SL3 takes pictures slightly rotated

[dheldb]

I’m writing form Chile. I bought an EOS REBEL SL3 camera and noticed that the pictures were taken slightly counterclockwise rotated when using the autofocus points to define the horizontal level at the viewfinder. I went to the local technical service, where they confirmed the problem and replaced the camera with a new one, but that new camera has the same problem. After discussing with the technical service, I realized that there isn’t more they can do and I accepted the replacement.

Did someone else face the same problem? The way to find this out is e. g. to take a picture at the see, or a lake, and using the autofocus points at the viewfinder to set the see level horizontal, take the picture and then check the result at the screen or download the picture to your computer and check it there. The rotation is less than 1°. For pictures at places where there isn’t important to have the horizon horizontal, this isn’t a problem, but when you take a picture to the see, and the see horizon appears slightly rotated, this is somehow annoying. Now, every time I take a picture at the see, I have to calculate how much I have to rotate the camera to compensate this situation.

Just as reference, I have had other Canon reflex cameras, but with none of these I faced this situation.

According to my experience, considering that both SL3 cameras I checked have the same problem, it seems to be a manufacturing problem.

Thank you for your comments.

[stevet1]

dheldb,

Have you tried turning on your grid lines rather than depending 9n your autofocus points?

In your menu settings, it's in the "wrench" menu, page 4.

Steve Thomas

[deebatman316]

Can you please post a few example pictures in the forum so forum members can better assist you.

[dheldb]

Thank you Steve. Yes, I tried. When using the grid lines at the camera screen and I take the picture in that way, the problem doesn't happen. Moreover, if I use a tripod and set the horizon horizontal with the auto focus points at the viewfinder, and then switch to the screen with the grid shown, not having taken the picture, it can be seen there that the image is slighly rotated.

[stevet1]

dhelb,

Perhaps your autofocus points are slightly offset, and trying to level your shots using those gives you a picture that is slightly rotated.

Maybe you could eliminate those, or just not display them, and just use your grid lines.

Steve Thomas

[dheldb]

Thank you Demetrius. I don't have now pictures with the see horizons slighly rotated (once I detected the problem, I took the pictures trying to compensate this problem by slightly rotate the camera). But now I did a test at my home, using a tripod and a table edge as horizontal horizon. It is not a professional test, but I tried to do my best to show the real problem. In that picture, the table edge shoud be horizontal (I used the autofocus points at the viewfinder to set it horizontal). To see the picture rotation, I drawn a thiny red line on the picture that shows the horizontal level. There it can be seen that the table edge is slighly counterclockwise rotated compared with the horizontal red line.

[jrhoffman75]

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@dheldb wrote:

Thank you Demetrius. I don't have now pictures with the see horizons slighly rotated (once I detected the problem, I took the pictures trying to compensate this problem by slightly rotate the camera). But now I did a test at my home, using a tripod and a table edge as horizontal horizon. It is not a professional test, but I tried to do my best to show the real problem. In that picture, the table edge shoud be horizontal (I used the autofocus points at the viewfinder to set it horizontal). To see the picture rotation, I drawn a thiny red line on the picture that shows the horizontal level. There it can be seen that the table edge is slighly counterclockwise rotated compared with the horizontal red line.

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It's not surprising to me that this is happening. I think its a matter of manufacturing tolerances.

Shrink the picture you posted down to the size of your camera viewfinder and the little gap at the left of the image will be almost, if not completely, unnoticeable.

The focusing points that show in the viewfinder are not actual focusing points, they are an LCD overlay. There is a limit to the precision that can be achieved. Even the 1D X Mark III, which has an electronic level in the viewfinder, has a +-1 degree accuracy limit and that is using actual sensors in the camera. I put a protractor on your image and it looks like your deviation is about 3 degrees.

[ebiggs1]

I agree with JRH. Use your eye as a level.

[dheldb]

The autofocus points are rightly aligned with the frame of the image seen through the viewfinder. It rather seems to be a pentamirror alignment problem in relation to the camera sensor.

Thank you Steve

[dheldb]

Thank you John. Indeed, the rotation is not too much, but enough to notice it at the camera screen when you see there the picture that have been taken through the viewfinder. This is how I found it out.

As I detected the same problem at the 2 pcs. SL3 cameras tested, it seems to be a systematic problem at the manufacturing process. Therefore, I wanted to know if there are other SL3 owners that are facing the same problem. As the rotation is only slight, maybe they haven’t noticed it (it only shows when you take a picture through the viewfinder of a scene that has an horizontal horizons and you align that horizon with the autofocus points there).

This only happens when using the viewfinder to take the picture. If the camera screen is used to take the picture, no rotation happens. Therefore, it seems to be a pentamirror alignment problem in relation to the camera sensor.

The rotation is small, but it seems to me to be beyond a reasonable acceptable tolerance, but I don’t know what Canon think about this. This SL3 is my fourth Canon reflex camera, and with none of the first three I have experienced such a problem.

I have been trying to get the contact information of a Cannon person in charge of the camera quality to tell them this situation, but couldn’t. I don’t know if Canon is aware of this problem, and I would like as well to know if they would consider to improve this in the future at the manufacturing process.

I have heard that Canon will stop the manufacturing of the reflex cameras, and I wanted this SL3 to be my last reflex camera before Canon will no longer provide same. But I would like to have it without that rotation problem, that is somehow annoying when taking pictures at the see and try to get the horizon horizontal using the viewfinder, and honestly, it is as well disappointing considering the very good quality experience I have had with the previous Cannon products I have purchased. I don’t know if there is something more I can do regarding this matter.