Question about Canon Elan 7 35mm camera.

[markhamil94]

Hey guys,

Just bought this camera and cannot for the life of me figure out why it's not taking shots, sometimes. It does take photos sometimes and advances the film, but most of the time, when I press the shutter button, you can hear the sound of the shutter, but it doesn't take a photo. It almost sounds like it opens the shutter and stays there. If you press the shutter button again, it closes. O basically it sounds like it's in "bulb" shutter speed, but it's not. The film does not advance either when that happens. When this happens the battery sign flashes on the little display screen as if it's low, but I have brand new batteries. TIA!

[Waddizzle]

Almost sounds like the camera is in mirror lockup mode, which would typically be used with a remote shutter button.  The idea is to minimize vibrations from mirror slap, as well as your hand touching the camera to press the shutter.

[EDIT]. The remote shutter button is pressed once to raise the mirror, but no photo is captured.  When the remote shutter button is pressed a second time, the shutter is fired to take a photo, and the mirror drops back to its' rest position.

[MikeSowsun]

Even with Mirror Lockup, the camera should take the photo and advance the film. 

A flashing battery symbol is an error code. I strongly suspect your camera is having some operational issues and is in need of repair.

It might be the lens and not the camera that is causing the error. What lens are you using? Do you have another lens you can try using?  If not, take the lens off and try shooting in Manual mode. If it works properly, it is a lens fault, not the camera. 

[ebiggs1]

I doubt it is mirror lock up. It isn't lens sensitive either.  You might try a new battery and charger.  A weak under charged battery can cause that.

Otherwise, I am afraid it is broken and not a good candidate for repair.  Find another one if you still want to use one.

[MikeSowsun]

I recently got an old Sigma 70-210 AF lens as part of a camera deal, and I tried it on my EOS Elan 7. It behaves exactly the same way as your camera does when ever the aperture  is not set to wide open. This is a very common problem with older 3rd party lenses when used with newer digital cameras. 

This lens works fine on all my other film cameras. There must be something about the EOS 7 that along with all DSLRs, makes them incompatible with old film era 3rd party lenses.

If you are not using a 3rd party lens, it could also be a lens error caused by a faulty ribbon cable or aperture control in the Canon lens which will also cause similar problems.