Inherited a Rebel XTi

[lonestar311]

My cousin passed and left me his Rebel XTi. Not being familiar with Canons, I'm plowing through the manual trying to learn the camera and, thus far, without fail I am unable to get things to happen as advertised. Mostly, anything that has to do with a half-shutter depression.

The manual says a half shutter will set a condition (focus...) and pressing the shutter the rest of the way will take the picture. Uh, half press on the shutter and everything goes black with what sounds like a normal SLR mirror lock. Further depression does nothing. I have to release the shutter and press it again to take the picture, all the while hoping I haven't moved in the slightest.

Any routine that says to fully depress the shutter release to take the picture results in the same blackout requiring a second depression.

Is this thing broke or is there something I don't understand? I'm not new to SLRs, just those with electronics trying to take over control of the camera. Any ideas?

[jrhoffman75]

Sorry for your loss.

Sounds like maybe Mirror Lockup is enabled (page 95 of manual).

Go to page 100 and follow instructions to reset camera to default. Then it will be easier to determine if this are functioning OK or not.

[TTMartin · Accepted solution]

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@lonestar311 wrote:

My cousin passed and left me his Rebel XTi. Not being familiar with Canons, I'm plowing through the manual trying to learn the camera and, thus far, without fail I am unable to get things to happen as advertised. Mostly, anything that has to do with a half-shutter depression.

The manual says a half shutter will set a condition (focus...) and pressing the shutter the rest of the way will take the picture. Uh, half press on the shutter and everything goes black with what sounds like a normal SLR mirror lock. Further depression does nothing. I have to release the shutter and press it again to take the picture, all the while hoping I haven't moved in the slightest.

Any routine that says to fully depress the shutter release to take the picture results in the same blackout requiring a second depression.

Is this thing broke or is there something I don't understand? I'm not new to SLRs, just those with electronics trying to take over control of the camera. Any ideas?

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First thing, put the camera in P mode.

Go to the 'Menu', go to the 5th tab (Tools2) go down to Clear Settings and choose both 'Clear all camera settings' and 'Clear all custom functions'

Make sure the lens cap is off and the lens is set to AF.

Now the camera should behave like the manual says it should. 

[TTMartin]

Not related to your issue, but, you might want to look into the 400plus firmware for your XTi.

It adds some nice capabilities to the camera. 400plus is a 3rd party firmware add on, so it is neither endorsed or supported by Canon. The 400plus project eventually involved into Magic Lantern firmware add on which is for newer cameras.

I still use my XT despite having larger newer cameras (6D and 7D) . it is a great little camera. 

https://github.com/400plus

[TCampbell]

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@TTMartin wrote:

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@lonestar311 wrote:

My cousin passed and left me his Rebel XTi. Not being familiar with Canons, I'm plowing through the manual trying to learn the camera and, thus far, without fail I am unable to get things to happen as advertised. Mostly, anything that has to do with a half-shutter depression.

The manual says a half shutter will set a condition (focus...) and pressing the shutter the rest of the way will take the picture. Uh, half press on the shutter and everything goes black with what sounds like a normal SLR mirror lock. Further depression does nothing. I have to release the shutter and press it again to take the picture, all the while hoping I haven't moved in the slightest.

Any routine that says to fully depress the shutter release to take the picture results in the same blackout requiring a second depression.

Is this thing broke or is there something I don't understand? I'm not new to SLRs, just those with electronics trying to take over control of the camera. Any ideas?

---

First thing, put the camera in P mode.

Go to the 'Menu', go to the 5th tab (Tools2) go down to Clear Settings and choose both 'Clear all camera settings' and 'Clear all custom functions'

Make sure the lens cap is off and the lens is set to AF.

Now the camera should behave like the manual says it should. 

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^^ This

Sorry to hear about your cousin.

Many behaviors in the camera can be modified/customized.  Since you inherited a camera, there's no easy way for you to know what has been customzied vs. what behaviors are still configured via factory defaults.  Resetting the camera settings and custom functions gets you back to factory default behaviors.

[lonestar311]

Thanks, all. It was indeed the Mirror Lockup.

I had already located the "Clear settings" in Tools2 and reset the camera settings. I had not reset the camera functions.  As it happens, I had looked at the Custom Functions and noticed some were other than default. I was trying to sort them out to see what changes my cousin may have been using; it was a little insight into his camera usage.

Again, thanks to all.