Update on the Petition to Canon Regarding Freezing 5D Mark IIIs During Video Capture
Last month we mentioned a growing issue among a number of video shooters that were experiencing camera crashes with the Canon 5D Mark III. While it seems that the issue may be related to certain brands of CF cards corrupting footage, other users have experienced issues regardless of the cards used. A petition to Canon was started online to hopefully get a solution to the problem, and it seems that at least two of those cameras affected with this issue have had their cameras fixed by Canon for free. Here is a message from Max, who started the petition, sent earlier today:
Good news:
As a proof of success of current 216 signatures under the petition, Canon started promptly fixing cameras that are sent to Canon Service centers by affected owners replacing FOR FREE a particular part number CG-3158-000 which is named in the supporting post-service papers as “PCB ASS’Y, MAIN”, known in real world as “a main board”.
I have supporting documents proving that this part number was replaced in two affected cameras of customers of at least two different markets –Australia and USA.
Bad news:
To me, replacing a faulty main board means a lot, to be honest – I guess they assemble these cameras on production lines of a very big scale. Hence, there should be hundreds if not thousands of faulty main boards waiting for their D-day inside cameras of their unaware owners.
After receiving this information earlier this week, I sent an email to my local Canon contact requesting them to confirm if the main board was also at fault in the only sample of 5Dmk3 that they mentioned having inspected earlier. I have not received any answer as yet, and this may mean they are either waiting for more cameras brought for inspection to verify if the main board is the cause, or they simply ignored me, as “no comments” strategy works a treat for a big fish when numbers of protesters are lower than numbers of products affected.
Global (but simple) survey of 5Dmk3 serial numbers:
I have a strong belief there was a batch of early produced 5Dmk3 that had faulty main boards installed. To prove this, I’ve created a simple 3 field online survey to collect serial numbers of ANY 5Dmk3 cameras that you guys happen to own out there.
I’d like to encourage every 5Dmk3 owner to participate in this survey ASAP.
If you own one or more 5Dmk3 bodies, follow the link below and put down the bodies 12-digit serial numbers to relevant box (faulty or non-faulty) – this will help us to verify if there’s a correlation between the serial numbers known and the occurrence of the freeze phenomenon.
This is a previous update on the matter:
I’ve been asked by Canon to channel the following request to everyone: “Users EOS 5D Mark IIIs and CF cards who can reproduce the freeze during video recording to please bring the camera and the CF card to the nearest service centre in their region”.
You can find your local service centres contacts here.
Whether your camera is grey-imported or has local warranty, bring it in, my guess Canon is very interested inspecting it.
Many people have experienced issues related to crashing with longer record times, but some comments from the last post indicated that there have been problems with shorter than the maximum record limit. These very well may be different issues, so I think it's important to try to figure out if there is a specific range of affected cameras. It's still not clear yet if Canon knows what the actual problem is, but at the moment it seems they are replacing the main board in affected cameras. While I don't believe there would be any sort of massive recall, you may be able to get your camera fixed after all.
Head on over to the survey using the link below.
Links:
