1Ds MkIII, Low Light Focus Problem?

[Gary Ferguson]

I just had an email from my camera dealer to say that my 1Ds MkIII is in and ready for collection, but he's heard there may be low light focus problems with the camera and he'll understand if I want to cancel or delay.

To cut a long story short this dealer is mainly a Nikon and Leica dealer and doesn't normally handle Canon, but sourced the camera for me from Hong Kong as a favour. The thought occurred that he may be confused with the 1D MkIII focus problem? In any event, does anyone know of any reported focusing problems with the 1dS MkIII?

[Tim Gray]

Have one, and been watching the forums closely - nothing in that area that stands out.  The 1d3 wasn't a low light issue tho.

[djgarcia]

I have it on good authority it has horrible low-light autofocus, and as a favor I'll buy the 1Ds III from your dealer   ...

[Mark D Segal]

I just had an email from my camera dealer to say that my 1Ds MkIII is in and ready for collection, but he's heard there may be low light focus problems with the camera and he'll understand if I want to cancel or delay.

To cut a long story short this dealer is mainly a Nikon and Leica dealer and doesn't normally handle Canon, but sourced the camera for me from Hong Kong as a favour. The thought occurred that he may be confused with the 1D MkIII focus problem? In any event, does anyone know of any reported focusing problems with the 1dS MkIII?
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No. I just stress-tested it for responding to this inquiry. In a room with a single 60 watt bulb shielded by a dark opaque lamp shade ( at 11:30PM) I focused on a black chair about 8 feet away from the light source, indicating an exposure of 10 seconds at f4, and it found the focus very quickly. There is nothing to worry about focusing this camera. It works.

[Calder]

No problem with low light focusing on my 1ds Mk3
that I can find.  Works fine.

One thing I do notice from time to time is that the center red focussing
point will show, not one, but two focusing points when set to one shot mode. I traced it to a bit of rotational play between the camera mount and the lens itself. If I slightly rotated the lens one way to take up the play, the two focusing red zones did not show up, just the single one.

Rotated the lens in the opposite direction and, bingo, the two red focussing zones show again.

I've only tried this with my 35mm fi.4 L and I've yet to try it out with my other lenses.  It could be the camera or it could be the particular lens I'm using?

Will report back when I've tried further lenses.

Marty