40D bug...

[salmagundi]

Hi, this is my first post, but I'm pretty confident that I'll get good advice so here goes.


I recently sold my 350D and bought a 40D. It is a great camera that I'm totally happy with. But the other night it froze on me. The lcd display and menus functionned normally but the camera wouldn't shoot. Autofocus was dead and while the top-screen was active none of the settings could be changed, whether it be shutter speed, ISO aperture or whatever. And of course the shutter-fire button was completely dead. Turning it off and on did nothing, neither did clearing the camera settings. What finally restored it to functionality was taking out and then putting back in the battery.


Which is to say it works normally again but still that little episode scared the s&*t out of me.


So I'm wondering if that has ever happened to anyone before and what could cause that. Personally I'm wondering if its because for the past week I've been using an Olympus FL-40 external flash. Could this be causing my camera to go buggy? Before last night I never had any problem with using the flash (apart from of course the fact that the flash and the camera don't communicate). Or is this just a random and (hopefully) one time only bug? Should I not be using this flash on my camera?


Thanks for any input,


rOn

[PhotoPanda]

I've had the same issue multiple times with my Xt. I've found that I had to take out the battery, CF card, and the lens for a minute or so to get it to work again.

[Dallasphotog]

I've seen this issue or something close twice, once on my XTi and once on my 1D mkII. Both times I was shooting with a nearly dead battery and a nearly full CF card. I pretty much blamed myself for plowing ahead with a sinking battery. I suspect that trying to sqeeze in 10 more frames with a nearly dead battery caused the issue.


The first time it happened I was on location shooting for a customer and I nearly had a heart attack. I'm a tiny bit more cautious with my battery life now.

[salmagundi]

Hey thanks for the replies.





I don't quite remember but it could well be that my battery was near dead, it wouldnt surprise me, I'm pretty lazy about charging it until the last minute.


But can anyone tell me if using an Olympus flash on my camera is OK? I'd like to be sure that its not a problem.


Thanks

[Ifmracing]

What lens are you using?


I've had some funkyness with, what I'm guessing is, mis-communication between my 20D and my Sigma 24-70 2.8.
If I re-mount the lens, then everything is back to working just fine.

[peety3]

My girlfriend's 40D had a similar event, though her issue seemed to be related to the (Canon) battery grip. I removed the grip and the controls were fine. I restored the grip and it's still been fine since.


I'd try working without the flash for a while. I've heard numerous reports of off-brand battery grips causing a variety of issues.


Any chance you were using an 85L lens? There's a bug in firmware that's fixed with the new 1.1.1 firmware regarding battery status indications when using a 40D with the 85L. I wasn't going to mess with her camera before our trip to the Dominican Republic, but knowing about the bug put a wrinkle in our camera/lens pairings for the week.

[MVers]

If you're not getting an error message (i.e. err99 etc) it sounds like the battery or the contacts. Try giving them a cleaning and make sure the battery has a full charge. If that doesn't work give Canon a call or just send it in (assuming you're under a 1yr warranty).

[District_History_Fan]

I've experienced a very infrequent event of the same type using the 550EX. Removing the battery resets everything. I haven't had this happen since the first firmware upgrade I did many months ago (can't remember which number it was).

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

The exact thing happened to my 40D once.


I was changing lens and my left thumb caught the mode dial and turned it in one fast turn from AV to No Flash. I guessed a quick turn like that drove the camera crazy.