7D AF problems

Nomis900

Nomis900

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Simon
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Guys, sorry if this has already been posted but thought it was worth mentioning.
My friend has been having problems with the AF not locking on at all or being slightly out of focus, so as I was going to my local Canon service centre he came along with his 7D as well. Turns out it is a known problem and there is a factory firmware upgrade (not available to us users to install) and a calibration that can be done to rectify the problem.
Once again, sorry if this is old news but thought it would be worth it to someone.
 
It seems to be primarily a problem locking onto moving targets or miss focusing resulting in a slightly out of focus image. My mate was chatting to a guy in Jessops who mentioned that he should take it to be checked over, and sure enough the service centre admitted that they'd had loads of 7D AF problems but the calibration and factory firmware upgrade would fix it.
The good news was that as it was under warranty it cost nothing so it would be worth dropping into your local canon service centre to get it checked.
Just for reference, my mates 7D is approx 5 months old and had never been dropped or knocked about.
 
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I'll bet a tenner that this is 100% pure, unadulterated ********!

Just ask yourself this question - "Why, if Canon have a simple firmware fix for such a drastic problem, would they a) not allow users to install it, and b) not tell anybody about it?
 
Well, your always welcome to your opinion, but all I can say is, we were told about this by 1 person (happened to be a Canon rep who was at a Jessops store) then went to the Canon service centre and explain the problem without mentioning what we had previously been told, and without prompting, the technician told us what he was sure was causing the problem. And surprise it was what the Canon rep said was a known problem with 7D's.
4 hours after getting back home, my mate had a call to say they had put the camera on their calibration equipment and it was in fact out of spec.
It has all been done under warranty so no cost to my mate.
So you tell me why would they go to all the trouble and make all this up if they're not even going to make any money off my mate for the repair.
As I said, your welcome to your opinion, I'm just passing on some info to help others, If you don't want to believe me then that's up to you, but I have no reason to make this up.
 
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As a person who owns 2 7d's and a 1d mk4 i have never experienced this problem and mine stick like glue when set up properly. Most problems are down to user error

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Just a few images to show what a well setup 7d can do

Regards

Richard
 
hollis_f said:
I'll bet a tenner that this is 100% pure, unadulterated ********!
Click to expand...

Sorry, but...this. A firmware upgrade that isn't available to users to fix a serious issue ?

I have never heard of secret firmware :)

EDIT...some 7D's suffered from AF issues but as far as I know this wasn't fixed in firmware, but re-calibration.

Anyways, as long as your mate's happy with it now, that's all that matters (y)
 
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lost said:
As a person who owns 2 7d's and a 1d mk4 i have never experienced this problem and mine stick like glue when set up properly. Most problems are down to user error
Click to expand...
To be fair, just because yours doesn't see a problem doesn't mean other won't. I'm working on such a problem (a problem only seen by a small percentage) in my day job at the moment......
 
I too would be very sceptical about the claim of a "Secret" Firmware update.

If this is the case, What is going to happen when he upgrades to a newer "General Release" firmware in say 12 months time?

Unless the 7D has some kind of secondary EEPROM / Protected Area that contains certain data that is not touched during a standard firmware upgrade I would discount these claims. The other problem with this theory is that if this is the case, Will all new upgrades be compatible with coding that is 12 months or more out of date?

I think this is another way of saying "We are not sure what the problem is but please send it to us so we can fix it"
 
Nomis900 said:
went to the Canon service centre and explain the problem without mentioning what we had previously been told, and without prompting, the technician told us what he was sure was causing the problem. And surprise it was what the Canon rep said was a known problem with 7D's.
Click to expand...

Can you tell us which service centre and which technician? Because the one I spoke to this afternoon said this was complete and utter shullbit and he's never heard of 'secret' firmware.
 
There were a few reports of screwy focussing when the 7D first came out, usually locking onto a wrong point or the usual back/front focus at random. Lots of talk and discussion about user error, send it off blah blah blah.

One solution was to take the battery backup out and leave it for a while so rebooting it to an extent and after a while talk of it all fizzled out so I suspect the uber secret firmware fix just got integrated into the normal firmware anyway so you might want to tell your friends dogs sister she can eat all her crunchy kibbles now ;)
 
hollis_f said:
Can you tell us which service centre and which technician? Because the one I spoke to this afternoon said this was complete and utter shullbit and he's never heard of 'secret' firmware.
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It was H. Lehmann in Stoke On Trent and from memory the technician was called Jeff.
And as stated, as well as this Firmware it also required calibration doing.

And in the future I shall just keep this type info to myself, as it seems that there are people on this forum who seem to have such a high opinion of their knowledge they they can't accept they don't know everything. I at no point said it affected every 7D (as how would I know that), I have just passed on info that was given to me by a Canon service centre technician.
 
What version does his 7D now say is installed. General release is 1.2.3 so it would differ from that.
 
There is a service firmware that is applied to most Canon models so they can be calibrated. Once this has been done the firmware is flashed/factory reset back to consumer firmware.
If you end up with the camera back with the service firmware you would find quite a few odd features plus standard ones missing all together.This is probably what they were reffering to. Call me a sceptic but the standard blurb always refers to out of spec focus and electronic adjustments made to correct, all very generic.
 
lost said:
Just a few images to show what a well setup 7d can do
Click to expand...

Very nice but even at this size there seems to be something going on in the out of focus areas in a couple of those shots. I notice that you are using intermediate IS settings and I've read that these can be noisier, maybe you could reduce the visible noise before running noise reduction by skipping the intermediate settings?
 
lost said:
...Just a few images to show what a well setup 7d can do
Click to expand...

There are some nice images there, but can you expand on how to setup a 7D well?
 
There is a new version of 7D firmware here.

Edit - Sorry people. My internet (routed through America) at work gave 1.2.5. When I tried my link at home it cannot find the site and the latest version available is 1/2/3. Not sure what's going on there.
 
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