First of all an apology. Sorry!
This is a little off topic and probably should be on a photography site. But I'm not a member of one and it might be of use to somebody here. Or somebody might find it on Google. If there are real objections then please delete the thread.
So the back story is… Mrs Sweetpea and I went off to look at The New World last month. Specifically Yellowstone National Park. Sadly British Airways lost all our luggage (including my big lens) for 5 days and the 100 - 400mm lens that was in the hand luggage was on the fritz. The photos from it have looked increasingly rubbish for a couple of years now and I've never understood why. So the first job while waiting for the luggage was to find out what was wrong with it.
After a couple of hours of test shots I finally took the UV filter off the front and the old 100 - 400 was crystal clear again. The UV filter looked fine but was obviously stuffed so it went in the bin.
Lesson 1. Take the filter off!
Then the bags turned up and all was rosy in the forrest. Until, after spending 20 mins in a horizontal hail storm photographing Bison, my beloved EOS 7D started whinging that it couldn't talk to the battery.
It couldn't talk to any of the batteries so clearly the fault was in the camera.
I wasn't sure if the cold had got to it or if water had got in it. Two weeks later and it was still bust. Probably not water ingress unless it's actually busted something. A full 'batteries out for a night' reset and new memory backup battery didn't help. Hmmph. So having saved the cost of having the 100 - 400 serviced I'm going to have to pay a couple of hundred quid getting the camera fixed. Damn it Janet!
A search of the web suggested that putting it in the freezer for 10 mins might help (Noooooo!) or that there are screws in the bottom PCB that come lose and cause random problems like this. I wonder if I can get it apart? Tighten the screws, look for water damage, keep fingers crossed…
First job, carefully peal off the hand grips to get at the screws beneath.
By the way, don't attempt this unless you are very brave or unbelievably stupid.
Remove the back cover. Beware of the little connector that you'll need to pop off.
Here is the inside of the back cover.
And the back of the camera… Just for interest you understand.
Then the front cover comes off.
Make a careful note of the screws as some are shorter or longer than the rest.
Lastly the bottom.
Next off is the aluminium plate.
Now we are getting somewhere…
In this picture…
Mind the bit in the red square. It's the back of the flash capacitor. It will bite you if you touch it. Discharge it or cover it up. I'm a pro and did neither so it bit me!
In the blue squares are the 3 mounting screws. Count them… One, two, oh hello - where has the 3rd one gone? Photos on the net definitely show it being there so mine has clearly dropped out. There may be some truth in this story after all. I searched for the missing screw, had a good shake, and couldn't find it. I'm a bit worried that it's still in there somewhere but what can you do?
I found a new screw from a dead car stereo and fitted it.
Lastly is the yellow arrow. As far as I can see that's the connector that carries the battery data. So I took it out and plugged it in again.
In my search for the missing screw I lifted the top cover too. Here are a couple of photos…
And here is a photo of all the wreckage.
The yellow thing on the table is a static discharge strap. I thought it wise to 'take precautions' although connecting myself to the flash capacitor could have done untold damage to the camera. You have been warned!
So the good news is that it's all back together and there are no screws left over.
The better news is that it's actually fixed the fault and the camera can talk to the batteries again. Yay!
I could do with a day at some motor racing event to test it through but apart from that I'm a happy chap.
Hope this is of some help to somebody.
James
This is a little off topic and probably should be on a photography site. But I'm not a member of one and it might be of use to somebody here. Or somebody might find it on Google. If there are real objections then please delete the thread.
So the back story is… Mrs Sweetpea and I went off to look at The New World last month. Specifically Yellowstone National Park. Sadly British Airways lost all our luggage (including my big lens) for 5 days and the 100 - 400mm lens that was in the hand luggage was on the fritz. The photos from it have looked increasingly rubbish for a couple of years now and I've never understood why. So the first job while waiting for the luggage was to find out what was wrong with it.
After a couple of hours of test shots I finally took the UV filter off the front and the old 100 - 400 was crystal clear again. The UV filter looked fine but was obviously stuffed so it went in the bin.
Lesson 1. Take the filter off!
Then the bags turned up and all was rosy in the forrest. Until, after spending 20 mins in a horizontal hail storm photographing Bison, my beloved EOS 7D started whinging that it couldn't talk to the battery.
It couldn't talk to any of the batteries so clearly the fault was in the camera.
I wasn't sure if the cold had got to it or if water had got in it. Two weeks later and it was still bust. Probably not water ingress unless it's actually busted something. A full 'batteries out for a night' reset and new memory backup battery didn't help. Hmmph. So having saved the cost of having the 100 - 400 serviced I'm going to have to pay a couple of hundred quid getting the camera fixed. Damn it Janet!
A search of the web suggested that putting it in the freezer for 10 mins might help (Noooooo!) or that there are screws in the bottom PCB that come lose and cause random problems like this. I wonder if I can get it apart? Tighten the screws, look for water damage, keep fingers crossed…
First job, carefully peal off the hand grips to get at the screws beneath.
By the way, don't attempt this unless you are very brave or unbelievably stupid.
Remove the back cover. Beware of the little connector that you'll need to pop off.
Here is the inside of the back cover.
And the back of the camera… Just for interest you understand.
Then the front cover comes off.
Make a careful note of the screws as some are shorter or longer than the rest.
Lastly the bottom.
Next off is the aluminium plate.
Now we are getting somewhere…
In this picture…
Mind the bit in the red square. It's the back of the flash capacitor. It will bite you if you touch it. Discharge it or cover it up. I'm a pro and did neither so it bit me!
In the blue squares are the 3 mounting screws. Count them… One, two, oh hello - where has the 3rd one gone? Photos on the net definitely show it being there so mine has clearly dropped out. There may be some truth in this story after all. I searched for the missing screw, had a good shake, and couldn't find it. I'm a bit worried that it's still in there somewhere but what can you do?
I found a new screw from a dead car stereo and fitted it.
Lastly is the yellow arrow. As far as I can see that's the connector that carries the battery data. So I took it out and plugged it in again.
In my search for the missing screw I lifted the top cover too. Here are a couple of photos…
And here is a photo of all the wreckage.
The yellow thing on the table is a static discharge strap. I thought it wise to 'take precautions' although connecting myself to the flash capacitor could have done untold damage to the camera. You have been warned!
So the good news is that it's all back together and there are no screws left over.
The better news is that it's actually fixed the fault and the camera can talk to the batteries again. Yay!
I could do with a day at some motor racing event to test it through but apart from that I'm a happy chap.
Hope this is of some help to somebody.
James
