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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Canon 50D Shut Down
Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 10:53 PM on 11.15.10 |
->> I was shooting a game between South Dakota State and Hampton for the WNIT pre-season tournament and about 15minutes in, my camera shut down. It didn't go into a sleep mode, but the power was gone. I turned it on and off and nothing happened. The batteries were fully charged but the camera just wouldn't turn on. After letting it sit for another 10 minutes, it started back up.
Has anyone had this issue before? What could be the problem?
Thanks |
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Max Gersh, Photographer, Photo Editor
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New Castle | IN | USA | Posted: 11:02 PM on 11.15.10 |
| ->> I've never shot with the 50d nor have I ever had that experience but there are a few things I'd try. First off, do you have a grip on the camera? If so, remove it and clean the contacts on the camera side and the grip side. Next, clean the contacts on your batteries and the battery contacts inside the camera (or grip). To clean, I use a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol. Sometimes dirt in these places can cause the camera to behave in wacky ways. |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 11:11 PM on 11.15.10 |
| ->> Thanks! |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 11:40 PM on 11.15.10 |
| ->> Well that doesn't seem to be it. It just happened again and the contacts are spotless... |
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Jeff Brehm, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Salisbury | NC | USA | Posted: 11:59 PM on 11.15.10 |
| ->> Unfortunately, the answer might be in the name on the front of the camera.... |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 12:02 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> Haha! You know, I have been looking into that as well. Seems that Canon has been having many issues. |
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Nick Adams, Photographer
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Houston | TX | | Posted: 12:29 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> Robby. You have the worst luck with gear. |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 12:33 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> tell me about it... |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 12:34 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> I am trying to save up some money so I can send my camera in. I just need to find a camera to borrow for a few weeks. |
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Nick Adams, Photographer
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Houston | TX | | Posted: 12:59 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> It sounds like the on/off button might be damage(connection issue). Or you had water damage. |
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Paul Nelson, Photographer
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Temperance | MI | USA | Posted: 8:00 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> Just to eliminate this from the equation: double check your batteries. It's possible they're on their way out if they have some age to them, which could show these random symptoms. I've ran into this before - thinking it was the camera directly. When I had to charge them after this occured, they were completely dead...almost like they got shorted out some way. |
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Mark Peters, Photographer
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Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 8:49 AM on 11.16.10 |
->> Do you have a BG-E2 or BG-E2n grip? The older BG-E2's were known for some connection issues. Try shooting without the grip for awhile to isolate that as a cause - or not.
Also, you can try a hard reset on the body by removing the small (think watch battery) system battery (under a sliding door in the battery compartment. |
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Robby Gallagher, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Brookings | SD | USA | Posted: 10:46 AM on 11.16.10 |
| ->> My batteries are only about a year old and at the game I switched out from my BG-E2 grip to another photographer's BG-E2N grip. Situation didn't change.. |
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Jeff Brehm, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Salisbury | NC | USA | Posted: 1:15 PM on 11.16.10 |
->> Robby:
Back to my earlier comment about the manufacturer maybe being the problem ... I thought this was an interesting post by SS member David Harpe in a thread on Mark IV focusing issues. Another member had said you have to adjust to the wide variability with each manufacturer and added "you just have to send it in until it works well." Here is David's response, and as a shooter unhappy with the softness of his 7D images and who had a Mark IV die recently of Err 20 Disease, I think it speaks volumes about Canon's poor quality control:
No, you don't, not with well-made equipment with proper QC. In my day job I routinely work with professional video equipment with interchangeable lenses and parts and we NEVER have to send cameras and lenses in for "calibration". We buy a camera from one manufacturer, a lens from another, bolt the two together using a standard mount and they work great, first time. Set backfocus (takes all of about a minute) and you're done. The tolerances on this gear are every bit as precise as you will find in DSLR hardware - if anything it's MORE precise because you're frequently dealing with smaller chip sizes - and they get it right. And I'm not talking about $100,000 HD studio cameras - I'm talking about $15k ENG rigs - very similar system prices to what you'll find in DSLR land. But since in the video world it's far more common to have different manufacturers making the lens vs. the body, the calibration out the door has to be far more precise to guarantee proper interaction.
Why you're seeing such variability is probably because the manufacturer uses loose QC tolerances. You'd do that because it's more profitable. For example, if a bench tech only has to calibrate a lens or body within 10% of spec, they can handle more lenses/bodies per hour. If they have to tighten up and get within 2%, there's a lot more tweaking, which takes more time. Looser tolerances mean the line can produce more product per day, which cuts down on labor costs for a run. When you make a large number of cameras and lenses, it's a significant savings.
You can see how a business would analyze this to find the sweet spot for profitability. For example, if you shoot for a target of 10% out the door, that means within the 0-10% range you'll have a forth of them will end up with 0% to 2.5% error, which would be acceptable to most people. In the middle out to 7.5% is grey - some will be okay with it, some won't. Above 7.5% you'll probably see returns, but you can roll the dice and see how many and adjust accordingly. These numbers are made up and when you stack with another product coming off of a different line, they change a bit. But it's quantifiable, and easy to do for a big company.
That's why you see this "good lens/bad lens" phenomenon. Sometimes you get one that was close, sometimes you don't. If you run QC loose and accept that some people will not be happy, it's an easy fix (for the manufacturer anyway) to make it right if people complain. Technically you're not selling a bad product, so you really can't get into trouble. You're just selling a product that statistically might not be as good as it can be for some people. So you address that part of your customer base with "you're special" marketing hype.
Stop drinking the punch and tell them you want your gear to work correctly when you buy it. If you accept the "oooooh it's so precise you have to have a technician precision calibrate it because YOU'RE SPECIAL" hype, it'll never change. |
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Mark Peters, Photographer
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Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 1:25 PM on 11.16.10 |
->> Jeff
I can sympathize with that sentiment on new... or very new gear. I have a harder time accepting that on well used gear. |
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