how many times did it fail

Every body is talking about stealing or borrowing or even killing for a second body in case the primary body fails.

Tell me how many times did your primary body fail and what happened and why do you think it failed??

I haven't officially shot any weddings so take what I say with a grain of salt -- I've shot other events and have had my single battery I've had with me fail so I can go by sort of the same experience.

Basically your main body may never fail. But maybe one day it does. If you're out shooting a wedding and being paid money to do it and all of a sudden your main body fails during the ceremony, formal pics or reception time just before the first dance what do you do? How do you inform the B&G who have paid you to capture the memories of their wedding day that you had a camera malfunction with no backup and missed the entire event?

The 2nd body is a safety net so this doesn't happen. This is why you'll see a lot of the people use their older cameras, the ones they learned with as the backup. I'm planning on upgrading to the 5D (or 5D successor) and when I do the 20D will become my backup, second camera.

Another reason for the 2nd body is so that you are not swapping lenses all the time -- you may miss a shot swapping a lens out but you may catch it if you grabbed the alternate camera around your shoulder. For example have your wide angle lens on your full frame body (or close enough to it) and your telephoto on the crop, etc etc.

In my case with the battery it was a band show and I lucked out, I had my charger with me so I ran to a reciprocal and charged the battery during set breaks etc. It worked out okay.

My 1D II sortof failed in September. I was shooting a wedding in downtown Philadelphia and after parking, I opened my van and the rig (1D II, 580EX II, 24-70L, Newton bracket) fell out and onto the concrete sidewalk curb. Camera wouldn't turn on. Then it turned on but didn't stay on. Turns out it was just the battery that got bent so a new battery took care of it. BUT I was lucky. Thankfully I had a backup in case it was more than the battery. I was also fortunate that the flash didn't snap off the bracket when it fell. But if it had, there was another 580EX in the bag to use.

While I have never had a camera actually fail, I came close enough to be thankful for being prepared.

I had this happened to me 2x. The first time, I was an assistant photographer and everything was fine and dandy until the wedding party started walking down the aisle. It kept on saying "Error ??". I took out the battery and replaced with a new one and that fixed it. However, I missed the entire procession because of this. Luckily the main photographer got all the shots.

The second time, I was the main and luckily I had an assistant with me as well as a second body. It happened while the Father of the bride was giving a toast. I was able to get 2 shots of him giving his speech and then it died again. I just use the other camera. Of course, the same problem was fixed when I replaced with new batteries.

megansmom wrote in post #4195855
I had this happened to me 2x. The first time, I was an assistant photographer and everything was fine and dandy until the wedding party started walking down the aisle. It kept on saying "Error ??". I took out the battery and replaced with a new one and that fixed it. However, I missed the entire procession because of this. Luckily the main photographer got all the shots.

The second time, I was the main and luckily I had an assistant with me as well as a second body. It happened while the Father of the bride was giving a toast. I was able to get 2 shots of him giving his speech and then it died again. I just use the other camera. Of course, the same problem was fixed when I replaced with new batteries.

Sounds like someone needs to invest in a couple new sets of batteries.

It happed to me twice, that the the 1D Mark II suddenly brought an error 99 and didn't work for some minutes.
It was at a birthday and that were not that important shots, but I was not very happy about that. Managed to get it working again. Reason was contacts to the lens.

A flash had fallen down and the reflector (glass) broke, thanks to 2nd flash no problem.
Many times it works perfectly, but you can have real trouble.

I did seniors a few weeks ago and my battery on my 20D failed. Thank God i had my second body, and could just switch right to it having it all set up.

Weve shot 20 weddings this year, we had 4 bodies for most of them and 5 bodies for the last five or six weddings, heres whats gone wrong so far.

1. First wedding we shot a 30D stopped working completely, just died and wouldnt focus or take shots, it had less than 5k clicks on it. It was fairly new and so was replaced by the shop.

2. During the same first wedding of the year my shooting partner clipped a door frame with his 17-55 F2.8 IS cracking the front section of the barrel, it was brand new 2 days earlier so we got it replaced as delivered defective.

3. My 17-55 F2.8 IS died in the middle of a wedding mid way through the year, wouldnt auto focus at all. Was sent away for a repair a couple of times and one time it came back and seemed to be ok only to start back focusing during another wedding. Was eventually replaced by the shop after much hassle.

4. I broke a filter after picking my camera up off a wall when the strap caught on the wall and the front of the lens clipped the wall as it pulled it from my hand, if I hadnt had a filter on it would have probably smashed the front of the 10-22 instead of the filter.

5.. During one of our last few weddings of the year my shooting partner knocked my 30D with 70-200 F2.8 IS onto its side (it just rocked over as he went to pick up off the floor) and the weight of it broke the foot of the 430EX, flash still worked as a remote but couldnt be attached to a camera until the foot was replaced which was thankfully a nice cheap repair but if that had been my only flash for the day I would have had some problems.

Gear problems arent that common and I think we have been unlucky at times this year but I wouldnt shoot with any less than what we have between us (5 bodies, multiple copies of the key lenses) and if I was shooting on my own I would want 3 bodies minimum.

It's not IF, it's WHEN.

Be prepared. End of story.

I have failures to deal with every season. Lenses, CF cards, bodies, you name it.
Currently, my Mark III is giving me grief and is unreliable.

My primary camera has failed once. Unfortunately, my back up failed on the same day. That was enough for me! Never take chances!

Ksenia

I got an ERROR 99 on one of my 30D's during a wedding formal shoot in August. Everyone was hot and aggravated and I didn't have time to fiddle with it. I switched cameras, and nobody even knew that anything was wrong. After the formals, the camera began working after removing the battery several times, and power on/off a few times.

Never risk it. It always pays to have a back-up, cause you just never know.

picturecrazy wrote in post #4196349
It's not IF, it's WHEN.

Be prepared. End of story.

I have failures to deal with every season. Lenses, CF cards, bodies, you name it.
Currently, my Mark III is giving me grief and is unreliable.

Whats up with the Mk III Lloyd?

This past summer,
One of our 30D fail just before the ceremony.
Week after, the rental replacement also failed during a wedding.
Problem: Missing stop screw in one of the lens fried the main circuit in the body (as we're told weeks later).

The point is, we're prepared and the equipment failure didn't stop us from shooting for more than 30 seconds, one of us could cover the shoot while the other change camera.
B/G didn't even notice and if they did, probably think one of us has to go to answer nature's call.

I never though my own 30D would fail, until I saw my partner's 30D die on the spot beyond 'cold boot'. It's a very scary feeling at that time.

picturecrazy wrote in post #4196349
It's not IF, it's WHEN.

Be prepared. End of story.

I have failures to deal with every season. Lenses, CF cards, bodies, you name it.
Currently, my Mark III is giving me grief and is unreliable.

I was just typing those EXACT words.

There's no if's and buts, it WILL happen. And the longer it doesn't happy, creating arrogance, until a point you're really messed up by having a high class client, and not able to shoot without the body. Even when I only had a single 20D, I still took along a Fuji 9500 digital camera, on some friends wedding.

My 20D has given me plenty of errors, 99's, complete lock ups, shutter breakages, failing to focus at all for several minutes.
I've used and abused my 1DIII since I bought it in June - so 4 months hard usage, travelling - hasn't had one single error, no ERR99's. But I'm waiting for it to come.

*Bill wrote in post #4196563
Whats up with the Mk III Lloyd?

The mirror won't flip up at times. It malfunctions and just gives me an err99. Seems to do it depending on changing weather conditions. I'm guessing there's a short somewhere.