I was one of the brave ones who bought the 1dMKIII even after all the talk about its problems and the crap hit the fan.

Mine always performed flawlessly. I loved it and never bought into all its supposed problems. When Canon called and told me it was my turn to send it in for "the fix" I did, and upon its return it worked flawlessly - like it always had.

Then two weeks ago it just died. Gave the cryptic "error 99" message that I have since read of others getting. The camera refused to fire. You could turn it off and on, but that was about it.

So I sent it to Irvine - still under warranty. They had it for a good ten days. I got it back yesterday, but was too busy to even open the box.

Today I unpack it and put on a lens and I'm thinking how nice it will be to shoot with it again. Walk outside the studio to fire off a few shots.

The danged thing would not autofocus to save its life. Forget high temps and all that other crap that was supposed to make the problem surface.....It would not focus period. Tried several different lenses...the lens would just continuously hunt for focus.

Called Canon, Irvine, and they said....gulp, guess it has to come back again.

And now I guess I know what everyone has been saying all along. But I loved it - for a while.

Hmmm ... sorry to hear of your troubles with it. That sucks!

Definitely not going to be a beta-tester for the new 5D - will have to use some self control when it comes out. Especially if anything has changed with the AF. And hopefully it has!

Again, sucks that that happened, hoping they fix it for you.

Unfortunately repair work is never perfect every time. Irvine has goofed twice on my cameras. In both cases they paid for the return shipping and promptly fixed the errors. In one case a guy phoned me while I was on an assignment to appologize and to explain what happed.

I never hesitate to send gear to Irvine because their customer service is excellent.

Sorry about your troubles but from all the reading I've been doing lately they'll make it good for you.

JDSA wrote:
Unfortunately repair work is never perfect every time. Irvine has goofed twice on my cameras. In both cases they paid for the return shipping and promptly fixed the errors. In one case a guy phoned me while I was on an assignment to appologize and to explain what happed.

I never hesitate to send gear to Irvine because their customer service is excellent.

The Irvine people are friendly and courteous. (I haven't dealt with Jamesburg,
so I can't say either way.) Unfortunately, having to send back multiple
pieces of gear to be fixed correctly when it should have been done right
the first time and checked before shipping -- well that is something I'd
correct if I were running the place. Sure, it'll never be 100% perfect for
every repair, but I'd certainly track the number of repeat returns and get
those way down if I were the manager. Don't the techs try the camera
out before shipping it back?

That sucks...

There are too much reported mkIII hardware issues for my taste. Sometimes I am under the impression that the techs over at Canon Service are messing around with the mkIII's. Like they don't know what they are doing... I hope they can get it right for you the second time.

rburbank wrote:
I was one of the brave ones who bought the 1dMKIII even after all the talk about its problems and the crap hit the fan.

Mine always performed flawlessly. I loved it and never bought into all its supposed problems. When Canon called and told me it was my turn to send it in for "the fix" I did, and upon its return it worked flawlessly - like it always had.

Then two weeks ago it just died. Gave the cryptic "error 99" message that I have since read of others getting. The camera refused to fire. You could turn it off and on, but that was about it.

So I sent it to Irvine - still under warranty. They had it for a good ten days. I got it back yesterday, but was too busy to even open the box.

Today I unpack it and put on a lens and I'm thinking how nice it will be to shoot with it again. Walk outside the studio to fire off a few shots.

The danged thing would not autofocus to save its life. Forget high temps and all that other crap that was supposed to make the problem surface.....It would not focus period. Tried several different lenses...the lens would just continuously hunt for focus.

Called Canon, Irvine, and they said....gulp, guess it has to come back again.

And now I guess I know what everyone has been saying all along. But I loved it - for a while.

Sorry to hear about your MarkIII problems but I think that the initial step sending a completely flawless camera to the bench of "repairing" was the major mistake.

Sorry about the problems but why fall out of love?

The AF problems was a techo's blunder and could happen with any camera whether it is a Canon, Nikon or Sony. The mkIII is still a fantastic camera

I had a similar problem with my new Panasonic Video Camera. It failed on me on the day I first seriously wanted to use it. When I got it back after the summer was over the AF did not work and sent it back again The 2nd time I picked it up I had learnt my lesson and had a battery and memory card to test it in the store.

+1 to Stephen

I still love mine, like a little child who makes ya mostly happy at times. And then there are a few times where he misbehaves. Then you wonder why you paid soo much for it, but at the end of the day learned to live with it. heh.

I like canon Irvine. Though my 351.4 is very soft on my MKIII, so I took it in for adjustments. I guess when I got it back, they deemed it was within spec and didn't do anything with it. I was still a little skeptical, seeing as it isn't that soft on my MKII. But whatever. Good luck and hope yers gets fixed. But I agree with Philip L. hah, there's no way I'm picking up a 5DII if and when it comes out. I'm happy with my 5D, and sure as heck don't feel like beta testing it for them either.

Don't the techs try the camera out before shipping it back?

This is what I ask. I have been shipping gear back and forth to NJ for more than a month now. I wonder how it got in the shipping box in the first place.

I hope to be posting on successful servicing soon.

Update: after being without my 1dMKIII for 5 weeks, I finally got it back yesterday, and it works.

While I am very happy that it works again, I was quite irritated at the repair center's comments on the repair documents:

"Courtesy repair carried out. Camera out of warranty. Adjustments performed not covered by equipment warranty".

I was paraphrasing there.

Somehow they conveniently forgot that this was one of the many flawed 1dMKIII's recalled by Canon for their supposed "fix" and that the warranty, according to their own paperwork, was extended from the date of the recall fix.

While we as customers expect a camera to be able to focus, failure to do so is, apparently, not a warranty issue.

the Mk III is a very complicated piece of technology, complete with extremely tight mechanical tolerances and a multitude of electronic components. with that many variables, Murphy's law will take care of the rest .

sorry to hear about your troubles. hopefully your Mk III will now work to your standards.

1.) Never fix what aint broke.
2.) Irvine is a ---------->JOKE!

They have NEVER gotten anything right when I sent it in. They tried 7x to fix my 10D and I finally went back to the camera shop where I bought it and asked for my money back. Irvine has since "ATTEMPTED" to repair several canon items of mine and always failed.

JMO

wow that sucks, the 1D3 is an awesome camera when its working right