Equipment faults

Equipment faults

Over the years I have been involved with digital photography, I have come a cross a number of faults associated with my camera and digital photogarphy. I have found that on the whole digital cameras if properly looked after will give you years of error free service provided they are treated with respect and not abused

Surprisingly the majority of faults found with digital cameras are mainly caused by user error. Secondly, neglect is one of the biggest factors that attribute to a camera's malfunction


Listed below are some of the faults I have come across


Temperature.

Although some cameras are designed to survive harsh temperatures, most cameras are not. Do not leave your camera in a sunny vehicle, where temperatures can quickly become extremely hot in minutes. Avoid leaving the camera in direct sunlight, which can damage the plastic. Also avoid extreme cold, too, which could damage the LCD. Extremely low temperatures can also have extreme effects on a camera's functions. Battery power can  easily be depleted under these conditions which cause a whole host of malfunctions on the camera 

Do not point your camera's lens directly at the sun for any length of time, especially with a DSLR camera. Sunlight focused through the lens of the camera could damage the image sensor or even start a fire inside the camera as the rays of the sun are magnified throught the nens glass

One of my cameras the canon 400D always becomes very temperimental in very cold conditions. The metering sytem in the camera tends to fault giveing error codes that point to the battery being faulty. On checking the batteries,they still have a full charge. When I take the camera into a warmer environment and the temperature rises again the error ceases

Memory cards


Fail and loose data. This has been a common fault with all of my canon cameras. They tend to freeze the camera up and stop all  funtionality of the camera. You cannot even switch the camera off,you have to remove the battery to turn the camera off

I have looked into this type of fault and found that the reason for failure points to fake inferior Memory cards that cannot handle the read write speeds that the camera is sending to the card. This process causes the card to crash or loose connection with the camera's image sensor resulting in loss of images or a corrupt file

I have now started to use the equally as good Lexor professional CF cards which prove to be very good with good read write speeds. They seem to be very reliable and very fast, I haven't come across any  faults with these cards yet

This link takes you to a page on the site Ebay which details and and highlights fake memeroy cards and how to detect them

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/FAKE-SanDisk-Extreme-Compact-Flash-Cards-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001456526

Avoid dirt sand and foriegn bodies

Use care when cleaning dirt particles and sand from your digital camera. Do not use canned or pressurized air to clean the sand, as you might just drive the particles into the camera body even further. I f you need to clean the camera sensor use a special camera sensor cleaning kit especially made for this kind of procedure. Using cotton buds and tissues could ruin the sensor or soil the sensor surface making it even harder to remove foreign bodies

Cheaper priced camera bodies are not wearher sealed, making it easier for grit and sand to penetrate the camera and cause damage to the interior. Gently blow out the grit and sand to avoid this problem. Use care when shooting photos on a windy day at the beach, too, where sand can blow with excessive force. Avoid opening the battery compartment on such days or changing lenses in these conditions.

Faulty image Sensor.

This is not a common problem but it does occur from time to time. Shown below here ares ome of the symtoms that point to the camera having a faulty image sensor

• Poor images with strong tints or color casts.
• A series of strange lines running across images.
• Distorted images.
• No images at all .
• Exposure and focus errors.
• Camera locks up.
• Potential fire hazards.

This image shows a Crop of an image taken from a digital camera with a faulty sensor

Faulty Leads


I have been having some problems with my Canon 7D when I am shooting images with long exposures. I use a Harnel wireless shutter release system and on a few occasions my camera has totally locked up or frozen when this device is being used

I have looked into this fault and found it to be a faulty lead from the wireless transmitter that connects to the camera. I have used excactly the same lead from a friends camera with no problems evident


On inspection, the connecting interface of the lead has proved to be a loose fit connection at the camera end, which has lead to an intermittant connectivity problem
whch then crashes my camera. The only way to resolve this issue is to take out the batteries of the camera to turn it off


My advice when buying a camera, I find it is best practice to pay for the extra warranty that comes with the camera. Camera repairs are very expensive and out of reach of most people's pockets. Most cameras come with a standard 1 year guarantee,take out a 2 or 3 year extra 
warrantee

Firmware updates

To ensure the best performance from your digital camera, it pays to have the latest version of the camera's firmware. Camera makers release camera firmware updates occasionally, designed to fix problems or improve performance.

Firmware is the basic software used to operate the camera that's installed at the time the camera is manufactured. Firmware controls the most basic functions of the camera, such as what the camera should do when the power button is pressed.

A firmware update could fix a software-related problem that's causing the camera to be unable to connect with a computer

Error codes


Shown below are a sample of error codes that become evident in the LCD on most canon cameras. The codes become evident when a fault occurs in the camera.These codes are very basic and only give a rough indication of what fault the camera is producing


I would assume that canon only want you to take your camera for repair at a recognised canon dealer,so they don't give much away in their error codes


These codes were taken from a Canon 5D manual

0 - Malfunction related to files has been detected.

20 - Malfunction related to the mechanical mechanism has been detected.

30 - Malfunction related to the shutter has been detected.

40 - Malfunction related to the power source has been detected.

50 - Malfunction related to the electric control has been detected.

60 - not used on 5Dm2

70 - Malfunction related to images has been detected.

80 - Malfunction related to the electric control of images has been detected.

90 - not used on 5DM2

Other common problems include broken hinges on memory card doors, broken battery covers and scratched or cracked LCDs.Memory contacts can become damaged if a card is forced into the slot the wrong way.