t3 won't take pictures/focus

[roonie21]

I have a Rebel t3 and it has worked great for about 5 months or so. Today I took it out to take a picture (after only a week in the case), and it wouldn't take the picture. It will capture a picture if I am in MF, but everything is blurry, even when I look through the viewfinder.

I tried taking the battery and SD card out and inserting them back in, taking off the lens and putting it back on, adjusting the focus settings...nothing is working. Nothing was changed on the camera from last time to this time and it doesn't matter where I try to take a picture-it still won't work.

[Mykolas]

Hi roonie21!

Thank you for posting.  I understand your EOS Rebel T3 will not take a picture or autofocus.

If the camera is unable to achieve a focus lock on the AF mode, it will not let the picture be taken.  This is why you are able to shoot when it is in the MF mode. 

I recommend that you try removing the lens and cleaning the electrical contacts on the lens and camera with a soft microfiber cleaning cloth.  This will improve the connection between them.

If the camera still does not let a picture be taken, try using a different lens.  This will help rule out either the camera or the lens as the cause.  If the camera does focus and let a picture be taken with the alternate lens, your original lens will need to be repaired.  If not, your camera will need to be repaired.

To start the repair process, you'll need to complete a Repair Request on our website.

This didn't answer your question or issue? Find more help at Contact Us.

[CoriG82]

I am having this same problem.  I have read all of the responses below.  I don't have another lens to try, but I did try and clean this one and I'm still having the problem.  I tried hitting the AF point selection like someone pointed out below.  When I do all of the points are red, but a couple of the red dots are blurry (towards the bottom). Does that mean something is wrong with the lens or that's normal ? 

[jrhoffman75]

The lens has nothing to do with the focus points. You can remove the lens, point camera towards light and press the focus point selection button. 

If the lower focus focus points are fuzzy and the upper aren't maybe the focusing screen is loose. 

[Waddizzle]

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@CoriG82 wrote:

I am having this same problem.  I have read all of the responses below.  I don't have another lens to try, but I did try and clean this one and I'm still having the problem.  I tried hitting the AF point selection like someone pointed out below.  When I do all of the points are red, but a couple of the red dots are blurry (towards the bottom). Does that mean something is wrong with the lens or that's normal ? 

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If you switch your lens [which lens?] to MF, can it take a picture?

[ScottyP]

Hi Roonie

It could be too dark for the camera to autofocus, or it could be you are trying to focus on something too close up for the lens to work.

Before getting more serious try shooting something far away and in bright light or daylight. Sometimes it is the simple thing.

[edykins]

I know this question is old, but I found it while having the exact same problem, so I decided to post what I did to fix my camera. The reason mine was doing this is that the auto focus was set to only focus in on the right side of the frame. I had forgotten that I had messed around with the settings the last time I had used it. To fix it, I had to adjust the auto focus point selector. You press this button and then turn the little wheel that adjusts the diopter left or right so that all of the little red lights show up while looking through the view finder. The auto focus point selector button looks like this:

Hopefully this helps. It may be that the settings were accidentally adjusted and you didn't realize it.

[TCampbell]

The AF sensors must be able to lock onto something with "contrast" in order to focus.  I'll use an analogy.

Suppose you take a photo of a flower, print it, then cut it into two halves.  Now mis-align the two halves.  It's obvious to someone looking at the image that the two halves are mis-aligned and you would be able to slide them together until the left and right sides match up.  

That's basically how the "phase detect" AF sensor is working.  Light goes through a prism to split the beam and mis-align it so that the image is out of phase.  It determines how far out of phase the two parts of the image sample are and can correct for it by re-focusing the lens.

BUT... if you point the camera with no contrast, it's a different story.

Suppose you take a photo of plain blue sky, print it, and cut that image into two halves.  By using JUST the image (ignore the fact that the print is paper and we can see that the sides don't line up) can you tell that one part of the sky does not match up with the other part of the sky?  No?  The camera can't figure it out either.

Any "active" AF point (you can put the camera into a mode to select a specific AF point or select a mode that allows it to use all the AF points) needs to be able to find something with "contrast" and it also needs to have enough light to achieve focus.  A camera will struggle in poor lighting.

[jtnlips89]

Thank you so much for this!! Forgot I changed mine a couple months back and was going crazy wondering why I couldn't stay focused to get the picture I was wanting! 🙂

[ebiggs1]

If it is as you stated in your post, either the camera or the lens is faulty.  However, it is still under warranty if it is just 5 months old.

I know you stated you didn't change anything but I would still try to "Clear All Settings" in the Menu tab.  You don't know how many people think there is someting worng with their camera and didn't realize they just didn't set it correctly.

Actually I would go over everything and I doubt the cleaning of the contacts will make any difference.  Unless you have reason to think so and didin't mention it.