T1i F00 and Autofocus Not Working

[thelackof]

My camera has been fully functional since buying it when the T1i came out.

About 3 days ago, I decided that my lens REALLY needed a cleaning.

Like my glasses, solutions were just smearing the oils around, so I took my lens to the sink with soap.

I was not as careful as I should have been, as I did not believe that just a little water would getinside of the lens through areas that seemed pretty tight.

I didn't just dowse the lens in water, just put the glass lens itself under some light droplets and soaped up with my finger.

Well, water got inside and caused my camera to be able to take pictures, but would give me : "

Err 01 - Communications between the camera and the lens"

So finally, I did fix this.

I had to let everything dry, leave a fan on it, blow duster inside, etc. It still did not work.

I had to open the lens and I pulled out two wires that looked a little dirty for some reason.

I cleaned the wires, though I did not see the reason for why that would really be the problem, and vwallah, it worked again.

My problem now, my auto focus, since cleaning those wires, does NOT work.

I am also seeing on my screen, F00, instead of F4, etc or whatever it is (I am still no camera expert)

It is the second number between ISO and the first number like 1/50

The other wires are not really built to grab and pull out, so I was trying to wait for this step, but if the autofocus was working before hand, then it should still work now.

Any ideas?

[jrhoffman75]

Head to the store and buy a new lens.

[thelackof]

That sounds like the lazy way out.

[thelackof]

Also wasteful and polluting.

[RobertTheFat]

---

@thelackof wrote:

That sounds like the lazy way out.

Also wasteful and polluting.

---

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you've already tried the alternative.

[thelackof]

Wait wait wait... why is this forum even around?

No technicians, no experts? No suggestions, no advice?

May as well not even be a forum.

This category may as well be removed.

[jazzman1]

---

@thelackof wrote:

Wait wait wait... why is this forum even around?

No technicians, no experts? No suggestions, no advice?

May as well not even be a forum.

This category may as well be removed.

---

I'm sorry, no offense meant, but in light of what you had already done to your lens, the suggestions you got are right on.  You should have came here and asked for help before you gave your lens a bath.  The Regulars here really go the extra 9 yards trying to help peeps like you.  Nobody here gets paid and everyone are here, sincerely, trying to help.

If you want a Pro Tech, call Canon Support.

[TCampbell]

You have destroyed your lens electronics.  The lens is not sealed (not even a little).  

If you remove a lens from the body and power up the camera, it'll display "F00" instead of a valid focal ratio because it cannot communicate with a lens.  This is basically telling us that the electronics in the lens are dead (and of course your auto-focus doesn't work either.)

Under no circumstances should you ever run water over any part of the camera or lens.  It is simply not the correct way to clean your gear.

You can wipe things clean with a microfiber cleaning cloth (make sure it is actually a clean cloth).  You can clean the glass with a microfiber cleaning cloth.  There are coatings on the glass and you don't want to remove them.  If a dry microfiber cleaning cloth isn't able to remove smudes on its own, you can use a "LensPen" and/or the most amount of water you should use is the fog you can create by breathing on it.... and that is all.

It's difficult to remove moisture from the inside once it gets inside.  You can put the lens into a sealed bag with large desiccant packs.  The desiccant will dry the air which will force any moisture inside the lens to evaporate.  You'll need to leave the lens in the sealed bag with the desiccant for several days.  That *might* bring your lens back -- no guarantees.

Otherwise... you'll have to get a replacement lens.  Frankly, the new 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 STM lens is much better than the original kit lens anyway... so I might just chalk this up to a learning lesson and use it as an excuse to upgrade.

[thelackof]

Right on and thank you.

I was interested in removing the remaining wires to further clean but I am waiting to find a good way to pad some tweezers before doing so.

I will be looking into this new lens anyway.

Is there a lens that exists which has a wider focus range?

The lens with problems, I always felt it had a very central and possible to the side focus, but everything would gradually blur out from there unless I manually focused otherwise... still.. the focus was too small for my liking.

[jrhoffman75]

Do you mean zoom range? The 18-135 STM lens is a good all around lens for a crop sensor camera.