Canon EOS 10D broken sensor ?

[exolon]

I've been taking thousands of picturs with my soon 1-year old 10D.. and suddenly this happened without any noticeable cause. One minute it took good pictures, 15 minutes later this artifact started appearing (see the attached image). It looks as if the upper right part of the sensor has broken somehow, completely overexposing that part, and it does not look like a mechanical or dust/dirt issue due to really sharp edge transitions between working and broken areas. Now I'm obviously going to try taking the camera through warranty (which might turn out to be a problem since I bought it in the states and am in Sweden now) but I would like to hear if anyone has heard of something similar anyway. I want to be able to trust a camera and if these kinds of things happen often to digital SLR's... well, it would be a case for carrying more backup bodies I guess

Some additional facts: the artifact appears with any lens (and without lens as well actually). It appears stronger with a stronger total light falling on the sensor after the shutter/stop (net darker images taken at an evening dinner shows almost no artifact, images taken in sunny light shows it). It is not light falling in through the viewfinder. There is no visible damage to the sensor surface or shutter wings. The weather was warm the day the error happened, but condensation should be ruled out since it happened outside and not inside (and it was a lot hotter outside .

Regards,

Bjorn

[kafin8ed]

that doesn't look like any digital artifact I've seen, what about a shutter problem? That reminds me of some slide film shot at the wrong synch speed or something like that.

[exolon]

I guessed at either contamination on the row-noise/black calibration circuits in the sensor or a shutter dynamics problem. The shutter curtains look intact when they are closed, but if they move incorrectly when it opens/closes, something like this could happen I guess. The shutter seems like an intricate piece of engineering, with those blades having to open exactly simultaneously down to a 1/4000's part of a second..

In any case, the camera is on its way to New Jersey and Canons Factory service center now, so hopefully I'm back with an explanation soon

/Bjorn

[exolon]

Just adding this as a follow-up: I spoke with Canon and they have repaired my 10D - it was a faulty shutter assembly and they fixed it under warranty.

I just hope it does not happen again. That shutter should be rated for a good many more images than I had taken..

/Bjorn

[yaronsh]

I just hope it does not happen again. That shutter should be rated for a good many more images than I had taken..

People *have* reported shutter problems after 2000 to 10,000 exposures on the DReb, which supposedly has the same shutter as the 10D... The apparently prevalent symptom reported on the DReb is "Error 99." Supposedly Canon designed the shutter for these cameras based on assumptions carried over from consumer film SLR's, not taking into account that people generally take lots more exposures with digicams.

- Yaron

[Elysian]

People *have* reported shutter problems after 2000 to 10,000 exposures on the DReb, which supposedly has the same shutter as the 10D

Already after 2,000 shots? That's a few months for some people... shocking to say the least...

[exolon]

Already after 2,000 shots? That's a few months for some people... shocking to say the least...

Yes no good at all, I mean, you can easily take 250 pictures on an event or party or vacation day or whatever. That can add up to 10000 exposures in a year.. I know I haven't taken that many pictures with the body that broke but I'd sure want to know if I'm supposed to be able to do that or not, I would suppose I should be able with a 1500 dollar camera. If it breaks again it will be without warranty, but I've heard Canon fixes shutter problems outside warranty while charging only for the labour.. bad enough I think. Since many people should be reaching the 10000's on their 10D's and DRebels by now, we should start seeing more of these reports if it indeed is a common problem with their shutter designs.

My friend had to send his DRebel (EOS 300D here in europe) to the dealer for exactly the same problem just the last week (Error 99, bad shutter) and he hasn't had the camera more than a couple of months.

The 20D has a new shutter (smaller, designed to fit the 1.6x sensors). I wonder if that is rated for more exposures. I also wonder if Nikon has also miscalculated the usage on the D70's shutter for example.