Help - bright arc on 300d images

[puttick]

I'm posting this for a colleague. She has a 300d and has taken hundreds of images in NZ, many of which have a bright arc running from top to botom of the frame. It has occurred with different lenses (18-55, 28-90 and 75-300), so is not an internal reflection from a slipped element. Presumably it's a problem on, at, or near the CCD. The camera is now with Canon NZ who have not yet sorted the problem but are refusing to honour her UK warranty (camera bought in the UK as a resident, then a career move to NZ).

I'm attaching two of the images (I've done a little tweaking to make the arc show up more clearly).

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Would it be possible to fix in Photoshop?

Shouldn't Canon honour the warranty?

Thanks, Nigel

[robertwgross]

Could that be from a light leak?

If there were a round crack around the lens mount, wouldn't that make a problem like this?

The lens mount is about the only thing around the camera body that is round.

---Bob Gross---

[Tom W]

Good thought, Bob. The only thing I had thought of was the use of one of those filters with the silver ring, but that would reflect more on some shots than on others.

[slin100]

Dollars to donuts that it's a failing shutter.

[Nolz]

I have just been through a similar warranty issue with Canon Australia and my experience was very pleasant. I bought my camera overseas from a legitimate Canon dealer and I do have all associated paper work.
DSLR bodies do NOT carry an international warranty unlike their lenses and speedlites, and this was quite clearly stated on some of their paper work. Supposedly the reason for this is to discourage the purchasing of grey imports. So if she bought her camera from an English Canon dealer and it is a 300D that was designated for England. Along with the proof of purchase Canon NZ shouldn't be trying ot worm their way out of doing the repair work (providing its still under warranty) this is about discouraging the purchases from overseas retailers not avoiding repairing faults that are genuine warranty claims.

[puttick]

How would a failing shutter produce that arc?

[slin100]

AFAIK, all modern SLR shutters travel vertically in an arc. A hole in the shutter blade would, therefore, show up as an arc in the captured image. I've also seen this problem reported by others and, in most cases, it turned out to be a faulty shutter.

[tim]

It could just be the famous New Zealand "arc of light" following your friend around ;)

[David1943]

Sorry I can't help with the problem Nigel but I have to say I do like that second picture.

Regards, David :)

[andygrif]

Sorry I cannot help you on your problem either, but I would like to express my sympthies that such a wonderful shot (the seond one) is affected. Hope you were able to rescue it.

[tim]

Those shots should be able to be removed in photoshop without too much trouble, just a bit of cloning, or select then alter levels for that area.

[Hellashot]

I've had the same thing happen on my Drebel using different lenses, but I've only noticed it a couple times though it could have happened more without it being enough to show up.

[slin100]

I just remembered that the other common root cause was a failing secondary mirror. In those cases, the secondary mirror was not flipping up entirely and reflecting some stray light onto the sensor.

[dale65bama]

That's odd! The radius of the arcs seem to be different in the two pictures. If shutter moves in an arc, I would expect the arcs to be the same radius. I would lean more to internal reflections.

[helenevans]

Hello Everyone

The photos are mine and Nigel kindly posted them on my behalf while I registered.

I am very grateful for all the replies, especially the one suggesting an arc of light is following me around! :D

I am still waiting to hear from Canon NZ what they think is wrong. I must say they have been slower than slow and most unhelpful.

I will feed back when I have an answer.

Fingers crossed that this works :rolleyes:

Helen

[mnfinnkidd]

the pictures could have been resized differently causing a different arc size. So it still could be the shutter

[tim]

I have to think this is a technical fault that Canon should be able to fix. I find things are often achieved more quickly if you bug people, nicely, just to stop the annoying calls ;)

I still like the "arc of light is following you" theory best :)

[puttick]

Hellashot - can you post an example for comparison?

[puttick]

I've now had a go at correcting the damaged images - of course I was working on downsized, compressed versions as supplied. Once I'd worked out what to do, it wasn't too hard. For a uniform area (such as sky) I used the clone tool, set to 10% and a wide brush (45) then painted with it until it looked right. For the detailed areas, I used the burn tool, set to 5% and using it for shadows, midtones, or highlights according to what was predominant (e.g. the trees, clouds, or snow) and again painted with a large brush (40) until it looked right. It took about 3 minutes per photo, and I would admit they are not quite perfect, but not too bad either. Perhaps with some practice and persistence the best shots could be saved and converted to printable images.