300D Shutter Problems

[Dee56]

I've had my Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) for over 1 1/2 years now. In Feb. 2004 I had to send it in for repairs because the shutter failed. It was a little over 6 months old and was repaired under warranty - I paid $6 for shipping. Canon replaced the entire shutter assembly with a new one and everything has been fine until 2 weeks ago when it completely failed AGAIN (right in the middle of a really good shooting session)!

It's going to have to be completely replaced AGAIN! I don't know whether Canon will take care of it or not because I'm past the warranty period and the original shutter failure and replacement was over 1 year ago. Needless to say I'm not happy with Canon at this point whether they take care of the repairs or I have to pay for them. Even if I do get it repaired what else is sitting inside its little chasis waiting to fail?

We researched cameras very carefully before buying this one and it appeared to be a good choice. We are not wealthy people and can't afford to keep replacing badly made equipment. I'm extremely careful with my camera and do NOT mistreat it in any way, so this can't be called a wear-and-tear problem.

Now to my question - is anyone else having this type of problem with their Canon Digital Rebel?

Dee56 >:(

[RodneyCyr]

My Digital Rebel is also 1 1/2 years old. It works OK except for the very first picture I take after the camera has been turned off for a while. If left off overnight, the first picture will be completely black, or, at best, severly underexposed. A second picture, taken immediately, is always OK.

If the camera is turned off for a few hours, the first picture will be slightly dark.

If the first picture is taken with a slow shutter speed, it will usually be OK.

The problem is repeatable with several different Canon lenses. The problem is also repeatable when both exposures are manually set. In every case, examination of the EXIF information saved with the pictures shows that the camera gave them, (or at least "thought" it gave them) the same shutter speed and aperture.)

[tim]

Dee56 - I suspect you just had really bad luck. How many shots do you think have been taken with the new shutter assembly. Good luck convincing Canon to replace it for free.

Rodney - that's extremely odd, i've never heard that before, and neither my 300D not 20D does that. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has an explaination.

[RodneyCyr]

Dee56 - I suspect you just had really bad luck. How many shots do you think have been taken with the new shutter assembly. Good luck convincing Canon to replace it for free.

Rodney - that's extremely odd, i've never heard that before, and neither my 300D not 20D does that. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has an explaination.

I first noticed the problem after taking about 7000 pictures. I don't know if it is a shutter problem or an electronics problem.

[tim]

Have you contacted Canon about the problem?

[RodneyCyr]

Have you contacted Canon about the problem?

No, not yet. (But I will try sending an e-mail.

[robertwgross]

Let me ask one question to anybody who is having a shutter failing.

Have you ever attached a non-Canon external flash unit? If so, what was it?

---Bob Gross---

[Dee56]

Dee56 - I suspect you just had really bad luck. How many shots do you think have been taken with the new shutter assembly. Good luck convincing Canon to replace it for free.

Rodney - that's extremely odd, i've never heard that before, and neither my 300D not 20D does that. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has an explaination.

Tim: I can't be absolutely sure of the number of pictures taken but I suspect about 3,000. And I'm not trying to convince Canon of anything. I went back to the place I bought it from and they are trying to convince Canon. I figured they would have more clout with them than I would.

Thanks for taking time, Tim.

Rodney: That's a really strange problem. Fortunately it's one I've never had.

Dee :)

[mdm]

Do they have the lemon-law for cameras?

[tim]

Good luck Dee :)

[asayeghr]

Hi guys, I'm a new former of this site, in fact I was looking for other people suffering the same shutter problems with an EOS 300D.

After near 8.000 or 9.000 shots, the camera started to display "error 99" on the lcd screen, as you can imagine it just stopped and was imposible to shoot again unless the camera be turned off and on again. the problem started randomly, but soon it started to fail every 4- 5 shots, until it finaly remained in error 99.

I sent it to the Canon's authorized distributor in my country to be repaired, but I just gained frustration, they repaired the shutter, but it didn't work, now they will try to replace the shutter for a new one, let's see what happen.....

Hey Rodney you are not the only one dissapointed with canon, I've been a canon user for a long time, with regular film eos cameras, and I just loved it, but in digital terms I'm completely dissapointed with CANON.

[adas]

how about the 350D users? Haven't heard anybody complaining about shutter failure on 350D yet. Is it better built, or it's too young?

[Jetmech1]

I got about 6500 actuations on mine, so far no problems. It is one year old this month. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though. It sure would be nice of Canon if they repaired it for you. It would be great customer support. Good luck. I have been lucky with cameras, out of the 6 that I have owned non have failed with me. A Sony that I sold to a friend failed about 6 months after he bought it. But the friend carried it out on their boat a lot, so I suppect mositure as the culpret.

[Jman13]

I think the major issue is: Canon didn't design the 300D shutter to last particularly long. They figured consumers would buy it, and shoot about 800 shots a year with it. That said, I've heard the average failure rate on the shutter is between 30,000 and 50,000 shots for the 300D. Some will fail well ahead of that, some after that (Longest I've seen is a still functioning 300D with 84,000 actuations). I think you've had some bad luck with two short failures.

Here's hoping that my 300D holds out (I'm just at 8,000 shots now) for a while, though it would be a nice reason to upgrade. ;)

[Sam]

Mine is coming up on a year now and has no problems at all. I let my six year old daughter use it so I can't vouch for how well it is being taken care of. She does understand it isn't a toy, but kids are kids...

[lostdoggy]

I have 13000 shots so far and still going!!!

[Wazza]

My mates 300d failed on around 7000 actuations. The AF little mirror inside flipped off, and lost a spring, and was showing half a black/white image. After 7 weeks in for repair, it was finally just replaced with a new one.