1Ds III problem

[Derryck]

I normally have my 1Ds III either attached to a Cambo studio stand or a tripod and for the more than 60 shoot days that it's been used over the last three months I've owned it I can't remember a single exposure over 1/500th of a second. A few days ago I take it on holiday a with a 50mm 1.2 and when the sun came out the shutter speed jumped up to 1/2000th - 1/8000th for the first time. My wife was taking some shots and I noticed when reviewing the shots that there was a light band appearing at the top of the frame. At first I just wanted to blame her but after testing have found that it seems to be at it's worst when I use very high shutter speeds but I can still see it right down to 1/100th of a second.

I've now tested it with different lenses, different apertures and with the mirror up but I still get the same problem. I've also checked the mirror box.

I'm fortunate that the shoot I'm on now is of dark interiors so hopefully I can make it through the next two days before getting a replacement and this one repaired.

I thought it may have been the mirror not getting out of the way in time but now I'm not so sure especially since it's still there when I use mirror up.

Any advice is appreciated.

[semillerimages]

Looks like what I had when my 1dsmark2 shutter started to die... granted after 50,000 clicks, although that is way below what the shutter was warrantied for. The camera was out of warranty, but Canon fixed it no charge anyway.

*steve

I normally have my 1Ds III either attached to a Cambo studio stand or a tripod and for the more than 60 shoot days that it's been used over the last three months I've owned it I can't remember a single exposure over 1/500th of a second. A few days ago I take it on holiday a with a 50mm 1.2 and when the sun came out the shutter speed jumped up to 1/2000th - 1/8000th for the first time. My wife was taking some shots and I noticed when reviewing the shots that there was a light band appearing at the top of the frame. At first I just wanted to blame her but after testing have found that it seems to be at it's worst when I use very high shutter speeds but I can still see it right down to 1/100th of a second.

I've now tested it with different lenses, different apertures and with the mirror up but I still get the same problem. I've also checked the mirror box.

I'm fortunate that the shoot I'm on now is of dark interiors so hopefully I can make it through the next two days before getting a replacement and this one repaired.

I thought it may have been the mirror not getting out of the way in time but now I'm not so sure especially since it's still there when I use mirror up.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Derryck]

That doesn't sound very good, my shutter's only done 13,000 shots.

I've been reminded how stupid it is to travel without a backup camera but I was holding out for the new 5D.

[David Anderson]

Looks like the shutter to me as well.

I've had that with a DsII, but that was around 100,000 frames.

Canon replaced it no charge.

[dwdallam]

Is it just me or is Nikon not plagued with these problems?

[Derryck]

Unfortunately I need all those pixels that the 1Ds provides otherwise I have to go back to using medium format which slows down the work flow considerably.

[walter.sk]

Looks like the shutter to me, too.  My 1DMKii had the shutter go bad after 63K activations.  That was replaced free by Canon even though it was just past the warranty. After another 40K activations the second shutterbox had to be replaced, this time at my expense.  I suspect it had less to do with the shutter box and possibly more to do with some misalignment mechanically that was not addressed.  I pretty much expect this 3rd shutter box to faill within a year.

I'm not flaming Canon, as I'm sure every manufacturer has got a small percentage of camera failures..  But I think I got burned with a lemon.

[Anthony R]

Is it just me or is Nikon not plagued with these problems?

I've just got to jump in and say that you are the biggest anti-Fanboy I've ever had to read posts by.

[sojournerphoto]

I've just got to jump in and say that you are the biggest anti-Fanboy I've ever had to read posts by.

Doug just hasn't realised yet that the 1Ds3 maybe last year's girl, but she's still the lovliest on the block:)

[Chris_Brown]

Any advice is appreciated.

It's the shutter. Send it in to Canon and they'll replace it in just a day or two. If it's under warranty, all the better.

[Derryck]

I'll be sending it into Canon tomorrow when I get back to Shanghai. Hopefully it keeps shooting for one more day. The studio purchased a 1Ds III on the same day I did and so I have a backup for however long I need it because I don't think Canon China provides free backup service. But I will be checking the studio's camera also to see if it suffers from the same problem.

I'm certainly not about to start hating Canon or this camera, because apart from not having the ability to take photos on it's own while I drink cocktails it's been great.

[lisa_r]

Is it just me or is Nikon not plagued with these problems?

Go ask your local rental house which brand is more reliable if you really want to know. Whenever I have asked this, the answer is Canon is more reliable tha Nikon, hands down.
(and they should know...)
Anyway Dwdallam, every make of camera has failed parts from time to time. There are thousands of parts in these cameras.

[dwdallam]

I've just got to jump in and say that you are the biggest anti-Fanboy I've ever had to read posts by.

What's an anti-Fanboy? You mean anti-Canon? I own Canon. I'm not an anti or pro any brand. But I also don't make excuses for defective products.

[geesbert]

had that too mith my 1ds mk1 once or twice, a week later my shutter fell apart. See attached picture.
i only had a 20d as a backup with me, so i had my assistant walk across the street to the next camera shop to buy a 5d and we went on shooting within 30 min.

although i was out of warranty for a few weeks, canon repaired it for free within three days. had about 80000 shots on it.

one note:
i am so annoyed about people crying out what a rip-off the 1ds is. if you shoot with a 8000€ Camera professionally and it hasn't paid for itself after 50 000 shots, you should review your pricing. that was the only glitch i ever had with Canon equipment. i must be on my 10th canon or more, have more than 10 canon lenses an i never had to get one single item repaired. this stuff just works and works and works. the small percentage of people who have problems with Canon are bitching around too noisily about how bad canons QC is. the happy ones are hardly heard.

Stefan

[dwdallam]

had that too mith my 1ds mk1 once or twice, a week later my shutter fell apart. See attached picture.
i only had a 20d as a backup with me, so i had my assistant walk across the street to the next camera shop to buy a 5d and we went on shooting within 30 min.

although i was out of warranty for a few weeks, canon repaired it for free within three days. had about 80000 shots on it.

one note:
i am so annoyed about people crying out what a rip-off the 1ds is. if you shoot with a 8000€ Camera professionally and it hasn't paid for itself after 50 000 shots, you should review your pricing. that was the only glitch i ever had with Canon equipment. i must be on my 10th canon or more, have more than 10 canon lenses an i never had to get one single item repaired. this stuff just works and works and works. the small percentage of people who have problems with Canon are bitching around too noisily about how bad canons QC is. the happy ones are hardly heard.

Stefan

If it is true that mostly people having problems are heard, then you are right. I wonder how many Canon cameras at the pro and prosumer level actually fail in some degree. It would be an interesting stat, for sure. What do you think teh percentage is? If it were 10% would you be ok with that? What percentage failure rate is legitimate?

[Anthony R]

What's an anti-Fanboy? You mean anti-Canon? I own Canon. I'm not an anti or pro any brand. But I also don't make excuses for defective products.

You are an anti-fanboy. You own the product and incessantly slam it and whine and whine. You are way too concerned about cameras when by the looks of your work you should be more concerned about the images themselves. Perhaps you purchased outside of your income potential, experience and talent. These are things that I have gleamed from your posts, your whines and the work from your website. Failures are in all products in the world, nothing is infallible. Things get used. They get fixed. Better equipment comes along. You didn't buy a fucking building that's coming down on your head, it's under 10k and is meant to make you money as a tool, stop being one.

[innesfoto]

The very first image on this site is due to the shutter jamming at the end of the cycle, This can be caused by many factors including sand ,grit, or any other small object getting stuck in the shutter mech.
As you can see it is a straight line across the long side of the frame frame, this indicates a problem with a vertical focal plane shutter, if the same were present at the short side of the frame it would be the same problem but with  a transverse shutter. Which as far as I know have not been used in digital SLR´s.
The second Image showing a large black bar is one of the shutter leaves, this has broken away from its mounting rivet and would explain why the camera shutter disintegrated shortly afterward.
By the way Servus Burgenlander, good to see a good Ilmitzer wine.
Hope that clears up the mystery.

Andy

[Kagetsu]

I just thought I'd chime in. A few years back, I installed an aftermarket split prism into my old 20D, without realising it, I'd managed to knock out the shim that holds it in by maybe a 1/4 of a mm, which caused a similar problem.

Have you checked that you don't have something isn't preventing it from moving when holding in sideways?

Otherwise it's unusual, and I'd be with everybody else to assume it's shutter failure. Have seen a few people mention similar issues, but then shutters are only good for their max life under laboratory conditions anyway.

From memory, there's a soft shutter function (also drops to 3fps) in one of the CF menus, which you might like to try... Which will at least cover you for the rest of your time away.

[Derryck]

Fortunately the interior designer I was shooting for is going through a dark phase and so most of my exposures were 5-30sec long and so I got the job done. My assistant is taking the camera into Canon today and I'll report back here after I get feedback from the technician.

[dwdallam]

You are an anti-fanboy. You own the product and incessantly slam it and whine and whine. You are way too concerned about cameras when by the looks of your work you should be more concerned about the images themselves. Perhaps you purchased outside of your income potential, experience and talent. These are things that I have gleamed from your posts, your whines and the work from your website. Failures are in all products in the world, nothing is infallible. Things get used. They get fixed. Better equipment comes along. You didn't buy a fucking building that's coming down on your head, it's under 10k and is meant to make you money as a tool, stop being one.

Sounds like you have a lot of anger in your life. I wish there was something I could do, but posting what you think I should or should not post isn't one of them. That given, may I suggest you block my posts if they anger you as much as they do? It's probably not good for your health to be so angry at people you hardly know based on simple website forums. It seems an abnormal degree of anger in this context.

And one last thing. It seems only fair if you're going to run someone else down, either me or others in the future, you should at least have your work where we can access it.