Gear failure? How many have had it happen?

Touch wood, not had any major kit failures yet. I did get a Facebook reminder the other day though about the time a member on here organised an evening meet in his studio for us. He also very kindly offered to let me use his D3S (my unicorn camera at the time, and I was ecstatic at the opportunity to get hands on with one). Got round to my turn, so I begin shooting and was about 2/3rds of the way through when it played up. I call the owner over and after some further investigation, the CF card had completely conked it. Lost all my shots up to that point :(
 
When I worked for a photographic wholesaler in the 80's one of my customers came in on Monday morning with two Mamiya RB67 bodies, and a C330 body. All three had failed during a wedding on the Saturday! Luckily he had a Ricoh compact which he finished it off on. Apparently one of the guests came up to him at the end to commiserate having spotted his cameras keep changing....
 
A few instances of kit failure for sure (shutter, etc), but not in crucial commercial circumstances. However I recall a couple of instances of operator failure ...

Years ago in the Highlands with my Nikon FM2, I overwound a film such that it jammed & became un-rewindable. After ruminating about improvised dark bag spaces, and asking around to see if there were any local photographers who might have a darkroom, I got myself to Kyle of Lochalsh where I found a chemist's shop. The pharmacist himself was a photographer & disappeared into a back room with the camera, to emerge 10 mins later with both the camera and the film which he'd inserted into a re-usable plastic cassette. And he refused payment. Thus a small act of generosity entered into the energies of the universe ...

Forward to the digital era, and being miles from home on a day excursion, I raised the camera to take a shot only for it to present a puzzling error message. Ah. No card. No spare, either.

I hope that any amusement at that may compensate for any digression of the thread ... :)
 
droj said:
A few instances of kit failure for sure (shutter, etc), but not in crucial commercial circumstances. However I recall a couple of instances of operator failure ...

Years ago in the Highlands with my Nikon FM2, I overwound a film such that it jammed & became un-rewindable. After ruminating about improvised dark bag spaces, and asking around to see if there were any local photographers who might have a darkroom, I got myself to Kyle of Lochalsh where I found a chemist's shop. The pharmacist himself was a photographer & disappeared into a back room with the camera, to emerge 10 mins later with both the camera and the film which he'd inserted into a re-usable plastic cassette. And he refused payment. Thus a small act of generosity entered into the energies of the universe ...

Forward to the digital era, and being miles from home on a day excursion, I raised the camera to take a shot only for it to present a puzzling error message. Ah. No card. No spare, either.

I hope that any amusement at that may compensate for any digression of the thread ... :)
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Operator failure opens up a whole new can of worms and in my case at least, certainly happens way more often.
 
droj said:
Forward to the digital era, and being miles from home on a day excursion, I raised the camera to take a shot only for it to present a puzzling error message. Ah. No card. No spare, either.

I hope that any amusement at that may compensate for any digression of the thread ... :)
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GeeJay57 said:
Operator failure opens up a whole new can of worms and in my case at least, certainly happens way more often.
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Definitely done both the 'no memory card' and the no battery thing.

With my previous camera (most of which have been SH) it was set up to allow you to take shots without a memory card and not warn you. Took about 20 before I then went to 'review' them and discovered there was no card.

Luckily my two latest cameras (5D3 and R6II) have two memory card slots so I am hopeful I'd always have a back up.

Also went out with a film camera with no film in it. took about 10-15 shots before I realised. I thought I was near the end of the roll, but my eyes can no longer see the actual number on the counter. Just kept thinking, surely this next shot will be the last one.
 
Pretty sure there have been several threads on PPPPPP (P**$ Poor Planning Preventing Proper Performance!!!) and other SNAFUs!
 
I've had a number of P&S cameras, inexpensive one's and don't recall even one that made it through a year without going ten toes up! Exception so far is my Panasonic ZS100, no problems but had a hard time getting it going. I train bird dogs, pointers, and like a camera along while working them. Digital just to heavy and bulky to carry around. Come to think of it, my first 35mm was a Voigtlander fixed lens and it only lasted a few years.
 
In over 40 years of photography I've had 2 failures (touch wood) and one was my Canon F1N of all things where the winder would drain the battery within minutes. The second was my Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8G VR where the VR unit became loose in the lens and stopped working. It was repaired under warranty thankfully. I do have a Nikon Z9 and Z8 and both are in the serial numbers for recalls so they will get fixed at some point.
 
My 5D MkIII failed to power up, sent away to a Canon approved repairer they returned as beyond economical repair - my decision when I discovered the cost! Long & short, found someone online who repaired it including new main board at extremely economical price even with videos of all the work he did - well pleased.
 
GordonM said:
When I worked for a photographic wholesaler in the 80's one of my customers came in on Monday morning with two Mamiya RB67 bodies, and a C330 body. All three had failed during a wedding on the Saturday! Luckily he had a Ricoh compact which he finished it off on. Apparently one of the guests came up to him at the end to commiserate having spotted his cameras keep changing....
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Have a brother that spent his whole life as a photographer and seem he got new camera every year. Said he didn't wan a failure at the wrong time! If I was a pro I think I do the same thing.
 
I once had the shutter on a Nikon D300 fail just after I started shooting a wedding. Like all good pro's I had a spare in the bag and that did the job. I've also had several CF cards fail that I didn't notice immediately, which is why I always use bodies with two card slots.
 
I've had an autofocus module fault with a Sony A77, shutter issue with Nikon D750 (recall), and now my A1 has a 'mushy' button, bricks every time I use wi-fi (require battery to be taken out and reinserted) and on 3 occasions has completely bricked, deciding to come back to life in its own time :(

In the past I've had a couple of film spools jam, but they've been pretty easy to fix. I'm trying to rack my brain on whether I've had any lens failures but I don't recall any off the top of my head, just fungus on the glass of one.
 
PeteNaples said:
Had a Bronica S2 jam up on me, had to go for repair.
One workplace had a bunch of Nikon F2s in the kit cupboard, they were forever in and out of service. In fairness they took an absolute battering.
Of my own gear, only my mid 1960s Rolleiflex T has ever let me down, something broke or disengaged and the shutter wouldn't release. A week in Cameratiks in Edinburgh, it has never faltered since.
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Pete, where did you get your Bronica repaird?
 
Canon 40D blew it's DC-DC converter board after approx 67k shutter clicks.

Sandisk SD card split in two, replaced under lifetime warranty.

Olympus E-M5 ii had the evf burnt by the sun when on nearly full + diopter
Faulty design which they accepted, but wouldn't fix for free.
 
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In the film days, I've had a Rolleiflex shutter fail and the shutter on a Mamiya RB67 lens fail: both during weddings. I've had the shutter on a 5x4 lens fail, I can't remember the lens or make of shutter, probably Compur. And I have had several Hasselblad magazines give overlapping frames; something I've mentioned before, ie there never seemed to be a time when there wasn't at least one magazine was away for repair. But we had a lot of them, and several people used them.

My film and digital Nikons have never broken down (I had my first Nikon 50 years ago), and none of my other digital cameras have broken down. My Fuji X100s has caught me out twice, when it said there was nearly half a battery charge left and then died after one shot. I'm not sure if that is a fault, or just "personality".

Having said that about Nikon, one of my Nikon 1s (V2) needed a new shutter fitted. I loved the Nikon 1s, but I had them for such a short period, possibly only 18 months, I've almost forgotten I owned them.
 
I had the shutter of my (previously always faithful) Olympus 35 SP fatally jam while taking a shot on the way to Durdle Door - when I got my film back from the rest of the trip down south it had actually been firing less and less over time and about half of the shots hadn't been taken at all. I really liked the camera (I've had more than one, and this was a lovely black one) but they just weren't really reliable. I've swapped to a Nikon FM3a which will hopefully be more reliable and has far more mod cons, but isn't nearly as endearing.

For digital, I took my Fuji X-T3 and 16-55 (weather-sealed combo) out walking in Wales. Up on the tops, the winds were getting up to an alleged 80mph - we bailed out well before anything exposed and were basically getting jetwashed as we made our way back down without stopped to pack away gear. I think water got into the top plate of the camera as the on/off switch and shutter button became unreliable and the viewfinder/lens fogged up. The camera spent a day in the drying room and worked 'OK' and then when we got home, was sent off for disassembly/cleaning/etc. That was two years ago and there have been no ill effects from it since.

The Hasselblad hasn't let me down, touch wood! I'm dreading the day when something happens and it all has to go off for a service that takes 20 years and costs a million pounds.
 
Only had one camera fail, my backup at the time, a Pentax K50. Black images, well known and widespread fault.

Pentax refused to do anything about it (as the did with so many others with the same problem) despite the fact it was within warranty.

There were 10 pentax cameras in the house at the time, within a couple of months we all had Canon :)

I fixed the K50 myself, with a solenoid from a Sony CD player, and it is still going strong
 
As an update since posting last year in this thread , in the spring my 100L macro packed up would not auto or manually focus , very frustrating as I was out photographing dragonflies and didn’t have a second lens with me
I have had it a long time and its had a lot of use though so not complaining
I tried out an old Sigma 150 non OS that I have had for years and not used it
Actually prefer the Sigma now image quality is amazing so worked out OK
 
Only ever had three , shutter failures on Nikon d7100 both brand new and failed after circa 3000 shots refunded on both and shutter failure on a canon 1Dmkiv Again refunded under warranty . Nothing else major for years bar grip rubbers on a Olympus omd.em 1 mkii
 
Had a Fuji X-T10 lock up in Glencoe, it was bitter cold that day and minus silly degrees. It worked fine after aclimatising in the car for a while.

My 7D would often throw a wobbly with an error code. I forget which code it was, maybe error 07 or 20. I'd have to drop the battery out and re-insert it and it would work fine again, until it would happen again. I hated that camera anyway and it didn't happen all the time, so I just lived with it until I got rid of it.

My 5Div seems to suffer with dust on the focus screen. It's been in to be cleaned several times. One of those things I've come to live with too.
 
700 weddings and one failure which was a ribbon cable in a canon 24-105 broke
 
Canon 70-200 f4 is mk1 hex collar (internals) failed out of the blue during low priority landscape shoot. This was a looong time ago. Then eventually the locking thing on the mount wore out resulting in a fall and a claim. Ef mount has a bit of a weak point after extensive use
 
I had a viewfinder bulb go on my Nikon D300 about 8yrs ago after just 10k shutter count.
Took it to LCE Lincoln and they said it would cost more than the camera to fix, so it's sat on my shelf as an ornament.
 
I had the mirror detach from the frame on one of my A900's - took a shot, and the OVF stayed black :( .
A bit of investigation and the mirror was loose inside the camera - but unbroken!
I'd bought it second hand, but Sony had a fixed price repair service back then, and after a few weeks it was back, good as new :)
 
I had a focus motor/VR unit fail in a Nikon 200-400, it then happened again after I had the lens repaired. I have had a Nikon D7200 fail, whilst recording video and then refuse to record any more video, but it still shots stills.
 
Spontaneous fails: Worst I've had is a CF card go bad (back in EOS 10D days), an SD card go bad (EOS 60D). Mitigated.by taking spares.

Weather related: water ingress into an RF 100-500L - spoiled the day somewhat. Mitigated now by lens cover & not being quite so gung ho when it rains (which apocryphally happens a lot in Scotland)
 
Worst fail I had was travelling very light (hand baggage only) to SE Asia and I had only a Minox 35ML with me. 35ML was a perfect little pocketable travel camera. Shutter mechanism failed on day one. I managed to borrow a 35mm bridge camera from one of my hosts a couple of days later - so not all was lost.

I now always carry two cameras on any trip where I'm intending to commit time to photography as part of the trip.
 
Never had a fail during a paid event. The Canon 70D suddenly died, and a CF card saved files with errors a handful of times (out of hundreds of thousands) in my 5D Mark IV.
 
10 minutes before a wedding was due to start, the end of my Sigma 70-200 lens fell off...
I carry duct tape in the car, so wrapped that around the hastily reassembled lens and shot the whole wedding with it (and my second camera etc.)
Sent it into Sigma for repair and they asked to buy it off me for spare parts as they were short of them for that era of lens - so ended up with a brand new lens for a very cheap price
 
In 55 years of photography, I have only had one kit failure. It was my first camera a Praktica Nova which I had purchased second hand from a local camera shop. After 12 months, the leaves on the aperture were sticking so exposures were almost random. It could have been repaired but I bought a new Canon then and have never had another fault but have always bought new from a reputable company. Since my first camera I have bought just 6 cameras one of which was stolen and thus replaced by an insurance claim. Most photographers I know have got through a lot more cameras than me in 55 years.

Dave
 
I have had quite a few actual failures in the last 60 odd years, but loads more operator failures, see the last paragraph.

My first 35mm camera jammed up, a Halina 35X, but I didn't even contemplate getting it fixed as it was my excuse to buy my first SLR, a Zenit B. Then the shutter on that failed and I bought a Rolleiflex SL35 but that proved to be very unreliable. I had it fixed by Rollei but, when I drove from Bolton to Jessops in Leicester to part exchange it, the camera failed when they were evaluating it! So out it went. I followed that with a Yashica FR1 which developed a fault almost straight away, the self times broke and you could spin the little lever round and round. That was repaired under warranty. I used the camera for a 10 years or more. It finally succumbed when I had it on a tripod to take a photograph of the house I lived in; I had to move my car and reversed into the tripod which fell over. The impact cracked the Yashica's chassis but it still worked, a tribute to the camera's durability. I added a Yashica FR body as a replacement, but eventually sold all my Yashica bodies and lenses so I could try some other camera makes, firstly Minolta, then Canon, Nikon and Leica.

Then there are the multiple failures of used cameras, for example, jammed leaf shutters, but these are to be expected, happening as they do from lack of use and genuine wear and tear, in general I've had the large format lenses repaired but put the medium format cameras to one side, except for my Horseman technical camera for which I bought new bellows. There are many other examples, failing large format bellows which are easy, if expensive, to replace.

One recent disaster happened when I had my Canon 6D tethered and the USB cable snagged on the tripod's column gears and damaged the USB port (as well as writing off the cable). I got a quote to have it repaired and was told £350 as it needed, amongst other things, a new main circuit board. Not sure I believe that, but I declined the repair and bought another identical body, with only about 20,000 shots on the clock, for less than the repair price. I now use the new body when tethered and the old body as a standby, handheld or untethered. I now have the USB cable attached with a restraint, as well as the remote release cable.

Last Friday I thought the replacement 6D camera had a shutter fault but it turned out to be my stupidity. I was shooting some museum artefacts and had the new 6D camera set up on a tripod using studio lights and umbrellas. What was actually happening was that when I stood over the camera to fire the shutter, using a remote, it must be said, my body was masking one of the umbrellas so despite fiddling about with the position of the lights to try and remove a shadow across the bottom of the frame I was completely wasting my time. I redid some of the shots using the old camera untethered, no problem. Then shot another sequence of largish items with the new camera and to my surprise everything was OK. When I got home I tested the new camera and it works fine, at that stage I realised what was going on!
 
So has this thread jinxed me, I went to the WWT at Arundel today and the camera came up with a lens communication error with my Sigma 150-600, seemed to be happening if I changed the aperture. Need to do a full investigation.
 
My A1 died at a wedding although luckily it came back to life about half an hour later. It then happened several times after but only during ‘pleasure’ shooting.
 
Not camera of lens, but the either the QD connector or the QD socket dropped my om1 on the tarmac earlier today. LCD screen no longer fitted and think there's a cracked of bit of plastic. Looks like the l bracket may have offered some protection as the vertical part is bent.
 
Not an equipment fail, but with my F6 that are renowned for a bit of an appetite for batteries, so when one set emptied on holiday in the Austrian Tyrol. New set in, fired half a dozen frames and the same again. No battery charge indicated. So 2nd new set in and all was well. It has never happened since, and I now always buy the best I can find.

I also had battery problems with an Olympus OM2 spot when out walking in mid winter silver oxide batteries lasted less time than an ice cream in summer sunshine. Three sets to fire off around 30 exposures and they were all dead..
 
NorthEastCamera said:
Not an equipment fail, but with my F6 that are renowned for a bit of an appetite for batteries, so when one set emptied on holiday in the Austrian Tyrol. New set in, fired half a dozen frames and the same again. No battery charge indicated. So 2nd new set in and all was well. It has never happened since, and I now always buy the best I can find.

I also had battery problems with an Olympus OM2 spot when out walking in mid winter silver oxide batteries lasted less time than an ice cream in summer sunshine. Three sets to fire off around 30 exposures and they were all dead..
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We used to go to the Tyrol every year and enjoyed it immensely.

However, one year I took my Canon 5D and 1DS with me. The pictures I took at the beginning of the day were fine but I can't speak for those I took at the end of the day. This was on account of there being none. I was knackered by carrying that weight up the mountain trails! Still, when we kept to the towns or villages, I did find some interesting pictures

Two local characters in Hall with the 5D...

Canon Eos 5D 5764.JPG
 
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