Canon 5D sensor cleaning problem

I've recently bought a used Canon 5D MkI. I'm sure you know all about this camera already. It lets me continue to

take brilliant photographs, but at a slightly higher resolution than before, at higher ISOs, with wider focal

lengths than I am used to. The camera was looked after by the previous owner, who is a sound man of good

character; it is in good condition, it works excellently in every way possible.

 

Except... I've just tried to clean the sensor, because it has a tiny speck of dust. I slotted two fresh batteries

into the battery grip, selected "sensor cleaning", waited for the shutter to go up, and then placed the camera

gently on a table so I could grab my special shutter cleaning pen. I've done this before with a 350D, no problem.

A few seconds later, and from nowhere, I heard a click, and the 5D's shutter had closed, apropros of nothing. The

mirror was still up; the LCD still flashed "Cln". As far as the camera was concerned, it was in sensor cleaning

mode, with the mirror and shutter still up.

 

Obviously this would have been unfortunate if I had been cleaning the sensor at the time. The shutter appears

undamaged, it fires at all speeds with what seems like excellent accuracy, the camera continues to take pictures,

and on reflection I can live with the dust speck, although if I have lots of dust specks in the future, it might

become irritating to mask them out.

 

On further testing, I don't seem to be able to recreate this problem reliably. I am beginning to think that the

BG-14 battery grip was loose, although I haven't noticed any operational problems with it, and even if this was

the case it seems unlikely that the mirror alone would remain up. Having just tried it a couple of times now, the

shutter occasionally stays open for as long as I am willing to wait, occasionally not, but I can't tell for sure.

 

Has anybody had a similar experience? If so, what was the problem? Is there a condition that is supposed to cause

the shutter to close in the sensor cleaning mode (perhaps e.g. to protect it from strong light, although this

seems unlikely to me, and in any case I am not subjecting it to strong light). I wasn't even into photography

back when the 5D was new, and so I would have missed any discussions from back then. A search on Photo.net for

"canon sensor cleaning problem" and "shutter" and permutations thereof return lots of results but nothing like

this. It isn't something I have read about elsewhere, e.g. the Canon 300D sub mirror pin failure.

The only thing I can think of is that the vertical grip is causing the camera to lose power (flex or poor contact). Try cleaning when you have a strong battery in the camera and not in the grip.

Nope, in years of 5D use no similar problem. Maybe a passing cell user beamed too much RFI or a dirty power contact.

Once I put mah greasy digit on a lens contact and had all sorts of problems until I cleaned it...

Could be a bad battery or bad contacts. I'd put a known, good, fully charged battery in the camera itself (not the grip) and see if you can replicate the problem.

Hi i have had a similar experience but different with my 5D i think its your battery grip, i was trying to do a firmware upgrade so put 2 fully charged batts in the grip the camera stopped me it say battery low so fitted 2 more fresh bats checked grip is tight same again so i take grip off put in only 1 battery (1 that i take out before ) and was fine

All batts are genuine canon i keep them in sets and they all last the same i have heard of reports with grips of getting an odd err that only happens with the grip on so maybe a small amount of switch cleaner say applied with cotton bud to the grip contacts may help

So may be an idea to try to replicate it without the grip

Dave

I actually have to thank you for this post. Since I got my 5D this summer, I have largely treated it like the 1V, but digital. I set it to raw, set the custom functions and that's it. Well this evening, I am preparing to go on holiday, so I set the cleaning function. Well, even though I know that the Mark II has a self cleaning sensor, I never really thought about it with the Mark I. Well the camera had been sitting for an hour, in cleaning mode, I just thought it took a long time to clean.

 

Thanks for the post, I would have probably let sit all night, wondering why it takes so long to clean :)

Similar experience with mine with the shutter set for the self-timer switch set to operate. Make sure you're set for single-shot first, and try again (although Canon warns about putting anything in there lest you damage the shutter - gee how helpful when you're looking at enough dirt to plant corn in!). I had the BG on mine at the time, and there was no problem related to it. I really hate the dirt! Good luck!

Hi Ashley,

 

This is exactly the reason I bought and use the Canon AC power adapter kit with my cameras.

 

If you had a cleaning tool in there at the time the shutter closed unexpectedly, there's a good chance damage would have been done and you'd have had a $250+ repair bill and be without the camera for a week or two.

 

I've even heard of people plugging the AC power adapter into a uninterruptable power source, like the battery backup they use for their computer. That might be a teensy bit excessive, unless you have a lot of power outages in your area.

 

Greg, thank you for sharing your story! Really made my day, although I can easily see how it might happen!

<p>In the end I bought the ACK-E2 power adapter kit. I've tested it several times, putting the camera in sensor cleaning mode and leaving it for ten minutes a time, and the problem hasn't happened again. I suppose the moral is that you should buy the power adapter forthworth. It's also genuinely useful if you're shooting for hours at a time in the same spot. It's a shame the hole in the 5D battery grip isn't slightly larger though (the cable pushes the door open a little bit) but that's quibbling.<br>

I'm still puzzled by the problem. Obviously it can't have been an issue with the battery contacts inside the camera, because the power adapter uses a dummy battery with the same contacts. Perhaps the batteries themselves were wonky. It seems odd that the mirror would stay up whilst the shutter drops, but perhaps the shutter takes more power to hold open than the mirror, and the batteries were only just hovering around this level.<br>

Still, thanks for all the responses. I would never have bought the power adapter otherwise.</p>

<p>The long-term follow-up to this is that the problem didn't ever go away. The camera was, for the most part, absolutely fine. I subsequently took it on holiday and used it in different conditions, in the daytime, at night, with flash, long exposures, short exposures etc, but every so often the shutter would fail to stay open during longer exposures. No matter if I used batteries or the power adapter.<br>

<br /> In the end I sent it to Fixation in the UK to have the shutter unit replaced entirely, which cost me just over £200. In 2010 this is still economically viable with an original 5D although if there had been a more fundamental problem the camera would be junk. It doesn't make sense to spend much more on such an ancient and outdated piece of equipment, but it has sentimental value and perhaps I could use it as a knockabout hack for those occasions when I don't mind if the camera breaks.<br>

<br /> Since 2008 I haven't noticed a spate of internet tales of Canon 5D shutter problems. I suspect that most of the original 5Ds have, by now, either been sold on the second- or third-hand market to people who don't take many pictures, or they're gathering dust in the camera cabinet whilst the owners use their 5D MkII instead.<br>

<br /> I suppose the further and ultimate moral is that if you have a problem with your camera's shutter, bite the bloody bullet and send it to get fixed. Don't just rub things / blow into things / shake it and hope that it gets better.</p>