5D "serious design flaw"

Still feeling very precious about my shiny new 5D, I was alarmed to

the point of needing months of psychotherapy to see that Michael

Reichmann had posted a letter on his site from someone who is

apparently a big cheese in the digi world, pointing out what the

author considers to be a 'a serious design flaw in the new Canon 5D'.

 

Trembling with dread, I read on, expecting to learn that the focussing

system would zap lasers into my eye and fry my retina.

 

However, it amounts to this. Assume you have saved some settings in

the 'C' mode and are shooting in that mode. While shooting, you adjust

(say) the aperture from the one you have saved in 'C' mode. You stop

shooting, and after the user-defined period the camera nods off to

sleep. When you reactivate it by pressing the trigger, it reverts back

to the 'saved' C settings rather than the adjusted one you left it at

before it went to sleep.

 

That's it. You can read it for yourself at

http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/5d-gotcha.shtml

 

As for me, I think I need a lie down.

I too have bought a 5D but realising the extent of hyper exageration on the site read it

with amusement.

 

90% of the stuff on an auto SLR is complete junk, I don't even bother with the manuals -

what do you need to take a picture afterall - set exposure, compose focus and shoot!

Sometimes when I'm feeling really lazy I might moved from AE to Program.

 

As it is the 5D provides fantastic image quality, a good viewfinder and the reduced depth

of field I want from 35mm compared to APS sized sensors - the rest you just work with or

ignore.

Yes, I agree. Much ado about nothing. However, folks over at FM are having babies about this 'lapse' by Canon.

Wow, talk about getting worked up for nothing, they'll probably publish a firmware-update within a month. They always do...

What is "serious" to some is not to others. No point in discussing further.

To each his own: sompe people live life, others constantly complain about it.

 

New reality show about this "flaw" coming soon on CBS (it will be a married couple in which the husband becomes so depressed over this "flaw" that he starts drinking excessively, staying out late, missing work, neglecting his family. She files for divorce, he ends up in a mental institution...)

The people getting all in a lather over this don't seem to be aware that one of the things you can specify in the "C" mode is whether or not to have the Auto Power-Off used at all. If in "C" mode you simply disable Auto Power-Off, there's no problem.

 

Are these people dim bulbs or what?

I think they are missing the point of the C feature: it is NOT to memorize small f/stop adjustments taken after a reading. It is for recalling "global" settings such as WB, Color space, size, metering pattern, etc... to save time.

 

For example: if one has a studio one could have settings of color temp, shutter sync, image size, etc... all stored and ready to go in C...but, NOT the f/stop as that would change with each specific shoot.

 

However, *if* the f/stops setting are automatically set along with the rest of the stuff in the C memory that coulb be a more serious problem if the camera goes to sleep and one forgets to re-set the f/stop to the current, working value. To use the Studio example above:

 

Let's assume the f/stop settings are automatically stored in the C button. So, one would have a stored value of f/5.6 but, the reading at the studio is f/8. The camera goes to sleep and when awaken it reverts to f/5.6. The photographer forgets (or doesn't thing of) re-setting to the current value and the rest of the shoot would be overexposed. Now, that would be a problem. But, again since I haven't studied this feature yet, I do NOT know for a certain that the f/stop value is automatically stored. I hope it is not though, for a variety of reasons. I would just want to store WB, shoot mode, image size, color space, and a few other settings, NOT the f/stop.

 

Also, it is NOT meant to be a substitute for AE/AEL button. If one changes f/stops/EV settings relative to metering, as it seems the user who wrote the letter did, those are not "significant" because metering is a separate, ever changing adjustment.

So much noise from someone who hasn't figured out that he can prevent his camera from automatically turning off.

>> folks over at FM are having babies about this 'lapse' by Canon.

folks over at FM are having babies about this 'lapse' by Canon.

 

LOL! Really? I'll have to go ck it out ;p

>>So much noise from someone who hasn't figured out that he can prevent his camera from automatically turning off.<<

 

Maybe...but, one feature should NOT come at the expense of the other.

 

While I agree it is far from a "serious flaw" I also agree it should be corrected, *if* indeed it does change the f/stops.

Personally I prefer it the way it is: I can set a well-known mode for C (1/125s f/5.6 ISO 400 is a candidate, as it's typically what I use with a flash), and I want to know that when I pick my camera and turn it on it goes to that mode, even if I the last shot I made before turning it off was f/4 at ISO 800 with +2/3 stop FEC.

 

I also don't bite the argument that it's only one line of code. The camera now needs 2 sets of C settings (the ones you get when moving the dial to C and the one you get when turning the camera on), and enough space in persistent memory to remember both sets, plus possibly a custom function to control the behavior.

BTW, I don't want to start a huge argument, I'm sure that by digging a bit in the behavior of the camera we can find quite a few such gotchas.

 

The core of the argument is that the camera doesn't go to sleep, it turns itself off, which is different. Anyone who used a 10D knows that it does take a full 2 seconds to turn back on.

Reichmann enjoys blowing things totally out of proportions. That's just another way to generate web traffic.

>>1/125s f/5.6 ISO 400<<

 

Good, as long as people don't expect to "tweak" the settings and have the tweaks stored automatically.

 

The C memory was NOT meant to be tweaked, it is meant for saving time with certain general/global settings rather than to store exposure settings relating to f/stops. That is in fact, why I wish it would NOT store f/stops, or at least have an option for this.

 

I use my camera in M mode most of the time so, if I had to change the f/stop everytime it went to sleep it would defeat the purpose of using C to save time in the first place.

 

All I personally want to store in C is the global settings: color space, WB setting, image size, picture parameters, that sort of stuff. The one thing I do NOT want to store in C is f/stops.

Giampi,

 

Then you shouldn't use the "C" mode since it does store the f stop. It stores practically every setting in the camera.

>>Then you shouldn't use the "C" mode since it does store the f stop<<

 

Ah! That's a shortsight IMO. Why store f/stops when exposure is taken at the time of the shoot?

 

Makes no sense to me why Canon didn't give us an option NOT to store f/stop setting.

I stopped reading the gear fondler rantings at FM long ago. Gadgety features like C mode were tailor-made for those folks.

 

Personally I use it to quickly enable mirror lockup. The settings otherwise duplicate my basic aperture-priority configuration. The way it works right now, glitch or no, suits me fine.

 

-Dave-

I think the "C" mode was a bad implemention (very stripped out) of the system used in the 1 series DSRL.

 

Canon should have provided at least 3 memory slots and definitely, an option NOT to store f/stops.

 

Be that as it may, I will probably seldom use it...if at all. I am a hands-on, shoot in MANUAL mode kinda guy...

What's "FM"? Actually, never mind. Whatever it is, it sounds very uninteresting.

 

I'm not sure how this guy qualifies as "big cheese in the digi world," if there even is such a thing.

I think my Mamiya 7II must be seriously flawed since it doesn't revert the exposure compensation dial to 0 after it's been used - even after it's been turned off and left off for a month, it still stays in the same place, potentially ruining future shots when you don't realise it's been adjusted.<p>

And I don't think I should even get started on setting the ISO dial correctly. And perhaps it's best not to mention large-format cameras at all in this context.

It could be any of these:

 

Farm to Market road (Texas),

Federated States of Micronesia (US postal abbreviation),

Foreign Minister,

Frequency Modulation,

From,

Facility Management,

Facility Manager,

Facility Map (FAA ARTCC mapping of areas to a facility),

Facility Module,

Facility/File Maintenance,

Facing Matter,

Factory Model,

Factory Mutual,

Failure Mode,

Fairbanks-Morse,

Family Medicine,

Family Member (AUXMIS),

Family Room,

Fan Marker,

Fat Man (atomic bomb),

Fault Management,

Fecal Matter,

Fecit Monumentum (Latin: Built A Monument, epigraphy),

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,

Femtometer (10 E^-15, one quadrillionth of a meter),

Ferdinand Marcos,

Fermium,

Fetal Movement,

Fibromyalgia,

Fibrosing Mediastinitis,

Fibrous Monolith,

FIDE Master (chess),

Field Maintenance,

Field Manual (Army),

Field Marshal,

Field Modification,

Filio Mater (Latin: Mother to Her Son, epigraphy),

Filio Morenti (Latin: To His/Her Dying Son, epigraphy),

Filius Matri (Latin: Son to His Mother, epigraphy),

Filosofian Maisteri (Finnish: masters degree),

Finance Memorandum,

Financial Management,

Financial Manager,

Financial Minister,

Fineness Modulus,

Finished Machined,

Fire Marshall,

Fire Mission,

Fireman,

Fiscal Management,

Fish Meal,

Fissile Material,

Fleetwood Mac (band),

Flexible Manufacturing,

Flight Model,

Flogging Molly (band),

Floor Manager,

Flow Manufacturing,

Flow Meter,

Flying Monkeys,

Follow Me,

Font Metrics,

Force Main (civil/hydraulic engineering),

Force Majeure (French: Greater Force),

Force Management,

Force Modernization,

Force Module,

Forest Management,

Formal Method(s),

Format,

Fort Myers (Florida),

Forum Moderator (message boards),

Fox Mulder (X-Files character),

Franklin Mint,

Freaking Magic (polite form; especially applied to programming or electronics),

Freddie Mercury (Queen lead singer),

Frequency Management,

Frequency Modulate,

Frequency Modulated,

Frequency Multiplier (NIOSH),

Frijoles Mesa Site,

Front Matter,

Front Midship (Nissan),

Frontier Mountains (Everquest),

Fukai Mori (Japanese song, Inuyasha closing theme),

Full Mana,

Full Moon,

Functional Manager,

Functional Module,

Funky Monkey (104.9 FM Seattle, WA radio station),

Fusion Module,

Micronesia,

Wow, that's very comprehensive of you.

Yeah, he hit everything except the nail on the head.

Would someone kindly send me a 5D (with a grip pls) so that I can verify this flaw and look for others? TIA