How Do I Have a Lens Assessed?

My new Digital Rebel Xt arrived from Dell yesterday. I took several pictures with my 50mm 1.8 attached. Then I put on the 18-55 EF-S USM refurbished lens I bought from B&H and the camera quit working completely. It's completely dead.

So, I have to resolve the camera problem.

But I'm also suspicious of this lens. Maybe it was just a coincidence but everything was working fine until I put the lens on.

It cost me $90 so I don't really want to spend a lot of money to get it evaluated by Canon but I don't feel good about putting it on a new body, nor do I feel right about getting rid of it on Ebay in case there IS something wrong with it.

Has anyone ever heard of a lens doing something like this?
Is there some other option short of sending it off to Canon?
What is the process for sending it to Canon?
Does anyone have any other thoughts or ideas?

Thanks for your help. I've been waiting so long to get the Rebel XT and I'm feeling childishly disappointed that this has happened.

Nic Showalter

When you put the 50mm back on will it work again?

when you say dead do you mean there is no power on?

is the battery charged? you should see a menu with no lens attached.

It is totally dead with a fully-Charged battery (have tried a 2nd and 3rd battery too) and I've tried the 50mm again and another lens. Nothing shows in viewfinder or on LED when it's turned on. I've checked and re-checked battery door and CF card door.

I don't know what to tell you. I hope someone here can help you. On page 35 of the manual it shows you haw to replace the date and time battery. you might try to remove it and wait for a minute or so then replace it and see what that will do.

Thanks, Falkon. I tried that battery too and it didn't change the situation.

Try cleaning the contact points w/alcohol your 18-55 may haved oil or some thing on it
Ricko

Do you think that will do anything to help the camera boot up? It's dead (the camera) and I won't be able to tell if cleaning the contacts did anything to help.

It's entirely possible that there is a permanent power short inside the 18-55 lens. If you were lucky, it would only cause the camera to quit while that lens was mounted. However, there is a bigger chance that (the equivalent of) a fuse has blown inside the camera.

---Bob Gross---

I would send it back to dell for replacement.

If you remove and re-insert the compactflash, does the little red light at the bottom right of the LCD flash? if not, off to repair land.

will it work if the date and time battery is dead?

Did you turn off the camera prior to changing lenses?

The time and date battery WAS working when the camera was working, or so I assume because the time and date were set when the camera arrived.

I can't say for sure if I turned the camera off before changing lenses. Would that fry a camera?

I don't think there is a red flashing light upon insertion of the CF card.

Not with fully functional equipment. If a lens were capable of frying a camera just by mounting it while powered up, it'd be just as capable of frying it when turning the camera on after mounting to a camera in the "off" position. Chuck Westfall, technoguru of Canon, in one of his Digital Journalist columns on power saving recommended turning the camera off only to change cards or batteries. No mention of lenses. So I think you can take it that there's no reason to turn your camera off for lens changes.

Update: I found the web page for sending a lens in for service to Canon. It is very efficient and friendly. I paid for the postage to NJ, but other than that it was all free, quick and very reassuring. There was nothing wrong with the lens as it turns out.

The first body was just a lemon for some reason.

I returned it to Dell without much difficulty and purchased a new one from B&H.