Canon t3i

[shutterbug5]

My camera is only a couple of months old.  I have taken hundreds of pictures with it and I usually shoot on shutter priority setting.  I took my camera to a wildlife park yesterday.  It was clear, sunny, warm, no clouds.  At least half of the pictures were blurry. I expect a few but that many? And 6 times the camera took black pictures just like I was trying to shoot at night with no flash. The SDHC card is probably a couple of months old. I format it usually after each use.  The battery was fully charged.  Any ideas? Do you think my camera is getting ready to break? Thank you.

[cale_kat]

You need to have enough light and the iso to match if you are going to get properly exposed images. Chance are, your shutter priority was set to 1/500 or 1/1000, as would be appropriate for shooting on a well lit day, outdoors in the open at a ballgame. Take that same setting into shady areas and wooded trails and your camera now needs to open the lens increasingly wide to compensate for the lack of light reaching the sensor. If your lens has a maximum aperature of f3.5 you might be treating it to 1/8th of the light necessary to properly expose the picture. The problem is compounded  if you keep the iso manually set on low (below 400).

One the other hand... I might be totally wrong. Just thinking that it probably has nothing to do with the camera. It being new and all.

[shutterbug5]

Thanks for the reply.  The pictures were not in the shade. What about the lens going bad? Thanks!

[cale_kat]

It's not that tough to check the lens. Just shoot some more. 

[ScottyP]

What lens is it?

Any chance you accidentally flipped it from Autofocus to Manual Focus?

What shutter speed were the blurry ones? The black ones?

[shutterbug5]

I had the shutter speed set to 1/500 for all of them. Never had a camera take totally black pictures on a sunny day! I have taken some blurry pictures but never this many. I have been taking lots of pictures for years.  I took the camera out today and took some more pictures just around in the country.  I was extra careful and conscious about everything. No black ones but everything is blurred. Thanks.

[ebiggs1]

Did you happen to check the pictures on the LCD as you took them?  Isn't it surprising you didn't notice a totally black picture until you got home? 

OK, for now, you must set the camera back to factory defaults. Remove all batteries for several hours. Make sure you have good fully charged batteries. Clean the lens contacts and the camera contacts with a small amount of denatured alcohol on a Q-tip.

Set the camera to fully automatic and the lens to AF. Go outside on a bright lite day and try it again.

[shutterbug5]

Thank you for your replies.  The switch on the lens is still on autofocus.  Of course I noticed the pictures were black as soon as I took them. I was just wondering if anyone knew why there were so many in one day since I have never had a camera do this before.  I know aperture affects the picture and how much of the picture is in focus but I am saying nothing was in focus.  I can't post an out of focus picture because I deleted all of them before I thought about this forum. Shutter speed was 1/500, aperture ranged from 6.3 - 10, ISO was 100. It was a bright sunny day and the animals were out in the sunshine. Thanks. Beginning to sound like a chance happening and I will have to wait and see if it ever happens again to see where to go from there. Thank you.

[ebiggs1]

OK under those conditions you just specified, your lens had to be set or stuck in the minumin focus distance. That would explain completely OFF pictures. The black extremely under exposed is still a mystery.

[shutterbug5]

Thanks for all the comments!