Problems with 60D... someone help?

[Peapod Photo]

Hi everyone,

I wasn't really sure who else I could ask about what's going on with my camera...

For a bit of background, I have a Canon 60D. I've had it for about.... five weeks, now. I also have a 430EX Speedlite, a 100mm 2.8 USM lens and the kit lenses.

Anywho, I think there might be something wrong with my camera, but no idea what. If anyone could help, that would be great.

1. Since... about last night, my camera decided it didn't want to "communicate" with the flash. The flash simply... didn't go off when I took pictures. And then later, it decided to work, randomly. I turned both camera and flash on and off, took the flash off the camera and put it back on again, and it still didn't work... it just decided to work/not to work, randomly. Not very reliable...

2. A lot of my pictures came out with just... half of them being black. It's as though there's something up with the shutter... like it just stopped in the middle of taking a picture.

3. And I'm not sure whether this is actually a problem or just a result of my newbie-ness, but when I have the flash attached, for some reason, I can't increase my shutter speed to any more than 250. Is that meant to happen, or is it something else wrong with my camera?


...I think that's about it. I really really appreciate any help anyone can give... I'm really sad about this... :-(

[inkista]

Um... is this your first time using flash? Your first dSLR?

I know this is unwarranted advice, but my newbie advice when it comes to flash is, until you're thoroughly grounded in ambient exposure with iso, aperture, and shutter speed, don't go adding flash into the mix just yet. You'll get confused. Make sure you're comfortable shooting in full Manual mode, and swapping stops among the three exposure settings before you put a speedlight onto the hotshoe. Because it only makes things much more complex. And the more auto modes you're relying on, the harder it is to figure out what's going on. Shooting in green box Auto and eTTL-II makes it damn near impossible to figure out what's happening.

Now, first newbie question on the flash: did you wait long enough for the flash to recycle before pushing the shutter again? (i.e., did you check that the "ready" light was on before trying to pop the light?) The flash cannot always throw out light when you hit the shutter button. Remember, all your power is coming from mere AA batteries. Current has to flow out of the batteries to fill up the capacitor in your flash. And the higher you've got your flash power set, the longer it's going to take. At full power, a 430EXII with fresh alkaline batteries is speced with a 4 second recycle time. If you're trying to do something like burst shooting, or rapid sequences of shots, you better damn well have your iso high, your aperture wide, and your shutter speed slow to get your flash power requirements down to something that the batteries can keep up with.

In other words, you gotta know what you're doing.

Secondly, are you using freshly charged/new batteries? If any one of the four batteries is low, your'e going to have even more problems. Most flash users will have multiple sets of batteries on a shoot to swap in and out. These things are power hungry. And rechargeables don't hold charge for too long. If you've got the same batteries in there that you stuck in three months ago, you may want to do a recharge or swap to a fresh set. Get a good recharger that can recondition batteries and tell you how healthy your batteries are.

Thirdly, did you check the flash/camera hotshoe contacts? Cleaning them off with a pencil eraser might help. If you were using the 430EXII off-camera--did you have line-of-sight? (i.e., could the red sensor panel on the front of the 430EXII "see" your pop-up flash?)

Fourthly, for the 1/250s shutter speed limit--read this.

[Peapod Photo]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, this is my first dSLR, no I am not new to photography. I know the basics of photography... etc. Thanks, but I'm not a total amateur.

The problem isn't about giving the flash time to recharge. It simply... wasn't going off at all. So I don't think anything you said is really relevant...

Yes, I was using fully charged batteries. Yes, I have rechargeable batteries.

And yes, I was sure the hot shoe connection was "clean".

Have you any idea of no.2? That's my main concern...

[inkista]

I already gave you the link in the fourthly point. #2 is connected to your 1/250s limit. I figured you're rather have well-written explanation with pictures and examples as to what is going on and what using high-speed sync will do, rather than a hastily shoved together board post, but if you have to have the short version: put your flash into high speed sync mode; lose a lot of light.

As for the misfires--sorry, I'm all out of ideas. And sorry if what I'm saying seemed condescending, but when you're dealing with newbies, it's always good to check the basics. Had you simply written, "I know it wasn't my batteries or waiting for a recycle and I cleaned the contacts", I wouldn't have gone there. If you want a (free) diagnosis and someone to spend time on your problem, it always helps if you give them more information, rather than less.

[Peapod Photo]

It's OK. Sorry if I came off sounding annoyed. I'm just so annoyed at the thought of something being wrong with my camera...

But thank you so very much for putting up with my ignorance. :-)

I do hope I can figure out what's up with the flash, though...

[inkista]

And sorry I was so grumpy. I get annoyed when I can't figure stuff out.

Ok, does the flash still fire when you push the test button?

Were you shooting in burst mode?

When you got the half-black frames, were you using a shutter speed faster than 1/250s? (Because if not, then it does sound like something's wrong). Can you post a sample with EXIF information?

You may want to ask about this on the Strobist Flickr group's discussion threads--there are serious numbers of flash geniuses hanging out there.

If you bought your camera and speedlight new, it may be worthwhile to send them both in for service, if you can't figure out if the problem is with the body or the flash.

[Peapod Photo]

Thanks again for the help!

I've had one other random thing going on...

For some reason, even though my 8GIG card was empty, my camera was telling me I only had, like... 100-something shots left (I was shooting in small RAW). I thought that was weird, so I switched to JPG to see what it did then, and it only said I could take 400 JPGS. Whenever I took a pic, it would either increase or decrease by one or two... so I don't think it was accurate at all!

...have I, like... smashed my camera and not known it, or something? T_T

[MOmilkman]

Originally Posted by Peapod Photo

Thanks again for the help!

I've had one other random thing going on...

For some reason, even though my 8GIG card was empty, my camera was telling me I only had, like... 100-something shots left (I was shooting in small RAW). I thought that was weird, so I switched to JPG to see what it did then, and it only said I could take 400 JPGS. Whenever I took a pic, it would either increase or decrease by one or two... so I don't think it was accurate at all!

...have I, like... smashed my camera and not known it, or something? T_T

Where did you get the card? The card may be bad. If it is and the camera is not recognizing it then you are working off the cameras internal memory.
Go to page 32 of your manual and make sure you pay particular attention to the blue box at the bottom of that page.
Set the 'Release Shutter without Card' option to enable, remove the card and see how many shots you have. If it is the same amount of shots as with the card I'd have to say something is wrong with that particular card.
Also try another SD card if you have one.

Also before you try any of the above format the card.

[Peapod Photo]

...why would it be the card? It was working fine 'til yesterday... :-(

[MOmilkman]

I dunno. Cards do go bad. Probably not it, but worth a check.