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July 31, 2007

EOS 1D Mark III Firmware Update Report

I did the upgrade.

I must say I am a little pissed .... somehow it seems I dodged a bullet up till today. With 1.0.8 I was not having the widely reported auto focus problems, now that I have 1.1.0 it seems I'm finally in the same boat as everyone else.

I took two series of test shots, one series with Automatic AF Point selected and one with Manual (center) AF Point selected.

In the Auto AF Point mode 28% of my shots went into the bit bin.
In the Manual AF Point mode 25% were garbage.

Before the firmware upgrade I would estimate I was throwing out between 1-3% at the most due to focus issues ...

I was throwing out many more for other (operator related) issues :)

I'm not sure I can recommend this firmware update. I did not fix anything for me and it seems to have made focusing performance worse.

There is certainly something to the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". My camera was not broke but I fixed it anyways :(

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About the podcast: The podcast dedicated to everything about the Canon EOS 1D Mark III Digital SLR Camera. Presented in plain English for the amateur to the professional.

Firmware Update

Roger Longenbach emailed me this morning that the 1.1.0 firmaware update is available.

Here's Roger's email


http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eos1dm3/firmware.html

You’ll need your serial # to download.

Download file. Extract file. Verify the file size as stated on the webpage.

Find a clean CF or SD card, format it in the camera.

Copy firmware to CF/SD. Turn on the camera, go to the firmware # on the menu. Press the set button and it’ll ask if you want to update the firmware. The camera will reboot, and then you’ll be asked to update from 1.0.8 (or 9 if you have it) to 1.1.0 and confirm again. Then it’ll start updating – warning do not turn off or touch any buttons! Is the warning. The update takes a few mins. The screen will show you how it’s doing. Then it’ll let you know it’s complete and when you click OK it’ll reboot again. Firmware updated.


Roger

July 20, 2007

ISO Safety Shift

Roger Longenbach recently wrote to me and said "I love the ISO safety shift. I haven’t turned it off. With the low noise of the MkIII who needs to."

I did some looking into this feature (C.Fn 1-8) and it really seems like a cool feature.

I'm going to try this setting this weekend when I go out and do some sports shooting. I'll set my camera to Tv mode, set the shutter speed to about 1/640th or 1/1000th depending on the lighting. With my slow-ass lens (100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS) if wide open shooting is not enough, the camera will automatically adjust the ISO for me. Sounds cool.