Dropped off 40D at Canon Service

Just dropped off my brand new 40D to the service facility in NJ. I told the guy at the counter that is was front focusing. He didn't seem surprised. I asked him if they were getting any other 40D's with this issue and he said "a few." That fact that he even admitted there were "a few" front focus bodies in for service means there has probably been a bunch! Hopefully they'll fix it, I'll post when I get it back...

Speculation. Rumor. Maybe Yes, Maybe No.

I just dropped off my Ford for an oil change, and they said. . . .

Ahh, your 1st mistake was buying a Ford. Quality is NOT job #1 !! LOL !!!!!!!!!!

I didnt know it was a walk-in facility. Were there a lot of people? is the building L white?

There were a few people waiting. It's a very large facility....Two people working the counter..

I wish you the best of luck on getting your 40 back soon and that its focusing problem eliminated. My copy works very, very well and I wouldn't trade it for anything else in its class.
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Magic_Puzzle

Did he also confirm that 9 out of 10 of these supposed front focusing errors that they are user problems? Like the problem is behind the camera not in front?

JBas said:

Just dropped off my brand new 40D to the service facility in NJ. I
told the guy at the counter that is was front focusing. He didn't
seem surprised. I asked him if they were getting any other 40D's with
this issue and he said "a few." That fact that he even admitted there
were "a few" front focus bodies in for service means there has
probably been a bunch! Hopefully they'll fix it, I'll post when I get
it back...

Click to expand...

--
Bryan

Still looking for a digital back for my Box Brownie

I just mailed mine out last week because of two issues. One was because of a focusing issue. The other was because of an electrical glitch with the "Picture Styles" menu. The glitch was annoying. Every time I turned the camera on, the Picture Styles screen would appear. I would hit "Set" to clear it and begin shooting pictures. Then the Picture Styles menu would randomly appear while shooting or when reviewing pictures. The Picture Styles button would also randomly not work when I pressed it.

About focusing, my camera definitely has a auto-focusing issue. It seemed the majority of my pictures came out unfocused. Whether I used IS on the 28-135 or a fast shutter on the 50 1.8 II lens, they still came out slightly blurry. If I switch to MF, I would get great results. I did a test indoors on a tripod where I set my 40D w/ 50mm 1.8 to center focusing point, f2.0, M mode, and 2-sec timer. Subjects were various still objects. AF shots were slightly unfocused, yet MF shots were very very sharp. Granted, I used Live View to zoom in on object when focusing manually, I thought the 40D's AF was supposed to be ultra sensitive when using f2.8 or faster lenses. It was obvious my camera was not accurate.

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-Chuck
Canon 40D / 28-135 IS / 50 1.8 II / 430EX

I just sent back a week old 17-55 IS for exchange because it had a front focusing issue on my 40d while the 28-135 kit lens seems fine.

I first noticed I was getting quite a few OOF pictures but thought it was simply due to the DOF and my own error. After testing both lenses on a tripod (w/IS off) shooting 3 pill bottles as well as some other objects offset at different distances I found the 17-55 front focused over 1" every time while the 28-135 was spot on. To account for the difference in aperture and focal length I also made sure to compare each lens at 28mm f/3.5.

After reading this thread and the other related focus issue posts I am now wondering whether it is really the body at fault and for some reason the problem only manifests itself with the 17-55. Now I have to wait until I receive the replacement lens to know for sure...

If it does turn out to be a problem with the body I might just return everything and go for the 5d or even a d300 as I dont like the idea of spending this kind of money and having to get warranty service right off the bat while knowing that this might be a fairly common problem.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one with the "Picture Style" issue. I'm having the exact same problem. The "Picture Style" menu screen comes on by itself, and will sometimes flicker while I'm trying to make some other menu change. Camera still works fine otherwise, but this glitch is very annoying. Difficulty for me is that I'm retired, and use the camera every day. I really don't to be without it for weeks while it's out for repair. Anybody have experiences with the Canon service center. How long on average do they take to get it back? I love my 40 D.

Steve

This seems like a very odd problem for it to be related to a hardware issue... Have you or the other poster contacted Canon to see if there is something that can be done to fix it short of sending it in to Canon? It's just hard to imagine how this could be a hardware and/or problem related to defective hardware...

s1ember said:

Glad to see that I'm not the only one with the "Picture Style" issue.
I'm having the exact same problem. The "Picture Style" menu screen
comes on by itself, and will sometimes flicker while I'm trying to
make some other menu change. Camera still works fine otherwise, but
this glitch is very annoying. Difficulty for me is that I'm retired,
and use the camera every day. I really don't to be without it for
weeks while it's out for repair. Anybody have experiences with the
Canon service center. How long on average do they take to get it
back? I love my 40 D.

Steve

Click to expand...

JBas said:

Just dropped off my brand new 40D to the service facility in NJ. I
told the guy at the counter that is was front focusing. He didn't
seem surprised.

Click to expand...

He's there to receive defective and miscalibrated equipment all day long. Why would he be surprised you have a problem? If you wanted him to be surprised, you should have handed him your camera and told him it was perfect, without any problems.

JBas said:

I asked him if they were getting any other 40D's with
this issue and he said "a few." That fact that he even admitted there
were "a few" front focus bodies in for service means there has
probably been a bunch!

Click to expand...

Oh, come on! I doubt you are that good at mind reading.

JBas said:

Hopefully they'll fix it, I'll post when I get
it back...

Click to expand...

Please do!

Olga

Ugh. Does anyone remember the 'measurbation' that occured back when the 10d came out? Same exact problems; people shooting rulers and printing out grids that they taped to boxes that got tilted at a 45 degree angle.. sigh.

Serious deja vu. I loved my 10D until I started reading posts about how it apparently backfocused. I didn't know mine did until I tested it. Then I spent a week fighting with myself and wondering whether I should send it to Canon or not, finally did, and it came back front focusing slightly. Then I figured it was my lens, and thought about sending that in. Then I shut up and decided to just shoot.

You know what? I still have that 10D, I still love that 10D, and I still take shots with that 10D. When I got my 20D and my backup XTI, I didn't go around shooting rulers and inspecting shots for a centimeter of backfocus at 10 yards.

I suggest that anyone who feels the urge to "test" their 40d, don't. (I don't have one yet, but I'm sure as heck not worried about this 'problem'; as I will buy one soon and won't think about this one bit)

Unless all your photos are coming out looking like they're shot through vaseline, first try working on your technique, eliminating camera shake, shooting at the right shutter speed, focusing on the right points.. Then, if you still can't get a single sharp shot out of the camera, consider service. But for godsakes, don't sit around here spreading more rumors that there's some "endemic" problem with the 40d.

There were whole websites dedicated to the AF "problem" of the 10D. Now you don't hear a word about it; my guess is that most of the people with the "problem" either learned how to shoot better, or got tired of shooting rulers and moved on to more interesting subject matter.

and yes the 10D was an AF dog in its time. However, probably overshadowed by the 1DIII. The 20D was a lockup king in its time but nobody seems to remember that either. 10D and 20D issues drove many to the "1" series bodies.

Hmm. If you're talking about weaker points of the whole camera, fine - but I think these "problems" get overly highlighted on this board. Same goes with a service center; nobody you see at a service center is going there because their stuff is working great - and you're never gonna get 100% perfect production.

I don't want to say that so many folks today are "spoiled" by what newer cameras offer - but they are. I still take out my D30 (not 30D) to shoot now and again. I like testing myself a bit, seeing what I can get with the oldest equipment I have.

I actually enjoy shooting with my D30 and 10D more than with my 20D and XTI some days. Yes, the D30 shows its limits in a lot of situations and I don't use it for much serious stuff or a "must get" situation.. However I've heard people saying they're "reconsidering" the 40D because of slight AF problems. This is where I think posts like this just do a disservice to everyone here. Fine, you're getting your camera serviced - let us know how it goes... But PLEASE don't imply that there's some pandemic problem and that everyone else should go worrying about it.

(MKIII issues, IMHO, is a different story.. That's a pro body and the discovered problem was obvious and consistent in all copies.)

I guess what I'm saying is that for the past five or so years here, you'll see people harping on a flaw here or a minor problem with a camera there, sometimes to the point of obsession. Back in the 10d days one guy was on his fourth body before he asked "am I crazy?"

The answer is yes, he was.

Bryan said:

Did he also confirm that 9 out of 10 of these supposed front focusing
errors that they are user problems? Like the problem is behind the
camera not in front?

Click to expand...

I think it's probably more like 99 out of 100 of those supposed front focusing errors are user problems.

Strange ,that the guy at the counter didn't ask you what lens you were using with this focus issue.?
I've been to that facility twice,and both times ,had good results....

After you pick it up..make sure you take some test shots outside,.....before you drive off?

Good Luck>

Mike

I agree with your premise that far too much hand wringing goes on in this forum because of excessive testing.

Back in the film days how many of us shot off roll after roll of film, processed it and printed it to 24x36 and then looked for minor imperfections in the lenses we had just purchased? Probably none, because the testing would have cost nearly as much as the lens itself.

So we went along happily shooting and printing 8x10 prints not even knowing what horrible lenses we were actually using with the terrible AF systems available at the time. Because the truth of the matter was at that size print you couldn't see most of the stuff people come running here to cry about every day.

Now that testing is free, everybody is suddenly an equipment evaluation expert. The problem with a lot of them is they test the camera using methods Canon explicitly says the camera is not designed to handle, like 45 degree angle focus charts. And they expect the AF system to be perfect, and don't allow for the fact that it has an inherent accuracy tolerance as part of its design.

I'm with you in that I see very, very few examples of focusing problems in actual pictures posted on this forum. Instead we see miniscule errors in contrived situations that don't really have anything to do with the camera's ability to take good pictures.

People here expect perfection, and when they don't see it they never stop to consider the fact that: 1) their testing methods aren't appropriate for the task, and 2) the equipment they bought was never claimed to be perfect, but rather within a manufacturing tolerance determined to be acceptable by Canon. The big problem is their perspective is flawed. They're never going to attain perfection because of the simple fact that it would cost far too much for Canon to produce 100% perfect products.

The manufacturing standards Canon has set for themselves originated in the film days, when those tolerances were acceptable by the photographic community. But now that we can view poster sized prints on a monitor for free, we are starting to see those tolerances in their full glory, and we think we deserve better. If you want to spend weeks or months finding the best camera/lens combination possible, knock yourself out, you'll eventually find a sweet combo that suits your standards. But before you do that make sure you really have a bad enough combination that it won't take pictures of the quality you'll ACTUALLY USE. I suspect 98% of the problems on this forum come from the combination of unrealistic expectations and/or inappropriate test methods. In that case a whole lot of grief is caused over nothing more than an academic exercise in equipment evaluation, aka measurebation.

tcp100 said:

I guess what I'm saying is that for the past five or so years here,
you'll see people harping on a flaw here or a minor problem with a
camera there, sometimes to the point of obsession. Back in the 10d
days one guy was on his fourth body before he asked "am I crazy?"

The answer is yes, he was.

Click to expand...

I bought a Minolta 7d probably one of the first in the country and swapped it within 48 hours as there appeared to be a problem with the flash. The Minolta service centre in the UK didn't beleive there was a problem. Several months later I had to send my flash to minolta to be tweaked to compensate for the fault in the body.
The body also along with other peoples suffered with back focussing problems.

I have a friend who bought a Nikon F5 or F6 can't remember which (a pro SLR thats supposedly 100% tested) within a few days it went faulty. It was replaced by Nikon, the replacement had a totally unrelated fault which was then replaced.

No one was crazy just unlucky. The problem I see on these forums so many times is that people with cameras they beleive work OK are unwilling to beleive some one else is having a problem or even bad luck. People also really take umbridge when someone posts something even the slightest bit negative towards a camera or system they have.

I have a 40D and it front focuses. I know this because at F2.8 I point it at something and I can see the problem. When its convenient the camera and lense will be returned.

Oh and although I think the 40D performs better than the 7D the 7D was way more user friendly.
HA

If you used the 45 deg chart--which is subject to execution errors--you may be interested in poster J A K's method. It's more accurate because the target you use is parallell to the camera's sensor plane while the ruler (alone) is at 45 deg. With the chart the camera may lock on to something closer than the line you think it's focusing on. (There's a lot of stuff on the chart that can fool the camera's focusing system.) See the following for a description of the better method.

http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia/canon_30d

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John1940