Canon EOS 3 not booting up

[Vinny1]

I am opening this thread on behalf of my gf. She owns a Canon EOS 3 which worked fine until a few days ago. She put in the battery and the screen lit up as shown in the picture attached. We have tried another set of battery which came up with the same screen. Checked the battery with a voltmeter which looked OK to me. I looked up what the empty square and rectangle meant online and it all pointed towards a faulty battery. I proceeded to clean the battery contacts with isopropyl alcohol but no luck. We are getting new batteries to try but the lack of error code makes it hard to diagnose. We will greatly appreciate the help if anyone knows what might be going on. The film is still rolled out inside the camera. Just FYI.

[Vinny1]

We will try that as a next step.

[deebatman316 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Vinny1 I have linked the manual to the camera in my post. Check pages 25 and 28 and continue I think this is what may be going on. The film may be already rewound back into the canister but be careful. EOS 3 Manual 

[MikeSowsun · Accepted solution]

---

@Vinny1 wrote:

With the battery in, and in the ON position the film cannister blinks and in the OFF position, the blinking stops. When the battery is taken off, that icon disappears. 

---

That's good news.  That is exactly how the camera behaves when the roll has finished rewinding.  Just open the back and I think you will find the roll has finished and rewound itself. 

Even if you had only taken 18 photos,  an auto rewind can happen if the film offers too much friction while being pulled out of the canister.   This can happen old film which can become brittle and causes extra resistance. 

[Vinny1]

@deebatman316 @MikeSowsun @wq9nsc, you guys were right. We waited for nightfall and got into a closet and the film had indeed rewinded itself. We took it out and the camera came back alive. Thank you all for figuring this out!! 

[MikeSowsun]

---

@Vinny1 wrote:

@deebatman316 @MikeSowsun @wq9nsc, you guys were right. We waited for nightfall and got into a closet and the film had indeed rewinded itself. We took it out and the camera came back alive. Thank you all for figuring this out!! 

---

Do you still think it rewound after only 18 exposures?  What kind of film were you using?  Was it 24 or 36 exposure?  Was it old stock, or maybe poor quality? That may have caused it to rewind early. 

[Vinny1]

It was a Kodak Portra 400 film with 36 exposures and bought within the last 6 months, so relatively new. We were not expecting it to rewind after 18 frames so weren't paying attention to it. I still don't know what could have triggered the rewind. 

[deebatman316]

@Vinny1 the camera has a button for mid roll rewind. You can press that button to rewind the film and switch it out. Without exposing the film to light.

[Vinny1]

Good to know. Thank you for the heads up. I am pretty sure we will be using that sometime in the future.