Canon Factory Service is AMAZING! Every repair job they've done for me has been excellent, the camera always comes back in excellent shape.

They repaired my EOS-1D Mark III camera very quickly. I received an interim email saying that they understood what was wrong, and that it would cost me $0.00. Apparently, very early on Saturday morning CFS shipped the camera via 2-day FedEx. For some reason, it came today (Monday) on the FedEx truck. My only cost was the $88 to send it FedEx insured, overnight to CFS in SoCal.

I unpacked the box, put a battery in, and went around the yard looking for things to photograph. The camera handles just like brand new, it worked excellently well.

So glad my baby has returned to me! I totally need the low-light and fast action performance of this incredible camera. I have a wedding reception to cover in LA early this weekend, followed immediately by Sandra's Student Night, right after coming back to Silicon Valley. I don't use flash for these gigs, the pictures are always taken in available light. With fast lenses, the 1D Mark III has superb 14-bit color imaging for the dark interiors one typically encounters at weddings, and for belly dance club lighting.

The task now is to get the other one of The Twins down to CFS. This will likely be a much more expensive repair, because of the cracked LCD, and the fact that the camera was dropped, which is definitely not covered under warranty. Then, there are some lenses that need replacement and/or repair.

I'm well set for now though. I have both the 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark II available for various upcoming gigs, including the all-day photography work at Rakkash West next month, and Belly Dancer of the Year. These two cameras work out very well, because the 1Ds Mark II is a full-frame camera, whereas the 1D Mark III is a 1.3X FoV camera. This circumstance allows one set of lenses to work at two different focal lengths, on the two different bodies. I'll most likely use the 1D Mark III for all solo and duo belly dancers, but switch to the 1Ds Mark II for troupes. Doing photography this way favorable because the troupe belly dancers are afforded higher resolution on the 1Ds Mark II, which works to allow them to be more visually distinct in the frame, and for a given lens, a wider field of view is available.

Happy, happy!