a word of warning from todays experience

richard · a word of warning from todays experience

Right....lets start with whats happening friday.

I have a wedding to shoot. Shocked

Now, i thought i'd be clever and purchase the greenclean sensor stuff for both the 10 and 5D's
Tried to clean the 10D which after 30 months of ownership is now starting to show a few spots around F14 or so. it didnt work very well. In fact i'd say its pretty much did sod all apart from put streaks across the sensor.
I thought to myself, well hey ho lets just give the 5d a quick wash with the full frame kit. Now i have a fabric mark on the sensor, i cant see it but the camera does from around F8.

So...what am i going on about here...? DO NOT...i repeat DO NOT try to clean your sensor. Its pointless, certainly with the stuff i bought. (£140 worth may i add)

Both cameras are now at a canon service centre, to see if they are fixable or financially written off. The 10D i can take the hit on, but the 5D is painful what with it being 7 months old.
in financial terms...im down somewhere around £3000 in cameras for what i paid for them. If they are written off, then its a 30D and another 5D for me..which works out around £2200 before canon discount.

Thankfully as im a registered canon professional, i get priority for repairs. So i may have at least one of them for friday morning. (if they arent written off)

I'm sat here to the point where i've almost into tears.

pasvorto

OUCH!!!

hil26

double ouch - one for each camera

creators

I'm really sorry to hear this Richard, sympathy. I'd be throwing about thirty blue fits about now, but thanks for telling us.

digitalkiwi

I know how you feel, few months ago i tried my D10 with a lens pen, man i was nervous to say the least, the lens pen did the normal lines streak and man did i freak, managed to get them off and sent it to canon for a clean and it came back ok, thankfully the screen in front of the sensor takes a bit more punishment than we are led to believe so im sure they will come back ok, now i send both my cameras every 6 months and let soem one else sweat at least i they screw it up they have to fix it, the only bad thing is the turnaround time but hey thats life. Hang in there im sure you will get them back ok. But i agree leave to the manufacturer, fingers crossed that you get them back in time.

adam

terrible stuff....
puts my bag woes into perspective!!!

hope it all works out tho..i am sure canon will do a great job cleaning the sensors up..fingers crossed..

keep us posted..
Adam

Venom

s**t, sorry to hear it m8. Have to admit I don't have the you know whats to even atempt cleaning mine. If the rocket doesn't shift it then back to Canon they go. Failing that it's the old clone tool Shocked

richard

Ok where do i carry on from.

Well after much ribbing at my expense last night (from the course group i'm working with), the highlight of the evening was being shown the sensor clean option on the 400d ....anyway.

it would appear that there is someone looking out for me.

Ive just had a call from the service centre telling me both cameras have been fixed and are ready for me to pick up.
Praise be the professional service membership!! It now doesnt feel quite as bad to have sunk so much cash into a hobby knowing ive got that level of support behind me.

I cant tell you how much of a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders right now. The panic that was setting in had got to the point where i'd been physically sick. Sad

creators

Delighted to hear it's all worked out, and I can really appreciate the levels of panic. May you have many peaceful, trouble free years ahead.

adam

joy!! glad it was ok!!

bet you never try that again!

digitalkiwi

Canons professional service is something else, glad they got them sorted for you, the wedding will seem a breeze now with all the stress you had this week, lol, enjoy

richard

Definitely is Kiwi.

Well, the weather here in the morning was awful, dark, pouring with rain. etc
picked the cameras up on friday morning. Although they were ready for me after 28 working hours in the service centre. (can be up to 28 days for normal folk)

Anyway, was running so late i didnt have a chance to test them out so it was a case of hoping things would work out ok. I think i must have someone looking out for me over the past 2 days.
Cameras are back and sensors as clean as when i first got them. The sun came out, and it was quite relaxed during the whole process. Even managed to get a few laughs with jokes when getting people together.

So, just a few hundred images to go through...(500+) one thing's for sure though, the 5D chews memory cards up...and if i get another wedding shoot, i'll be taking somewhere around 12Gb of memory with me! I think i may have found my assistant though, in the form of my brother. He's got some great candids whilst i was sorting the main images out.

If you would like details of the service centre, PM me. Because they come highly recommended by me.

Venom

Great stuff m8 glad everything worked out.

digitalkiwi

The

thing with Canon is they dont just do a sensor clean they check out the whole camera make sure everything is tip top well at least they do here in kiwi land, so that alone is worth the cost. Glad it worked out for you and yes the storage thing is fun huh, i have a portable hard drive which i thought was

but it takes an age to download due to the file sizes i just got an extra 10 GB of cards to go with the 8 i already have and the other fun thing is trying go get them all on to one DVD, Smile

creators

Congratulations, very glad it all worked out in the end. I shall be checking with Nikon to see what they have to offer, because I've been thinking of getting my camera checked out and cleaned at least once a year. The last time I checked it was a 6 - 8 week turn around and that is way too long to be without my camera.

richard

cheers peoples..

i really didnt know what i was going to do if it hadnt of got sorted out.

creators...6-8 weeks? that is rediculous! No doubt if you were a pro the turnaround time would be quicker but i think its something Nikon need to look at.

Kiwi, when i mentioned 12gb at work to people they look at me in disbelief...lol although i can see why your looking towards getting 18gb now. Especially with memory so cheap at the moment.
The question is though would you go for 2 or 4Gb cards? An 8gb is a lot of images to lose plus they are slower than their 2-4gb counterparts.

removable storage, ive looked at the giga one (40gb) thing. Not sure if its the best option for me but its relatively cheap and a lot easier to carry than a laptop as well as the rest of the kit.

digitalkiwi

I use the giga vu pro and it does take a while to download, i have the 2 gb cards wont go any higher like you said its a lot to lose, if it goes wrong. On the giga vu it verifys the image before deleting the card if you want it too but it just takes too long, i also take the lap top to help out with a card reader it seems to be slightly quicker than the giga vu but what i like about the giga vu is it feels quite rugged and not as delicate looking as some of the others.

Venom

Have you guys thought about the ARCHOS range of devices? I have the AV504 160Gb hard drive. It has a 4" screen so you can check out your pictures even doubles as a mp3 player, or dvd recorder. There not the cheapest on the market but definitely one of the best.