5D MKIII light leak.....Just how serious of a problem isit??

hi guys,

been reading about all the alleged "problems" that the 5D mkiii has been having.

error 80's, hanging AF,and most prominentand lately acknowledged by Canon is the light leak issue.

Just how serious or how big of a problem is it???? I personally don't get it....... you have to have the lens cap on the lens??????? How does that affect one's picture taking??? I am assuming most of us take pictures with the lens cap off.......:rolleyes:


Seriously how big of a problem is it?? Maybe Mark Elberson and the other lucky guys who alreay have their 5D mkiii can share their experiences regarding this "problem"


james

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jks_photo

hi guys,

been reading about all the alleged "problems" that the 5D mkiii has been having.

error 80's, hanging AF,and most prominentand lately acknowledged by Canon is the light leak issue.

Just how serious or how big of a problem is it???? I personally don't get it....... you have to have the lens cap on the lens??????? How does that affect one's picture taking??? I am assuming most of us take pictures with the lens cap off.......:rolleyes:


Seriously how big of a problem is it?? Maybe Mark Elberson and the other lucky guys who alreay have their 5D mkiii can share their experiences regarding this "problem"


james

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My understanding is that it's not a problem, really. It doesn't affect the exposure, but the metering. And like you said, only when either the body or lens cap is on, with either the backlight for the top display on or with some serious light hitting the camera. To me it seems like a non-issue, and one that canon is willing to fix to boot.

Nothing more disconcerting than to have your brand new, professional, Canon camera serviced right out of the box.

I'll wait and see, mine is behaving perfectly, so far I haven't had to take any shots with the lens cap on.:cool:
Still my dream camera and I don't mean nightmare. I'd love to have one as a back-up body.

Definitely has not been noticeable to me. Have done night shots, with and without the display light on, and not seen any difference in exposures. Considering this is the first body that I have had all my zoom lenses not need any AFMA whatsoever, even though it ironically has superior adjustment capabilities, there is little chance of it being sent back for fixing something that isn't a problem for fear of mucking something else up. As I doubt resale is likely to happen for many years, I don't think I'll be losing any sleep over this.

Of course, if it turns out to be replacing a defective weather seal that is something worth sending it back for.

you don't think this could be a cover to turn off the self-destruct do you???

well that sounds reassuring since I do believe you guys use your gear more than I do, and with all the lighting conditions in which you use your 5dmkiii, the "issue" is not felt by you guys then I guess I won't be affected as much either.

Yup just got my 5dmkiii about 5 hours ago..... what can I say..... the AF is simply superb......well at least for me a guy who has gotten used to the 9pt AF of the 5d mkii and XTi.

Pictures shot raw look sharp in image browser but not as much in DPP so i'm still waiting for that update.

Tried several 3 shot bursts of a motorcycles coming towards me and going away from me all look sharp to me....

Seeing those bursts.... as sharp as they were put a smile on my face...

There has been a lot of talk about what difference does it make if you can only notice the probelm when it is capped off. It seems to me that the point of the test is to show there is an outside influence (light leakage) that can be shown to effect the metering which is used for setting exposure. This effect on exposure is difficult to demonstarte any other way because with a lens on you can not seperate the light leakage from what is coming through the lens. However, that does not mean that the problem does not exist with the lens on. Therefore, the test just shows there is light contamination present, and that it is large enough to effect metering. So you may say that it does not effect you, but I guess the question should be... is the camera capablity being reduced, and could I get a metering system that works even more consistently than its current state; and if so, then would it mater to my way of shotting? If Canon is offering to fix the problem I would guess they think it does effect the ability to get an accurate and consistent metering for exposure, and they feel it may be nessesary to fix it in order to reduce variablity in some instances. Whether that effects your type of shooting who knows... they do not provide enough information to make an informed decission.

I have no skin in this since I do not have a Mark III, but if I did have one I would be wondering if it could be even better that it is today.

Edit:
By the way, if anyone wants to trade your light sieve Mark III for my guaranteed light tight 7D (comes with duct tape over all joints), then I am willing to trade.:p

Have actually done the light leak test in AV mode today to see what happens. Right after start up, the exposure was 6 seconds with LED off. Turned the LED on, 8 second exposure rime. After it was powered up for a few minutes, times were a mix of 13 & 15 seconds, mostly 15, whether the LED was on or off. I honestly can not see a difference. Not sure about anyone else's results, but if you do the test my results indicate that it would be recommended to leave the camera on for a little while before testing. It would seem that the results do vary during an initial warmup stage.

@ conropol....
yes i do see what you mean.... maybe when canon offers the fix and I'm planning to use the camera I will send it infor the fix.

@jrw
your tests and reading are exactly what I got.....

Mine came off the shelf at a local store. Likely to have not been in the initial production. Starting to wonder if this was detected by Canon's QA department and remedied.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by conropl

If Canon is offering to fix the problem I would guess they think it does effect the ability to get an accurate and consistent metering for exposure, and they feel it may be nessesary to fix it in order to reduce variablity in some instances.

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It may be that from a PR perspective, it's simply worth every penny to offer their customers peace of mind. It is a lot of money to spend on a camera to have a problem like that. One that's vague in it's actual impact. And you're right, I don't think anyone has had the brass to test and see if the issue affects weather sealing.. (anyone want to volunteer?) Though, I'm sure Canon R&D did weather sealing tests before settling on the final design. Maybe it was simply a manufacturing problem after the fact.

Has anyone tried this, not with a lens-cap or body-cap, but with ND filters? I was doing some shooting in bright sunlight yesterday, with an ND400 and f/ stop enough to get me a 30 second exposure at iso100 (to blur the water).
How about at uber-macro, like 5x mag with f/16 (which turns into f/80 or so)?
Or astro?

If there's enough light coming through to affect metering with the caps on, and doesn't influence much at f/2.8-5.6, there's got to be a point where there's enough to influence metering to shift by 1/3 or 2/3 stop.
Of course with the shooting I did yesterday, I was metering from live-view, and with macro I tend to either live-view or shoot-histogram-adjust. But if the metering is wrong, even through the viewfinder and only under some very specific conditions, I think it's fair enough that they should fix it...

I've been looking for more information about the root cause of the 'light leak' to try to find out if it is a seal or bleedthrough of the panel. Now I see that Canon, Canada and UK, have stopped shipping the 5D3.

Does anyone have solid information about what the cause of the issue is?

Electrical Tape is Canon's official fix:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/05/the-fix-is-in

Saw the fix for the light leak. Am glad that it is light bleeding and not sealing that is the culprit.

@ jrw question is would you send your mkiii for the "fix"??

I'm not surprised by "the fix." I figured it would be small piece of foam if it compromised sealing or tape if it was just light.
I'll send mine in a week before I sell it. It has no bearing on me or my shots.

@jks_photo I really doubt it. I have done a lot of testing on my body since this issue came to light and am not finding any real effect on the exposure metering. One night I sat in a room with the blinds drawn, the lights off, opened the closet door, and took shots of its interior. The only time I saw any variation was when I got up above ISO 12800 when the time went from alternating between 20 & 25 seconds to holding constant at 20 with the panel light on. Going by the serial number mine is a suspect, but I don't seem to have a body that is showing the degree of symptoms that others are. If it was I'd be thinking it over a bit more. I would probably be wondering if the camera would come back even better than when it left.