick wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:


So I think they have done the right thing.

Moral: It is not enough to say "Canon made a bad choice". One must
offer a real choice that is better.

Sure - I agree that they've done the right thing now.
But this doesn't explain why the delay between the 1DIII's
problems being well known and circulated on the internet for
months, nor the fact that a design flaw or component subject
to variability passed QC procedures.
Perhaps if a really bad choice was made, it was to react too
slowly in a world where bad news is welcomed by some, and
spreads like a virus.

I can't argue with that. It is well-known that getting
upper management in general to listen to Bad News is not
an easy thing.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

"jean" wrote in message
news
Scanned PDF he
http://www.fjphotography.com/pdf/EOS1DMARKIII.pdf

Seriously (and this is not a "dig" at Canon), if Canon was being
the
responsible company they are indicating, they would accept faulty
units
for exchange or refund. $ 5,000.00 for a faulty camera and they
won't
accept any for exchange?

Do you think any car company would GIVE you a new car for every
recall
campain? for any reason whatsoever? They fix the problem, that is
what is
important. And please read correctly "this affects only a
minority
of
units in the market at this time."

Jean

Big difference between a car and a camera. Once you buy a car,
that's
it - it's yours. Cameras, on the other hand, can be bought and
returned
to most retail outlets. This is a good reason to return one.


Different countries, different laws, but returning things you buy is a
courtesy of the merchant, they did not force you to buy the product in
their
store. The buyer makes a decision to buy, it is not forced uppon
them. It
is your responsibility to make sure the product fits your needs, not
the
merchant. If you buy a pair of under pants that are too small for
you, is
the seller forced to take them back? Store policies and product
responsability are two different things.

Why balk at a "sales final" on a camera and plunk down 10 times that
amount
on a car without batting an eyelash?

Jean

Yes, different countries, different laws. The laws vary from
state-to-state in the US. In New York, a retail store is under no
obligation to accept a return, they do so as a service to customers. A
good merchant will accomosdate his/her customers so that return business
and referalls can be earned. Buying a car is a whole different process.
Once you accept delivery of it, it is registered and titled to you. A
camera is nothing of the sort, it's just a consumer item. If I was
fortunate enough to be able to plunk down that much money on a camera
and it had a serious defect like this then I would expect a refund. The
problem is that Canon must agree to refund their resellers who then can,
in turn, refund their customers.

Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
frederick wrote:
Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

Do you think they will make an even swap for the world famous Nikon D3?

The D3 - so long as it's AF performance is up to par - is
IMO a far better executed concept than the crop sensor 1DIII.

But it won't even accept Canon lenses ...
while "Rita" yodels all day about using Canon bodies and Nikon lenses.

I was trying to be so nice...
But what the hell, I've been sanding and oiling the
woodwork, and polishing the hull of my boat, and it's put me
in a dirty mood.
Why would anybody want to mount Canon lenses on a D3? You
can't even mount a good number of Canon lenses on some of
Canon's DSLR bodies.