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1Dx does a self-power down and dumps photos

TEZ72
Contributor

I have a 1Dx and recently after shooting a 40 frame burst the camera powered itself down before it wrote the directory to the CF card. All photos were lost. What's more is the camera cannot be powered back up until the battery is reseated. This is an intermittant problem, but serious enough because I cannot repeat event I am covering. I am wondering if anyone has an idea as to why this is happening?   Thank you.

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

With what your camera did, I would suspect the battery as a possible cause.  Shooting sustained bursts creates the maximum current draw that the battery sees in operation and if its voltage drops below a critical level during the burst then the behavior of the digital electronics circuitry is subject to malfunction/"glitch".  Heat can be a factor because battery capability is reduced both under high heat and cold and part of the design of the 1DX and its weather sealing is to dump heat into the battery compartment area.

 

The one time I have had an issue with a 1 series locking up was when I needed new battery packs for my 1D Mark II and the Canon packs were out of stock at B&H and Adorama so I bought a pair of aftermarket packs.  They seemed to perform well UNTIL I shot the first sustained burst at a sports event and the camera locked up and required battery removal and reinsertion to work.  Removing the battery removes power causing a hard reset of the control circuitry, that is why you needed to remove and reinsert your battery to return the camera to function.  Just turning the power switch off doesn't remove power from the battery to the equipment, unlike older gear it doesn't actually break the path to the battery but just instructs the camera control circuits to go into a sleep mode deeper than the normal standby mode but power is still available to parts of the control circuitry of the camera.  Current draw in this mode is so low that the battery charge life isn't significantly reduced when sitting for a few days or weeks in an unused camera but for long-term storage you don't want the pack in the camera.

 

Pretty much any issue that causes the control circuits to behave in an abnormal fashion will be reset by removing and reinstalling the battery pack so doing so doesn't really provide any additional diagnostic information about the failure cause.  But given what happened with your camera body, the odds are quite high that the battery pack is at fault.  Even in a newer pack, if one of the cells that makes up the battery has gotten a little weak then the voltage will suddenly drop during sustained heavy current draw causing camera issues.  The heat probably wasn't the root cause but it was enough to send a sick pack into a range that caused the camera to malfunction.

 

Rodger

EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video

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I look forward to your followup and hope that the problem is resolved.  I often still use my 1DX as the third body at HS football, either with a 24-70 2.8 on well lighted fields for a more versatile setup or with an 85 f1.8 for poorly illuminated fields backing up the 1DX 2 / EF 200 f2 and 1DX 3 / EF 400 f2.8 combination that I use on dark fields.  Even compared to its later siblings, I am very happy with the original 1DX performance in terms of AF tracking and low light image quality.  In use, the biggest difference I notice is in transferring photos because I use the ethernet port for these bodies and the Mark III is extremely fast at file transfer probably hittihg the capability of the high speed ethernet ports on my HP Z Station, the Mark II is a tad slower, and now the 1DX seems rather slow by comparison but I prefer leaving the cards in the camera and it only takes a few minutes for a typical transfer.

 

When I ran into the non-OEM battery issue with my 1D Mark II, the batteries were fully charged and showing all bars.  But what I noticed was during a burst I could see the battery indicator suddenly drop before returning to full charge indication.  The battery display is reading the very low load voltage produced by the pack during normal operation, but a weak cell will cause the voltage to drop significantly under load.  You might try shooting a sustained burst with the camera and pack you were using, preferably in hot conditions, and watch closely to see if the battery level display drops or flickers under sustained current load and if so that would increase your confidence that the battery is truly the issue.

 

Rodger

EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video

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18 REPLIES 18

Thank you for your reply.

 

Your explanation makes a lot of sense. So even with the battery at full charge there could be a current drop? Interesting. The batteries I'm using are about 5 years old. If replacing the battery resolves the problem, it would be the least expensive option that would make the bean counters very happy. I will order two new batteries and on my next big project in late October I'll add a third camera as a backup to my tripod mounted second camera. Although it will be at least a month from now, I'll post the results so that it helps others who may run into this problem.    Thanks again.

Sounds good to me, too. But don't forget to replace the CF cards. Those two things are about all you can do to try and eliminate the issue.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

Thank you for your response. We have a box of factory sealed CF cards so that won't be a problem. 

I look forward to your followup and hope that the problem is resolved.  I often still use my 1DX as the third body at HS football, either with a 24-70 2.8 on well lighted fields for a more versatile setup or with an 85 f1.8 for poorly illuminated fields backing up the 1DX 2 / EF 200 f2 and 1DX 3 / EF 400 f2.8 combination that I use on dark fields.  Even compared to its later siblings, I am very happy with the original 1DX performance in terms of AF tracking and low light image quality.  In use, the biggest difference I notice is in transferring photos because I use the ethernet port for these bodies and the Mark III is extremely fast at file transfer probably hittihg the capability of the high speed ethernet ports on my HP Z Station, the Mark II is a tad slower, and now the 1DX seems rather slow by comparison but I prefer leaving the cards in the camera and it only takes a few minutes for a typical transfer.

 

When I ran into the non-OEM battery issue with my 1D Mark II, the batteries were fully charged and showing all bars.  But what I noticed was during a burst I could see the battery indicator suddenly drop before returning to full charge indication.  The battery display is reading the very low load voltage produced by the pack during normal operation, but a weak cell will cause the voltage to drop significantly under load.  You might try shooting a sustained burst with the camera and pack you were using, preferably in hot conditions, and watch closely to see if the battery level display drops or flickers under sustained current load and if so that would increase your confidence that the battery is truly the issue.

 

Rodger

EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video

I was thinking of performing some tests in my down time.  The camera experiencing the problem is on a tripod and operated by an intervelometer. I'm hand-holding the other camera.The tripod camera completes it's sequence while I'm still shooting, so I don't see the display, but when I do a test I will specifically watch the readout since the photos are just test shots. The Canon tech told me that if there is a temperature issue, a thermometer will appear on the display screen, so I'll keep my eye out for that, too. 

 

These cameras go through the extremes. I used them on a couple of occasionss when I was shooting the aurora in Alaska, so at -48 degrees F, that could have affected the batteries and possibly the CF card. I thought for sure the display screen was going to crack, but it didn't. Camera, lenses (accessories) and tripod worked without a hitch, although it could be coming back to haunt me now. 

You were right, it was the battery! Well done and thank you!!

 

I put the camera through a rugged test today. I shot a consecutive, 5 round salvo of 48 photos per burst using a card with 90 MBs processing speed.  My intention was to burden the system to see if it would shut down. The camera performed like the workhorse it has always been.  However, after the 5th and final burst, I noticed the battery (the one that was in the camera when it powered itself off) was drained a lot more than it normally should have been. 

 

There was a message on the display which I never saw before that said, calibrate the battery next charge. So, I put the battery on the charger and pressed the calibrate button.  Four hours later the calibrating light was still on. I put a different battery in this particular camera and went out and shot another 5 round salvo of 48 images. The performance was spotless and the battery level indicator never moved. 

 

Thanks again for your input!!

You are very welcome and I am glad that you can once again trust this great camera body!

 

I primarily use a 1DX III and a pair of 1DX II bodies for sports but I don't hesitate to continue to use my original 1DX when I need a fourth camera/lens setup for some events.  It is still a premier camera and behaves beautifully.

 

Rodger

EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video

"... if the problem could not be repeated the camera would be returned NTF,..."

 

You can always request a C&C done by Canon. Its general maintenance. They will do an amazing job cleaning and checking out the entire camera even down to meeting all specs. If anything is found to be out of spec they will adjust it. They come back looking brand new. Might be well worth it.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

Thanks for your response.

 

Our cameras do need cleaning and a request to the company has been made. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork!!

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