For those of you that own, or are considering purchasing a Canon 1D Mkiii, based on our recent experiences here at Ginkgo Studios, here’s a little heads up for you.
Just prior to a rather important shoot a short while ago, we decided to give the Mkiii a bit of a clean and this included the sensor, as sadly the integrated sensor cleaner doesn’t really seem to do much. It wasn’t really dirty, but it wasn’t really clean and this was a reall important shoot.
To cut a very long story (which I may go into another time) very short. The sensor cleaning swab managed to scratch the low pass filter over the sensor. Obviously with a very important shoot the following morning, this raised the heart rate and blood pressure a little.
Given that the repair cost quoted before sending off to Canon was in the region of £300 ($600) based on the experiences from Mkii repairs and that it was likely to be away for to five weeks, it made sense to just buy a new body and offset it with the insurance company against the rental of that period. Thus having a second body as we took a hit on the overall cost.
However, on inspection by Canon, they changed the quoted price to just over £1000 ($2000) due to the way that the low pass filter was now built into the camera body.
It would appear, that the low pass filter is permanently bonded to the sensor housing, which is in turn is permanently bonded to the circuit board containing the processing chips. At the least, this is what they have told me. I.e. pretty much everything that does the hard work inside needed replacing because of a slightly scratch piece of glass.
So effectively, for a professional who will most likely require a replacement body as a rental for the repair period, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the insurance company will write off the camera. And for the non-professional it will just be a dammed expensive repair job / insurance payout and being without a camera for a month or two.
Given that the low pass filters primary job is to protect extremely delicate sensor and has always been a totally replaceable part because of this function. It seems to me absolutely unbelievable that the construction has been changed in this manner.
However, the purpose of this post is not from me to have a rant and rave but to simply share our experience, our costs and a recommendation that no matter how expensive your sensor cleaning kit is, you might well want to think twice about doing it yourself, no matter how experienced you are at sensor cleaning.
It may well be that something with the hardness of diamond happened to be floating around in our obsessively clean studio and fell in onto the sensor during the 30 seconds that the shutter was up. Or, it may well have been a poorly constructed sensor swab using a glue that will put the epoxy to shame; or it may be that the low pass filter is constructed from some form of transparent cheese. To be honest, it could have been anything - The damage is done, so for us at least it’s all a little academic. I have my personal opinion as to the cause, but it is simply that, a personal opinion.
So from the sake of £40 ($80) for someone else to clean your sensor and in turn take the responsibility and liability should anything go wrong. It may actually be a small price to pay.
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