1DC: Dead Pixels, random errors, terrible support... anyone else?

So, this thread is telling me my plans to buy a 1DC as a hybrid cam for my productions should be reconsidered :)

-gl
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Not just reconsidered - trash them. You don't want to go through what we are experiencing still, more than three months (and thousands of dollars) after this camera became unusable, with no solution in sight. And there is a very good chance you may experience it, if you use it for 4K.


How long can you capture 4K content before you have an issue? Is it a few minutes....or are there any repercussions to capturing long 4K clips (media size permitting)?
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Once you get hot pixels on this sensor they are there to stay. After the sensor warms up to operating temperature - which happens in a minute or two (since you have to use LV also) then they will be visible on all your footage, no matter the ISO, and no matter how short your subsequent clips are. Until the camera is turned off, they will be there. You don't have to overheat it in any way.


BTW, we have entered yet another cycle of silent treatment from Canon. After we answered their ridiculous questions they closed the communication channel once again. They did not even say "thank you". Nothing, no replies, again.
 
I definitely have had my finger on the buy it now button. Honestly, having followed this, I can not in good conscious invest into something they are just no longer interested in supporting.

Kind of a bummer.
 
AndyHood said:
Can you show us some of yours dead pixeled footage?
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All footage is part of a documentary which is not yet released, for which the camera was purposely bought for, but I have included in this thread twice a screen capture of a clip taken with the lens cap on, showing the three groups of hot pixels from before they changed the sensor. Now the new sensor is a little different, it has two groups, in different places, which are more whitish, but other than that, it is the same problem again. I can ask the editors for some raw footage, but it won't show anything other than what is visible already in the screen capture images. Basically you get red and white dots which stay stationary and show in all the footage.

I definitely have had my finger on the buy it now button. Honestly, having followed this, I can not in good conscious invest into something they are just no longer interested in supporting.

Kind of a bummer.
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If we had not run into such problems I would totally recommend the camera. However we did run into all this and it is not a pleasant experience. For some time we were actually thinking about buying a second 1DC with the hope that these problems may have been fixed in the later units, but it doesn't look that way. It seems that it is not just a lemon unit that we got, otherwise they would have played nice and would have replaced it already (I presume). Canon's handling of the situation has been beyond unprofessional and it shows some real underlying design flaws in this camera. This is just not a 4K camera, and this makes it pretty useless for cinematography, especially at this price range and limited feature set. More than three months passed, countless e-mails back and forth between us and Canon, two failed repair attempts with thousands of dollars of logistics cost at our expense. The camera is still unusable for serious work. I doubt that it can get much worse than that, apart from it exploding in someone's hands and injuring a person (hope this does not happen). So... no, buy something else. There seem to be interesting options out there already and the situation in this regard can only improve.
 
New development - 44 days (!?!) after Canon assured us that we would be contacted by customer service "right away", we received our first e-mail from customer service. It is a nice and polite e-mail from an "Executive Response Representative, Canon Customer Relations". They want to look at the camera again, they still don't give us an option to send it to them directly, but this time they offer to give us a loaner camera.

I refused. We have no trust in this camera at this point, nor in Canon's ability to fix it. We are into the routine now of editing out the groups of hot pixels every day from the dailies. I told them that we would only accept an exchange for a new camera at this point. Let's see if they finally decide to do the right thing now, almost 4 months after this saga started. I also gave them the link to this site.

I will update this with further developments.
 
Wouldn't have been trying the loaner be much more useful to you & to the community? Your specific camera might be defected, if you try the loaner, find it's fixed, then no reason to bash the camera, if the loaner still has the issue, then documenting it would be an even more of a hit to Canon and the 1DC, and would give you an even stronger position to ask for a refund. Win win.
 
Ebrahim Saadawi said:
Wouldn't have been trying the loaner be much more useful to you & to the community? Your specific camera might be defected, if you try the loaner, find it's fixed, then no reason to bash the camera, if the loaner still has the issue, then documenting it would be an even more of a hit to Canon and the 1DC, and would give you an even stronger position to ask for a refund. Win win.
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I agree. Bad mistake not taking the loaner. Just take the thing and refuse to give it back until they replace your camera...or just keep the loaner.

Might have served you better to think that one through in stead of acting on emotion.
 
ReelWorksMedia said:
I agree. Bad mistake not taking the loaner. Just take the thing and refuse to give it back until they replace your camera...or just keep the loaner.

Might have served you better to think that one through in stead of acting on emotion.
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Well, not really... We wouldn't go through all this for a third time. We have zero trust that they can fix this camera, and they have already returned it twice "fixed". Even if we take the loaner I have no doubt that they can pull this same thing off for a third time, and all on our expense. Until now, taken everything into account, this saga has cost us roughly the price of a new 1DC. At this point the only chance we are giving them is to change it for a new one, and it is almost too late for this too.
 
If they give you a "loaner" that works, doesn't that basically fix your initial issue? I realize your problem with Canon and the 1DC is more than just a malfunctioning camera at this point, but the best you can hope for is getting camera from Canon that works. Maybe a refund would be better, but my sense is that Canon will never allow that.
 
cpreston said:
If they give you a "loaner" that works, doesn't that basically fix your initial issue? I realize your problem with Canon and the 1DC is more than just a malfunctioning camera at this point, but the best you can hope for is getting camera from Canon that works. Maybe a refund would be better, but my sense is that Canon will never allow that.
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I don't really follow what you suggest. A loaner is just a substitute camera they want to give us while our is 'evaluated', and which we are supposed to give back when they declare our camera fixed. They have already declared our camera 'fixed' two times, and later it turned out this was not the case. I have no doubt in my mind that this can repeat itself with this particular camera again and again, as the problem is probably not in the sensor but elsewhere. Which means that we will again pay for shipping, and probably for yet another trip to the US, we will receive our old camera again with new claims that it is OK, we will have to give back the loaner camera and in all likelihood we will be left again with the initially defective camera, waiting for the new hot pixels to show up again. We will definitely not be doing any of this.

As for the other suggested thing - not returning the loaner to Canon... I am really not this kind of person. The fact that they obviously do not have any moral bearings and treat their customers like garbage would not make me compromise my own moral sense and steal from them in exchange. There is really only one way out of this mess - the decent way. They should give a new camera in exchange of a defective one. This should have happened long ago. That's how I see it, and we will fight for this to happen, in court if needed. Right now, and we are following our legal advice on this, we are just doing the right and honest thing by documenting and sharing all the information we have with them, and by collecting all the correspondence. I personally still hope that there are responsible people at Canon who will do the right thing, at least at some level in the organization. This hope grows thin, but it is still there.

In any case, no other customer should go through what we went through with such an expensive product. That's my intention in bothering everyone with this thread and I apologize again for this. We do hope to hear from this guy at Canon tomorrow. His letter was the first genuinely polite letter we have received by Canon since the very beginning of all this and gives me some reason to be slightly optimistic.
 
The purpose of offering a camera on loan is that they can take your camera and examine it at length. At times service guys check and certify the camera as ok, but the problem may happen again due to some other reason. Understandably the customer will get irritated. However, that is what happens in some of these complex electronic items. If you would have taken the other camera and put it in similar working conditions and it would have failed, then you would have had proof that the 1DC doesn't work in so and so condition. Without that you can't claim that all 1DC cameras don't work for long time with high ambient conditions or some such thing.

According to Canon and most of the other camera companies, the defective camera has to be sent to the country of purchase. We carry cameras from our home country and I understand that in your case sending it back to Canon would result in added cost. However, that is the policy of all companies. Even if you would have carried a Sony or some other camera, you would have faced that problem. All of us can sympathise with you on that aspect, but the camera company is unlikely to "reimburse" you that cost. I know you are not asking for that. However, much of your grouse arises from that. When we place us in your shoes, we too would have felt the pinch. However, legally you can't blame Canon for that.

If I were in your shoes, I would have tried for an early resolution and have taken the camera on loan. As far as I am concerned, it takes too much of energy venting my feelings against a product all the time. For me, it takes away my focus from creative pursuits. And for me that is more important.

Hope your issues get resolved to your satisfaction, soon.
 
I still do not understand some of the answers to this thread, like the last one. This camera went to Canon twice already for repair. It was not repaired. It is not going for a third attempt, this is just ridiculous given the particular circumstances and the case history. The reasoning behind this should be understandable to anyone who has followed the thread from the start. If Canon can not repair a 12K$ cinema camera in two attempts (and instead fails so miserably in every conceivable respect) this particular camera is not suitable for serious film production. It is either a lemon, or has a design flaw. Which one of the two is still open for debate.

It is not about venting feelings, it is about simple logic and cost effectiveness. It is not cost effective for us to do the same mistakes over and over again. I am sure Canon will also realize at some point that the same is true for them as well.
 
I think what people are trying to say is that a loaner camera would have answered your question of whether the camera is a lemon or has a design flaw, and the loaner would have possibly allowed you to have a working camera until your problem is solved. If the 1DC has a design flaw, a new camera would not help and you would be in the same situation. If your camera is a lemon, then the loaner would allow you can Canon to determine that as well. Finally, if the loaner camera works just fine for you and Canon tells you that they couldn't find anything wrong with your camera, then I don't think there is anything unethical or immoral about hanging onto the loaner. It's an even trade. Canon would probably even agree.
 
cpreston said:
I think what people are trying to say is that a loaner camera would have answered your question of whether the camera is a lemon or has a design flaw, and the loaner would have possibly allowed you to have a working camera until your problem is solved. If the 1DC has a design flaw, a new camera would not help and you would be in the same situation. If your camera is a lemon, then the loaner would allow you can Canon to determine that as well. Finally, if the loaner camera works just fine for you and Canon tells you that they couldn't find anything wrong with your camera, then I don't think there is anything unethical or immoral about hanging onto the loaner. It's an even trade. Canon would probably even agree.
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That's an interesting view and has merit. Anyway, today they refused to exchange it and insist on the loaner/evaluation procedure. I was not surprised, although this just confirms my impression that these people have absolutely no idea how to do business in this market segment. I told them that we would agree if they offer us a way to do this directly with them instead of using our innocent dealer who already went out of their way several times to help. I hope they will agree so we can move forward.

The only thing which I am not sure of right now is what will we do if the loaner camera exhibits the same problem after a couple of minutes of 4K shooting... Then we will move firmly into the realm of design flaw and false advertising, which has the potential to get very serious. But anyway, let's see what will happen now first.
 
Another bizarre development in our case, which people might find interesting. After talk about sending our camera back to the service facility in Costa Mesa and Canon providing the loaner, etc. we were suddenly instructed to send the camera to Canon's corporate headquarters in Melville, New York. The agreement about the loaner was still in place but they told us that they would send it right away after they receive our camera, so we agreed on using express UPS shipment for it - at our expense, of course. They gave us instructions for sending it, I sent it yesterday morning with the most expensive, insured 10:30AM next day delivery, hoping that they would honor their agreement and send the loaner camera the same way today (5 May) in order for us to continue our work. An hour after I sent Canon the tracking number however, UPS informed us that the package was stopped on hold "at the request of the receiver" and it is now held in an UPS warehouse in Louisville. All our attempts to contact Canon from yesterday and today failed, our e-mails are still unanswered and we have no other contact with them. So long for the express delivery. It is not clear what is going on.

As we have every indication that Canon is reading this thread and that they are subscribed to it, here is the tracking number for our package, so interested folks may track this saga in real time http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/track?track=yes&trackNums=1Z013X266642785276&loc=en If the status of the package changes soon after I post this it will be most intriguing. I am not into conspiracy theories myself, but all this is getting way out of line, and I can imagine that the potential harm this thing could do to Canon is not insignificant. So there might be imaginary justification for all kinds of foul play.
 
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Yep... 10 minutes after I posted the above, I received the following e-mail from Canon:

"Please be advised that we are working with U.S. Customs and UPS to have your package cleared for shipment to New York. We are also working on the paper work for shipping the loaner camera."

Which, I am sorry to say, is total BS! I just spoke with UPS. Our camera is with perfect paperwork and is not held by customs (third time we are sending it the same way), it should have been delivered already. UPS told me, for a third time since yesterday, that Canon had requested the shipment to be put on hold and not to be delivered on time. It was, of course, shipped directly to New York.

Don't know what else to say, really...
 
Wow... Just wow. I wouldn't blame you if you never purchased/trusted Canon again. I know I wouldn't after being dragged around like that.

This would be bad enough for consumer products but a Pro level camera like the 1DC should get better service than this. Terrible.
 
I am sad to say that this seems to be a small dot of a larger matrixed evidence that Canon is on a downward slope. Nikon of the 70s revisited.

-gl
 
Why do you think Canon is reading this thread? I have always been convinced that nobody in Canon with any real power has ever been aware of what is written about the company on the internet. Otherwise, it would never have made any sense in the way they handled the 1DC as a product. My opinion is that the 1DC has done more to hurt their sales among videographers than anything else they have done up to this point. First, the backlash against the initial pricing of the 1DC was so large that people often use it as a reason for dropping Canon entirely and moving to another company. Now, Canon has a reputation of overcharging for their equipment among videographers. Then, the people that did buy into the 1DC quickly discovered that Canon had abandoned them. Poor firmware updates and updating scheme. Horrible customer support. It would have been easy for Canon to address many of the issues with the 1DC and fix most of the image problem that they had created. Since they have never done anything, I assumed that Canon was unaware of the problem. Alternately, they could just have a horrible corporate culture in which it is better to just ignore your customers and failed products rather than trying to make you customers happy. If that is the case, then Canon really needs to make some changes to maintain trust among customers.
 
cpreston said:
Why do you think Canon is reading this thread? I have always been convinced that nobody in Canon with any real power has ever been aware of what is written about the company on the internet. Otherwise, it would never have made any sense in the way they handled the 1DC as a product. My opinion is that the 1DC has done more to hurt their sales among videographers than anything else they have done up to this point. First, the backlash against the initial pricing of the 1DC was so large that people often use it as a reason for dropping Canon entirely and moving to another company. Now, Canon has a reputation of overcharging for their equipment among videographers. Then, the people that did buy into the 1DC quickly discovered that Canon had abandoned them. Poor firmware updates and updating scheme. Horrible customer support. It would have been easy for Canon to address many of the issues with the 1DC and fix most of the image problem that they had created. Since they have never done anything, I assumed that Canon was unaware of the problem. Alternately, they could just have a horrible corporate culture in which it is better to just ignore your customers and failed products rather than trying to make you customers happy. If that is the case, then Canon really needs to make some changes to maintain trust among customers.
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Well I have no illusion that anyone on a corporate level in Canon is reading the thread, but it seems that some of the people who we are communicating with are reacting to things which are written here, especially after we provided them with the link last week. Today's occurrence was a very good example of this.

The fact however that our camera is still in the UPS warehouse at the request of Canon and no loaner has been sent is very disturbing. These people are absolutely out of their minds to do something like this and if the situation is not resolved tomorrow we are pulling the camera back and will start a completely different level of publicity about the problem, using Facebook and all other means.

After all this I think that a "horrible corporate culture" hypothesis is the most likely. No one in his/her right mind would run a company like this in the Internet age. It is just incomprehensible. Social media is king now, problems like this can cost insane amounts of money to a company and can even be blown completely out of proportion with very little effort. How can the people from the marketing devision of Canon fail to understand this is beyond me. It is a very unpleasant lesson to me personally and it is sad to see how arrogant these big corporations have become. Turning your own customers into enemies - that is surely a great strategy. We should not allow ourselves to be put in such a situation, especially when we have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for "pro" level equipment.

Fooling around with a customer for four months over a manufacturing defect, then making an arrangement for an exchange of a camera with a loaner unit and stopping the package in mid way on purpose - it just can't get more stupid than this. You really have to be a complete moron to devise such a scheme. It does not make any sense whatsoever.
 
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