Is my shutter dead?

Our back up, back up camera stopped working at this weekends wedding and I'm trying to confirm if it is the shutter.

It is an XTi that has probably 75K+ shots on it so we were completely expecting this to happen at any moment.

It focuses and locks onto subjects but will not fire the shutter. Seems obvious given the age, but I was also wondering if anyone knew the cost of replacing a shutter on an XTi.

Thank you!

can you post images... that might help... also it might not be the shutter.

canonnoob wrote in post #8601951
can you post images... that might help... also it might not be the shutter.

(....It focuses and locks onto subjects but will not fire the shutter....)


Ya think it might be hard to post images if the camera won't fire the shutter?

DennisW1 wrote in post #8602000



Ya think it might be hard to post images if the camera won't fire the shutter?

of what it looked like prior....

Man i need to start clarifying... is there anythign abnormal in the photos prior to it stopped firing?

nope. Nothing abnormal prior to the problem.... lol.

lol.... hm.... it could verywell have been a dead shutter but, there could be another problem. shutter button or something along those lines.

Is there any way to tell for sure? I'm guessing it will have to go to Canon to find out?

pretty much... lol

You say it won't fire the shutter... Does the mirror flip up and then nothing, or does nothing happen at all?

Absolutely nothing happens. Pressing the button half-way focuses the lens, but any additional pressing will not get anything to happen.

If you have a cable release or can get your hands on one try using that to see if it will fire that way. I've seen a shutter release go bad on a Rebel before where half-press didn't work but full press did, maybe yours has done the opposite. In any event it sounds more likely to me that it is a problem with getting the message to fire to the shutter rather than with the shutter itself.

I agree with the other post. If you simply had a blown shutter the mirror should still flip up. You would aslo have images with over and underexposed sections in the frame. Try a release cord.

Sounds like you guys might have hit the nail on the head! I've been playing with it for a while and it suddenly fired a shot...... then wouldn't work for a long time. Then, randomly after trying dozens and dozens of time, it fired another. It is almost like there is a loose connection between the button and the shutter.

Was able to confirm this: I attached a grip to the bottom of the XTi and the shutter button on the grip fired the shutter every time. The standard button on the camera only fired once every 30+ presses.

So.... anyone else every see this problem?

It's the shutter button on the camera body. My 40D had this problem just a couple months ago. Halfway shutter autofocused and I would have to press down pretty firmly on the button and it would take a good half to full second before the shutter actually fired.

I took the 40D to Comic-Con and coped with it, but right after Comic-Con, I drove to the Repair Center in Irvine and dropped it off for warranty repair. The service invoice indicated that the shutter button was indeed malfunctioning and they replaced it. Works fine now.

And yes, I also have a grip for my 40D and the grip's shutter button worked fine on the body while the shutter button on the body itself was failing.

FYI: Hopefully your camera is still under warranty. From what I've found on this forum, the shutter button repair out-of-warranty is a couple hundred USD.