What is that, and what is it for?

If you got one of these for Christmas, then you were a very good person in 2008. This little bit of plastic and metal screw can be found in the box with a new EOS-1D / EOS-1Ds Mark III camera. It's designed to hold in the USB cable when shooting tethered to a computer - often in a studio.

Side view of the EOS-1D / 1Ds Mark III



Side view with the cover removed. These covers are designed to cover all the pins that are used for communication and power with the WFT-E2 wifi transmitter, but often work loose over time.


Here's the USB cable plugged in to the camera. Often this is used when shooting in the studio with the camera tethered to the computer. In this way images can be seen on screen right after they have been shot. Quite nice if you have to shoot with an art director peering over your shoulder, or if the make-up artist or stylist wants to make sure the image is perfect. You'll need to use EOS utility for this.

On the original EOS-1D and EOS-1Ds models a big 6-pin firewire 400 connector was fitted, and there were complaints when the EOS-1D Mark II was launched as it switched the big 6-pin to a small 4-pin connector. The result was cables falling out - a lot, and also the connectors themselves wearing out or breaking. Canon service centers can replace or repair them if your's is not working. With the EOS-1D Mark III the engineers realised that the placement of the screwed in to the magnesium body terminal cover for the WiFi unit was the ideal to use as a strong attachment point. So the little metal knurled screw and plastic bit in the box. At a Canon launch the Canon staff even showed the camera dangling from it's USB cable. I'd be more concerned for the strength of the USB cable!


So finally we have the cable and it's retaining screw and plastic bit. It seems small, but this will likely protect your EOS-1D / 1Ds Mark III from broken USB ports if you tether it to the computer a lot. If you got an EOS-1Ds Mark III you should have two USB cables the standard one and a 5 metre one. The designers also made the knurled metal bit with a threaded hole in the top so you can avoid putting the plastic cap down and loosing it immediately.

Canon designers went one more step, they made the plastic also fit if you're using the WFT-E2 perhaps to give you extra or redundant storage on the camera.


Congratulations if Santa left you one of these cameras under your tree, share some thoughts or photos with us and you might be a Tuesday tog in 2009.

Happy Christmas from -blabpictures-