Troubles with 5D II - my fault?

[m.young]

<p>Hi all, my 1st copy of the body went back to the shop after 2 weeks, because it kept on giving error 30 messages out of total randomness. I did some search on the net but no one seems to know what err30 refers to. I tried different lenses 70-200 2.8IS 17-40 4.0 etc and determined that it's not the lens. Someone from Canon suspected it's mechanical related, so back to the shop it went, and I received a new body 3 days ago.<br>

But now the AF function on the new body simply decides not to work half of the time. I've tried 70-200mm 17-40mm 50mm 1.4 and 15mm fisheye, diffrerent drive modes, two seperate battery packs and grip as well as custom functions to no avail. (btw, the two problems I've had with 2 bodies are completely different)</p>

<p>I've also cleaned my lens contact on all lenses with pencil rubber.</p>

<p>Can someone please help me to think of a solution? Am I doing something wrong? can I be so unlucky as to get 2 bad copies? Firmware issue?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

[summerleif]

<p>Canon is famous for its poor quality control. As a Canon user, I have been more than willing to pay sales tax and check out each Canon part in store before accepting sale of it. As much as I use adorama.com and calumetphoto.com, camera bodies and lenses are something worth picking up from the store in person, with a thorough once over before acceptance. This would probably be hard to do for early body adopters, since the battery must be charged and so on. I for one will be happy to wait a couple months before picking up a 5Dii, which I thoroughly intend to do. For now, my 1Ds3 is working fine each day in studio.</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>Perhaps you're near a strong RFI source and it's raising cane with the camera electronics? I'd at least do a total reset and clear the PRAM. Used to fix my computer and heals my cellphone every month or two.</p>

[colin_james]

<p>"Canon is famous for its poor quality control."</p>

<p>What a load of rubbish. It's no better or worse than ANY of the other players out there.</p>

<p>One of the "side-effects" of help sites like this is that - as a rule - people only post when they need help, so you tend to get the 3 who have had issues rather than the 49,997 who didn't.</p>

 

[PuppyDigs]

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<p>"Canon is famous for its poor quality control. "</p>

<p>Not really. Only on a few forums where photogeeks whine while everybody else is fine. Sure a few lemons slip through but most are just fine. I'm owned dozens of EOS bodies and over 40 lenses since 1990 and only a couple needed servicing. Many of my current lenses date from the mid-90s and still work perfectly. Even my new gear works perfectly. Quality problems are the exception, not the rule. More often than not "quality" issues are actually user error.</p>

<p>But yeah, getting two bad 5DII in a row is about likely as getting hit by lightening twice. Sure it happens but not very often. I suspect there is something more to the OP's story but all we can do is speculate. Hopefully the PRAM reset helps or he figures it out.</p>

 

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[lucas_jarvis]

<p>My 5D II has just been returned as well. I've had two different issues with it. One was a message that there was a communication error between it and my lens. This is a lens that I have had no problems with in the past.<br>

The other was with flash photography. Shooting low light full flash was randomly giving me black frames. I could see that it was firing a strobe but it was like it wasn't syncing. I was shooting at 1/60th and tried using three sets of fully charged batteries.<br>

Sorry I can't help you with your issue but it's worth noting that you're not alone with 5D II tech problems.<br>

For the past three years I've been sadly dissapointed with the quality of my canon gear. I'm constantly taking my equipment in for repairs. My previous 5D had three major issues over it's 2 years of use. I could argue that I'm using a prosumer camera for professional use and it's seeing a lot more wear than most people would put on it but I've also been having issues with brand new equipment as well.<br>

I hope I have no issues with my new copy. I'll be getting it when stock arrives.</p>

[anthony_zipple]

<p>Almost any new body introduced in this electronic era has more than the usual set of issues. The manufacturer needs time to shake out the bugs in the hardware and software. This is true for all software, automobiles, and high tech devices. Best advice: If you can wait 6-12 months to buy, there is less risk of a bug. There is a cost to being first in line.<br>

That being said, Canon is no woese than anyone else. I have had more than a dozen Canon bodies and 2 dozen lenses in the past 30 years and seldom had a problem with any of them. My daughter still uses my 1976 AE1.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>My sense is that the quality of cameras has fallen as we have moved from them being mechanical to electronic. With the DSLR the mechanical parts are now almost gone so they have become short lifetime consumer electronics. The old FD cameras are much more durable - all five of mine still function perfectly. The same is true of Nikon and others. We only own two digital Canons SLRs - the first Rebel and the new 5DII the differences in build and feel are massive. I bought the Rebel for the kids and can barely touch it as it feels so nasty. Camera makers did not short change the consumer in the FD days the AE1 was much cheaper than the F1 but you did not feel short changed when you held it. The rot started with the T series of cameras (although I have a real soft spot for the T90) and continued through the EOS cameras (the 1 series were very well built but some of the consumer models were quite poor) and finally we get the digital EOS cameras. All of the last 3 high end Canons launched have had issues - the 1DIII with AF, the 1DsIII with prism alignment and the 5DII with black spots.</p>

[hawkman]

<p>Mu,<br>

My first 5DII had a similar issue however it manifested itself as error 20, I noticed this was a mechanical failure where mirror did not retract correctly and caused the camera to halt so I returned the body. This appears to be an issue with the very first batches of 5DIIs that were sold, there are at least a dozen reports like this on dpreview.com forums. I suggest you put the camera in single servo AF and try to focus on a contrast target many times in a row, if the camera fails return it and ask for a refund, it is possible that your dealer's stock is from the same bad batch that had an issue in production.<br>

With the exception of 1DMKIII and its faulty AF, Canon had always had healthy products, at least in the past five years that I have been purchasing their bodies and lenses (front/back focus issue for some telephoto lenses aside), however I believe 5DII was rushed to the market amid the release of a900 and D700 and the firmware was not fully tested finalized.</p>

[john_bellenis]

<p>"I believe 5DII was rushed to the market ...."</p>

<p>The irony of this line after over two years of endless forum speculation and rumors about when this camera would FINALLY be released is exquisite! Canon had longer than Nikon and Sony to get their firmware tested and QC sorted out.</p>

<p>I think it's the nature of high tech, complex devices to go wrong sometimes... As long as the manufacturer deals with any issues in a open, honest and responsible manner we can't expect much more - people with issues tend to vent on forums, people without issues don't bother to post, so the perception of various problems is obviously exaggerated. </p>

[hawkman]

<p>"so the perception of various problems is obviously exaggerated. "<br />You should note that it is not the absolute quantity of posts that establishes the non-isolated nature of some of the 5DII problems, but it is rather the <em>relative</em> number of posts regarding issues with this camera compared to any other healthy camera that Canon has produced in the past 5 years. Just do a search on Digital Rebel series for example, a line of lesser bodies that has been out for some time now and it is being sold in much larger quantities (source: dpreview.com news) than all the 5D and 1 series cameras combined, see if you can find as many posts about such issues with those bodies in such a short period of time.<br />To the contrary I believe the posts on the internet forums, albeit having a low signal to noise ratio do in general indicate existence of certain systematic flaws in these products. The most recent example was the 1DMKIII AF which was first treated as inexperience and exaggeration on internet forums but it proved to be a major issue for at least a year since camera's first appearance.</p>

[john_bellenis]

<p>Arash, I take your point and agree that Canon certainly did not behave well regarding the AF issues with the 1D MkIII.</p>

<p>However, there is another point that is worth taking into consideration when comparing internet forum posts and different camera types (and their buyers). The buyers of the Rebel series are (as a group) much less likely to be interested in photography web sites and posting complaints on forums. They are also (generally) much less likely to spot an occasional or esoteric problem with their camera. Many Rebel owners are stepping up from P&S cameras and shoot exclusively on the green auto setting and are much less likely to find a problem and post it to a forum than 5D or 1 series owners. This is a generalization, so there's no need for advanced photographers who use Rebels to object - I know that many extremely experienced and skilled photographers use Rebels.</p>

<p>I am not saying you are wrong about the high ratio of 5D MkII complaints, I am merely stating that when looking at comparative statistics there are more variables involved than you suggest.</p>