kcbrecks

Church of St Sebastian

Ramsau bei Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany

Three over the Forth

Now I come to think about it Paul I must be in the same situation at the moment and the cameras are sitting in a bag on a shelf, not going anywhere. Perhaps if it snows I might get fired up as it is a few years since we had anything worth considering snow.

My daughter-in-law didn't help, just before Christmas, when I was up with them in Edinburgh and instead of letting me go off on my own insisted on driving me to the places I wanted to be for some pictures. I have been taking pictures of the various stages of the Queensferry Crossing during it's construction and found 5 places where I could get the views I wanted. After the 4th one, as I got back in the car she was asking if I had got all the pictures I wanted, was I sure, there wasn't another angle I had missed and so on, sarcastic git that she can be. Perhaps she is right, is it an obsession? I didn't go to the 5th and didn't mention it.

We do tend to go to the same places when going for a stroll so there are bound to be the same views, even in different lights and so on. Hopefully the composition and lighting effects change though.

We are going to Germany, to stay with friends, in the spring so there should be something new then, even if it is the recent additional grandchildren.

Horseshoe Falls, Niagara, Canada from a helicopter at 1000 feet or so, complete with feint rainbow and The Maid of the Mist in the mist.

12 minutes ago, Phil said:

That's some tower, not sure how long my dinner would have stayed put! 

It wasn't too scary Phil and once you were sat down it was fine. The floor went around once every 90 minutes, so there was always a changing view.

When I was learning to fly gliders with my Venture Scout Unit, I explained about the acrophobia to the instructor. He reckoned people with a fear of heights know exactly where the ground is as so never make bad landings, the ones who aren't bothered will land 15 ft up or even try to land under the surface because they don't. He also said I would find I would be fine because I would accept the floor of the cockpit as the local ground. I never did make a bad landing. I felt his effect happening up the tower and was ok till I had to stand up. Taking the shot of the baseball stadium was difficult as I was leaning over the edge of the floor with just the window under me,

The helicopter ride was scarier than the tower.

Heights have always been a problem for me Ryewolf even though I have had to use ladders and scaffold thoughout my working life, sometimes up several hundred feet.

And kev7d it was a wonderful place for dinner but it was difficult to know which to look at, the dinner or the revolving view, as both were equally spectacular.

One of the reasons we were on this holiday was because my wife hijacked our daughter's trip as she has always wanted to go to Toronto and Niagara because her Mom and Dad met in Ontario having emigrated separately then married, went to Niagara for honeymoon, then had their first child there, a boy, who sadly died before reaching his first birthday and is buried there. They returned in 1932, when her oldest sister was on the way, because, mother-in-law said it was jobs for Canadians first when the Great Depression started to bite. Her brother had secured a job for father-in-law in Southampton so back they came. We went to where the old folks had lived and the spot where the brother is buried so the pilgrimage was completed.

I will try to put a sequence on of the shots I have of Niagara including the boat trip and helicopter trip we took to the falls. We had a wonderful view of them from the picture window in our hotel room right alongside the Horseshoe Falls.

Tiramisu

Here is the latest info and I hope the end of the story. During my conversation with the Canon rep he suggested the Err 99 may not refer to a duff shutter, we disagreed, as did one of their approved repairers who offered a replacement shutter, cleaning of the sensor, general cleaning of the camera, and recalibration  for £129.99 + p&p.

I sent the camera off last Thursday, got an acknowledgement and request for £139 payment and a delivery projection of 5 to 7 working days for return. It arrived back this morning, nice and clean and working with a shutter count of just 361. no doubt for testing purposes. And guaranteed for 6 montths. So we are back in action, no more swapping lenses on walkabout.

The people who fixed the camera offer the same service for Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and many more - their quote. Should anyone else need them then they are

EuroHiTech, 13 Quad Road, East Lane Business Park, East Lane, North Wembley, HA9 7NE, www.eurohitech.com, 020 8904 0900

They have been in business since 1991

I have to thank you all who have replied to this thread. Perhaps we have all learned something.

On 18/04/2017 at 16:31, fuzzyedges said:

Hi Kc 

have you tried the second battery in the camera ?

http://improvephotography.com/10372/error-99-canon-camera-fix-repair/

99 prevents the shutter from operating so it will be in the closed position all the time  Not that I know a lot about cameras but you never know 

Yep! Tried this, changed the 2016 coin battery for a new one, taken them in and out and left them out for 30 minutes, as suggested on various forum sites dedicated to these problems all to no avail.

Also, the Err 99 message is not there until after the shutter release has been pressed. When the mechanism is observed working the mirror flips up and back but the shutter curtain does not move. I have also tried this with the mirror up and the shutter set to Bulb in Manual and again the curtain does not move. To my mind that tends to suggest the spirit (mirror etc) is willing but the flesh (shutter) is weak. I have also tried operating the camera in Live View mode through the computer with exactly the same results.

One thing which happened this afternoon, just before I am writing this, is that Canon responded by telephone to my complaint to them about it. I had maintained the camera, despite it's age, is in fact, in terms of it's usage, still quite young as the shutter count is merely 20,382 which is 20% of the projected shutter life. I said this showed the item is not fit for purpose if it cannot achieve it's expected life cycle. This, of course, was tongue in cheek but if have found the not fit for purpose suggestion usually stirs even the most soundly sleeping dog into action and it did. A very peasant guy rang and we had a good chat - luckily I was in a good mood, and he was attempting to get me to go through the witchcraft as I call it yet again as he said the Err 99 is a general error and not necessarily related to the shutter so it could well be anything. He added in one more bit of voodoo, switching off the Sensor Cleaning. I pointed out to him that I had done as I said I would and sent the camera to an authorised repair company in yesterday's post. As the 40D is obsolete Canon do not maintain a spares inventory. We will have now to see what the outcome is and I have promised to let him know.

I will also keep this forum informed as it appears Error 99 is something which can strike anyone at anytime.

On 11/04/2017 at 18:31, Clicker said:

that sounds like a good idea from where I am standing Kc... not that i would be attempting to repair it myself  but if you have some prior experience .. it could turn out to be a profitable way of  getting a bonus once you've bought the s/h replacement body  to   ensure  you have a working camera ... Good luck with that  ... Keep us updated ...

After due consideration I have decided to postpone the sorting out of the 40D body. I still have the 1000D which produces the same quality of images and is much lighter. We are going to Toronto and Niagara at the end of July and the Chief Accountant is being rather tight with the spare cash until then as it is her life's wish to go visit where her parents used to live and their firstborn in buried. I have a Kodak DX6490 which has a 10x zoom Schneider Kreuznach lens so that can play second fiddle and my daughter, who we are going with, has a 100D as well.

So far I have tried all of the ideas I can find suggested and it certainly looks like a duff shutter as the curtain is down very firmly over the sensor and not moving when the release is pressed or when controlled by a computer. I even resorted to Voodoo type stuff, like banging it on the desk and dropping it, just in case that released the jam without success. It is not working. Although the camera body is a few years old it is rather disconcerting for the shutter to pack up when having used only about 30% of it's projected life. It tends to suggest the shutter life projection of Canon is not to be trusted as they say 100,000 unless of course it is an average when anything is possible. I think I would be a bit more pissed off if I had bought this camera new, paying £800 or so and found it would only run for a third of the projected life. Me and Canon would have been exchanging less than polite emails by now with me questioning it's fitness for purpose.

At a loose end for an hour or two so I played about with this idea and came up with this

We were out around Roche Abbey, near Maltby the other evening in the sunshine and the sun was streaming into the ruins giving the idea of a light shining in the sanctuary so I lowered the saturation of the colours on the front layer mask and increased the saturation on the background layer then revealed to enhanced colours on the foreground just in the lighted window.

That latest on this is I can get a replacement shutter for £40 from a UK source and for them to supply and fit it is £130 + p&p. I can also get a S/H replacement body with a shutter count of 5.5K for £146 + p&p with a 12 months warranty from a reputable UK company.

I am thinking I am going for the replacement Body and then as a project take the old one to bits and eventually get the shutter and replace that when there is nothing much to do. It will be an interesting little job I think. (I have repaired damaged cameras before.)

Latest is I have tried the contacts cleaning and still no joy. I have also tried, as was suggested in one internet post, using a soft brush to gently persuade the shutter to work, again with no success, it is staying firmly closed. There is no way it is going to Canon as their charge for repairing it will be rather high and although that would give me a virtually new 40D it is much more than I can get a S/H replacement for. What is concerning me though is I know this one has only somewhere in the region of 20K shutter operations which is about 20% of the shutter life Canon are suggesting, so that does tend to make me very cautious about a replacement is there  is a possibility of this problem rearing its head so soon in the life of one.

Thanks for the interest.

On 29/03/2017 at 18:10, fuzzyedges said:

This is the google for the 99 error

http://improvephotography.com/10372/error-99-canon-camera-fix-repair/

 

I found that one fuzzyedges and tried it, with the exception of the pencil rubber trick, which as a long time IT manager I have used many times in the past on all sorts of contacts. I didn't have one to hand on holiday and since coming back have not really been able or have had the time. Now getting back to normal so I will give it a try.

I do still have my 1000d though and the lenses all work very well on that one, it just a nuisance having to keep swapping between them as I use one with the 50mm prime or short zoom and the other with the 300 zoom, usually the 40D as the balance is better. The lack of the 6fps burst mode is very noticeable as well. I had been thinking about getting a S/H 5D but I think that will now have to wait and I will get a replacement 40D instead.

On 29/03/2017 at 17:56, Clicker said:

Sounds  a bit obvious but I presume you have tried a different lens.. ...

I tried all of the common bits of Voodoo Clicker, it was fine the first time the error message popped up when I switched off and back on again then when it appeared the next day that didn't work. I looked it up and then changed the battery, and the button cell, put on two different lenses, trying it again at each alteration. Still Error 99. I have not had chance to get to grips with it yet but I am aiming to see is the shutter curtain has jammed and can be gently coaxed back to operation. There are some reasonable replacements on offer as well so I will most likely do that.

Interesting idea. I had no idea what to do with his image until you suggested inverting it.

My much loved Canon EOS 40D is now showing the Error99 message whenever I press the shutter release. I started yesterday afternoon but went away after I switched it off and back again. It came up again today after the 3rd shot and now is permanent. I had tried the Battery out, switch off and wait routing and also changed both the button battery and the main battery but to no avail. It is not lens or card related. I expect this is a case of recycling it and perhaps replacing it secondhand. I understand this error code could related to almost anything but it the first time I have seen it. It could indicate a shutter problem but I would have expected more than 20K activations without problems. Any comments or suggestions, practical would be appreciated.

There is an old Neil Young song called "Everybody Knows this is Nowhere". Sums up your photo

 I couldn't agree with you more David and as the theme is Negative Space it struck me as being as near a perfect fit as anything else. Mind you dear old Doris was anything but nothing. (Who's Neil Young?)

From a couple of weeks ago when in Norfolk. Storm Doris approaching so everywhere cleared, or got blown away, Not much to see.

Pet

From the Sheffield Botanical Garden

This is one I wouldn't know how do again, it short of happened, I wanted a shot of the footplate of this locomotive, Dinmore Castle, 7820, patiently waiting at Kingswear platform to take the evening train back to Painton. The camera was set to burst mode which is often do as my lenses do not have stabilisation and so there were 2 shots and this was the first. The second was exactly what I was looking for, a clear shot of the controls and the open fire box.

On 01/03/2017 at 20:07, sr1867 said:

? can I disqualify kcbrecks. Not because they have uploaded 2 pictures its purely a Sheffield/Rotherham thing

Just kidding both my good lady Wife (just in case she reads this) & My Mum are from the Metropolitan Borough.

My real question is does kcbrecks need to delete one of their pictures?

When I looked at the image I posted I thought it might result in a number of questions as what the heck it was about so I thought the second one would give and explanations. Now removed.

Good whisky has to start somewhere and where better than the Mash Tun at Bruichladdich Distillery, Islay.

Islay is a great place to visit, especially if you are a Malt Whisky lover.