I know this is totally not related to my previous installation of the Z-Finder(it is just a bad coincidence), but since Sunday morning my 5D has been behaving strangely.

In still mode, everything works fine but when I switch to liveview the shutter starts to flip randomly between 2-10 seconds. If I press the record button, it stops flipping and record normally. The flipping action is exactly the same as if the camera was in burst mode, except no pictures are taken. If I press the AF ON button while it is flipping, it will eventually stop, acquire focus and either stop flipping or not once I release the button.

To fix the issue, I  have tried to: change batteries, use another lens, clean everything, use manual focus and change camera settings. Nothing worked.

I Googled about this without success. Am I the first person experiencing this issue?

I am calling the store today to have it fixed. How much do you want to bet that I wont be able to reproduce the problem once in the store?

Of course this issue appeared the day I was shooting an engagement clip and did not have my spare 5d Mark II with me! GRrr

Unless you are very lucky, you have probably noticed that not all your lenses focus perfectly every time. Some might focus a little bit in front of the subject, others a bit behind it. These issues appear mostly when using a long and wide aperture lens such as the 50mm 1.8 (or 1.4) where the depth of field is less than 1cm.

While there might be a few possible cause for this issue (ex: faulty AF on the lens, problem with the body, etc) the most common is a small discrepancy between the lens and its ‘perfect’ version that was supposed to come out of the factory. There is no need to return the lens, it is almost normal for lenses to be a little bit different from each others. This difference make them focus a bit differently while the body is set to work with the ’standard and perfect’ version of the lens. This is why two copies of the same lens might focus differently from each others on the same body, and even differently from one body to the next.

Fortunately for us, manufacturers are aware of this and have taken care of  the issue in their pro and semi-pro bodies. This is where the custom function AF Micro adjustment comes into play. This function allows you to correct slight front or back focussing issues for each of your lenses. People generally refer to this operation as ‘lens calibration’. It used to be quite a chore because of the lack of tools to support the process but now it can be done in less than 2-3 minutes per lenses.

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I dont know if you tag, but I do. I try to do it a lot and sometimes it makes me think that the guys at Apple dont use the tagging interface at all…

• First, as I said in the past, when you open the Keyword HUD, the cursor should be in the search field. And the current content should be pre-selected.
• The search algorithm should not just look for keywords starting with the search term but for those that contain the search term, where ever it is placed. It is “like ‘%criteria_term%’” and not just ”like ‘criteria_term%’”. Small difference but a lot of frustration.
• There should be some built in intelligence which recognizes when you have two similar tags in different categories and pops a warning.
• We need a feature to point the tags that are not used so we can do some cleanup.
• Is it too much to ask to have a tag cloud when we create keyword based smart albums? Please.
• Talking about smart albums, I would like to be able to have all pictures with tags X but NOT tag Y.

I think it is enough, for now… I dont know if you have guessed but I just completed a 2 hours tagging marathon. I was lagging behind in my tagging for a while and tonight I had to pay the price of my procrastination!

The issue

At first, I thought it was dust. Dust on the sensor or on the lens. Then, after watching every single video I shot since I got the camera, I saw something worst than the black dot problem: hot pixels! And to make things worst, there are 2 of them!

I did not notice them at first because most of my shots were done in bright light but last weekend I had to shoot some video for the CD launch of my friend Jon Davis (f1.4 ISO3200, hence the noise…) and the white dots on the dark background cant be missed.

This is a rare but not unknown issue.Bbut it seems like there is some confusion between people having serious noise issues while taking long low light pictures (a problem I am not having) and the problem I am having with videos. My problem is not noise, it really is white (hot) pixels. Take a look at the screen capture:

Click to enlarge

You can see a 100% crop of the problematic area here:

While it is not very noticeable on still images, as soon as the camera starts panning it jumps off the screen and destroy the whole scene. You can see it in the home made clip I did last week too.

What I have tried so far

First, I used the manual auto-cleaning feature about 10 times in a row to see if it could “unstuck” the pixel without success. Then I updated the firmware to 1.07 and they are still there.

My last resort was to call the store. They were very helpful. I will have to bring my camera back Friday and they will see if they can trade mine for a new one straight or, at worst, send it for repair (urck!). If they send it for repair I will try to get an “equivalent” camera until I have my replacement. By equivalent I am of course thinking about these Hasselblad that no body ever rents!

I will report back on this Friday.

I talked about this a while ago but I think it is important to underline this again. If you want to have 24p support in the Canon 5DMrkII, you should go and sign the online petition.

Will it force Canon to bend under the pressure? Probably not. But if we get enough people, it will show manufacturers that there is a market for 24p DSLR and maybe the pressure from other manufacturers will force Canon to act. After all, just imagine the amount of lost 5DMrkII sales if Nikon was to announce a direct contender to the 5D that could shoot at 24p!

All that being said, 24p is not as much an issue for me as the lack of manual control over the exposure settings. How come this issue is not talked about more often? The duct tape solution is not solution!

The problem

I was doing some test recording with my macro, for a small test project I had in mind, when I noticed the image flickering when I was focusing in and out. At first I thought it was just my eye but the issue was still there when I looked at the video playback.

Not everyone seems to have this issue (but  I am not the only one), which make the clip unusable. 

The Solution

While asking around I was suggested (by Matthew Bennett from the Cinema5D forum) to twist the lens a little bit (like if you were going to remove it) to disconnect the exposure contact and tada! It works. I was so caught in the problem that I forgot the most obvious solution. Here is a video of the “proof”, now I just need to redo all my initial takes…