[News] Canon Fixed The 5DM3 Light Leak With Tape

[News] Canon Fixed The 5DM3 Light Leak With Tape

As they received their first shipment of fixed 5D Mark IIIs the crew over at LensRentals.com couldn't help but take a quick peak to see how Canon solved the light leak issue. They were not at all surprised by their findings but you may be. Apparently all it took was a little bit of tape.

Roger Cicala:
"We got our first “new” 5D III cameras today, the ones with the light leak fixed. You know me, I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to take one apart and see what was different. I had photos from the ‘prefixed’ 5D IIIs from a previous post, so comparison would be easy.
Let me say it here first: I knew this was going to be the fix since the first time I took one apart: Canon has this very cool black tape they used to cover circuit boards (I’m assuming either water resistance or electrical shielding or both) and I figured they’d just slap another piece over (or under, depending on your point of view) the top LCD light. Which is exactly what they did. Yes, I’m making fun, but it’s a perfectly good solution and it works flawlessly."



via [LensRentals]

Kenn Tam's picture

Been holding this damn camera in my hand since 1991.
Toronto / New York City

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32 Comments

HAHAHAHA! beautiful 

You forgot to copy the last three sentences of the article.

Quick and dirty fix. Nice. 

Even though I'm a Nikon guy this makes me want this :) less is more, awesome...
// Stefan
Http://stefanhellberg.com

there's less to go wrong due to simplicity of the solution!
hahaha

Ha ha - told friends that a piece of Gaffer tape would fix it ;)

Sorry, not impressed.

That's a lot of dough to pay for a camera that gets gerry rigged.

I'll stick to my Nixons, thank you!

Good luck capturing images as good as the 5D Mark III with a watch.

 hahaha exactly.  Didn't know Nixon was in the photography business too!

I always find these kindergarten exchanges of, "Nikon's better!" or "Good luck capturing images as good as the 5DMark II with a watch!" kinda, well... SMALL! Cameras are tools, I have owned just under $164,000 worth of Nikons over my 38 years as a professional photographer and though Nikon was my choice for the 35mm format from 1973, til today, they did not satisfy all of my imaging needs, that required four Hasselblads, five RB67s and a closet full of Bronica RTS, Singer Graflex XLs and yes, a stack of Gaffer's Tape.

I've used Canon gear, shot 1.7 million frames of Kodachrome, 84,000 frames of EPR120 and VPSIII 120 and have been DIGITIZED since 2007.

I recognize the differences in the TOOLS, what they do, when to use one instead of the other. Canon and Nikon's color palettes are quite different, I attribute Nikons excessive black/contrast to the age old days when Sony became KING OF COLOR TV WORLD through their use of what they called the TRINITRON BLACK DOT. Now I don't know if they still use that system in the sensors Nikon uses, but the image looks very familiar to those of us who grew up staring at Sony Trinitrons.

The deeper black and contrast of the Nikon/Sony sensor works better for Sports, Rock Concerts, Industrial work that has sharp edges and is required to have greater SNAP! POP! Maybe a little Crackle as well.

Canon's color palette appears to be less deep, the black/contrast the Nikon has seems to be replaced with what I call a more transitional flow from one color to the next, which appears smoother, gives warmer skin tones and is PERFECT for faces, models, weddings, fashion... moreso than the NIkon sensors in my observation.

I can tell a Nikon image from a Canon imagine 98.999999999% of the time or more. They look entirely different when all other variables are the same.

I tell students and fellow shooters, those who actually listen and are not psychotic about their brands, it's like Canon uses every color in the 16.4 color palette, like tan flows into darker tan without skipping colors in between, but Nikon appears to reproduced every third color or so, the skipping of colors causes a harsher transition between say light tan and the same dark tan that Canon would image more smoothly.

The WATCH argument is just juvenile! For 30 years, Nikon's ads worldwide said, "Nikon sells more 35mm Cameras than all other manufacturers combined!" and it was true. Virtually every professional who had a SERIOUS career established used NIkon as their 35mm camera. A sparse few used Canon respectively.

Every year from 1973 to 2000, I went to PMA shows PPofA Conventions, WPPI back then and you saw maybe a handful of Canons, but mostly Nikons. DEMS DA FAX JAX!

Digital came along and yes.. .Canon leaped ahead, because of Canon's electronic background.

I even wrote a seven page letter to Nikon which said, "What the hell has happened to this company... FIRE SOMEBODY... DO IT NOW!"

They responded quite favorably!

Then came the D700 and changed things, Nikon got serious.

If you imagine Nikon to be a WATCH, relative to Canon, you have clearly become a FAN and you know what a FAN is short for... FANATIC! People don't take FANATICS serious. In the eyes of a FANatic, the object of their obsession can do no wrong. Unhealthy! Unwise! Immature!

I credit each camera for what they offer. NEITHER ARE THE BEST, they are TOOLS and each have their own specific performance offerings and failures.

I would hate to imagine it takes 58 years on the planet and 38 of those years as a professional photographer to recognize that fact.

Responsible adults offer the observation that both Canon and Nikon have strived to and apparently respectfully achieved providing the photographic community with two FANTASTIC AND AMAZING camera systems. Both systems have pluses and both have minuses, but both do an excellent job.

Children would argue... "MINE IS BETTER THAN YOURS!"

Adults understand one thing children do not... We can disagree without disrespect.

 John, I don't usually reply to comments, but I have to admit I've read your comment twice, and with your permission will save it to my desktop to read it again latter on. One of the best Nikon vs. Canon analysis I've ever read, very well said sir.

Dude he wasn't starting some sort of Nikon V Canon debate Johnny misspelt Nikon to be Nixon which is a watch company! 

There's a difference between starting a discussion and stirring things up for the sake of watching an argument unfold.  FStoppers seems to not know the difference.  This blog seems to exist very little for education and very much for spewing opinions.  Maybe that was my mistake.  There are already way too many photo 'professionals' out there who don't understand learning or discussion.  I certainly wouldn't want to contribute to that, so I'm logging off.

Well put.  The purpose of this article is not to be informative (like Roger's original article was) but controversial.  Just look at the headline.

In all honesty, it doesn't matter how can fixed the issue, but rather that they did fix it.  Have you ever tore into a MacBook Pro?  There's a good amount of black tap holding things down.  Those computers are on the expensive end of the market and not many people complain about it.

Why is this offensive? This is simply a repost from another blog. Kenn wrote 3 sentences and it was void of any opinion. Kenn is also a Canon shooter. It's a simple story and we would have posted it if any camera company had done it. It honestly don't even seem like a big deal. I'm sure my new D4 and D800 have tape in them as well. 

lol.  Well trolls gotta be trolls.  I posted this cause I think it's interesting that everyone was crying over a minor light leak and with all the bitching and moaning done over it, it was fixed with tape.  From an engineering perspective I though it was awesomely simple.  I'll certainly throw up posts to get some debate going, but this isn't one of them.  :P

 Get back to behind the scene videos and making off type stuff and forget the tech spec rivalry crap that already is covered religiously by other photo/video forums.  FStoppers used to be awesome for content but this Nikon vs Canon vs medium format vs RED vs film vs pinhole vs you name it crap is old.  SHOW ME MIND BLOWING VIDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY INSTEAD

Trying to please everyone with a little bit of everything :)

 No, stop.  :D  Overall I still visit the site daily so you and the team must be doing something right!  Now MORE VIDEOS!

"This is simply a repost from another blog."

Exactly.  That is what FStoppers has turned into.  Reposts from other blogs.  When FStoppers started, it was behind the scenes videos of photographers doing photography.  That was great.  Now it's reposts from what other people are blogging about.  That's not so great.

We never stopped making and posting BTSVs, we simply do more now. The truth of the matter is, there are not that many good BTSVs being made. If you guys would make more, we would post more. 

My 2 cents is that it solves the issue... and that's the essential part of it. Tape ? plastic ? it's inside the beast and it's totally problem solving. I say it's interesting to see that large companies, whilst facing engineering issues, can come up with a very rapid solution under the hood. 

This is what we do at my big billion dollar corporation when we find a problem we just slap a band-aid on it and call it a day.. There's nothing like sweeping dirt under the rug... its almost as sweet as sugar packets on the legs of a table.... get the references yet people where is the official apology and a refund of at least $500.00.   Come on Canon... I'd hate to say this, bad business ethics lead to a down fall of a company. 

Would the fix have been more quality if it was a piece of plastic with 'Canon' stamped on it in gold foil? This is a perfectly good solution to an issue that I frankly see as a non-issue anyway. Plumbing gets fixed by tape, there is taped shielding in high-dollar Gibson electric guitars, when you frame fine art you use tape to mount it to a matte. I know these aren't exactly analogous but I get the vibe that the fact that it's tape in an expensive machine that bothers people here.

I do agree that Canon should repair this for free though. Their factory service centers are so good and it'd be amazing to just see them honor this.

I don't see what the big deal is. I know this site is more pro Nikon than anything but if it came from the factory with tape in the first place no one would have said anything but since they fixed the issue and now it has tape there's a big deal about it? Takes nothing away from the build quality for a non issue IMO.

 Even if it was a post to let people know what they are buying, which may sometimes be something that got jerry rigged when fixed.  Canon fan-boys shouldn't get mad when people point out something that might be wrong with their cameras.  I have a 5D Mark III, and I'm very happy with it, even though I tested it VS the Mark II, and I don't see any noticeable difference in ISO performance when shooting Stills, but there is a good difference when shooting video.  I'm a CAMERA fan-boy, and I get what works for me, even though other brands are better than what I have, as long as I made an educated decision when I went with my specific brand.

Thank you F-Stoppers for posting this.  Now I'm just wondering if I can open up my body to do something similar, although my body is only effected by 1/3 of a stop, and I'm not very worried about it.

You guys keep doing what you're doing, because I come to this site every day, to check out what cool new things you guys post.

OK, OK Lets end this here.  Apollo 13 had a major problem with oxygen back in the days and theyt fix it with duct tape.  My friends mirror fell of his car and he fix it with tape, until he was able to get the money to take it to the shop.  You Canon boys are taking this to serious.  Canon goofed and they tried to hide it.  Now they fixed it with tape.  Be happy.  Now the camera is some what perfect.

Ok Tom Hanks, it was a movie I think things aboard the spaceship where a bit different.  Its Not like I'm using my camera to deplete the carbon in the air...

Hey it worked for shot-up WW-2 fighter and bomber planes to patch multiple bullet holes!  That's why the military still calls it "500mph tape".  A career  rancher would be very proud of this fix!  Some times an effective fix is simple and cheap....

As long as it does the job the fix is ok.

Thank you fs for maintaining an awesome place for photographers! Keep up the great work!

As a 5DMKIII owner, I appreciated this post.. thanks!