C100 Mark II scratched EVF.

[sotis_tseles]

Hello everyone, greetings from Greece! I own a C100 Mark2, and recently while cleaning the EVF it got scratched pretty bad (see picture). The coating actually came off. I spoke with the official Canon Service in Greece, but they need to send the camera in Europe, for a cost repair estimate, and it is going to take a long time, about a month. I searched google, but cannot find an aswer to my problem. So I am asking for your help! Is there a way that I can repair it myself? And if there isn't can someone please tell me what would you think the cost estimate will be? I'm just asking for a very GENERAL estimate, like "it would be around xxx euros". 

I am pretty worried. Thank you very much!

[JonKline]

Unfortunately, there is no way to give you a good answer except from Canon. It may be covered as a warranty repair, too.

I know my Canon USA repairs happen in 3-4 business days, so a month may be estimating on the long side.

[Jona1]

Hi John Kline,

Thank you for the reply and your insight.
Can I ask you if you also had a EVF screen issue? If so, can you comment on when and how it happened. How long had you had owned the camera for before it happened?
Kind regards,

Jona

[Jona1]

And finally, In the event that others find themselves is the same unfortunate situation as I, I have found a soulution.
Take a clean soft lens cloth or Qtip and continue to polish the EVF screen until the rest of the luminescent blue coating just rubs off. It should just take a few seconds. Quality.

[Jona1]

Hello,

I have the exact same problem. I don't know how this happened as I am very careful with my equipement and never use any kind of chemical solvents to clean with.

I'm curious to know if others have had the same problem as a result of a manufacturing disign fault?

Has Canon offered any kind of solution? Warranty?

Kind regards.

[sotis_tseles · Accepted solution]

Hello Jona!
There is no way that you can change only the front glass, you need to change the entire Evf. There are only originals, no 3rd brand copies exist. In order to do so, I contacted a shop in Greece that does repairs and they shipped it from some country in Europe and changed it. It was very quick. After the EVF arrived (it was about 2 weeks) they only kept my camera in the shop for 2-3 days and had the Evf changed. The cost was not so high too, around 200 euro. I now clean the EVF very rarely, once every two or three months, with extreme care. I first use a blower (the rocket shaped one), to remove any small particles and then I clean with a soft fabric specially designed for lenses.

[Jona1]

Dear Sotis,
Thank you very much for the kind and insightful reply, I appreciate it.
I guess that this might be a challenge for me to have fixed. I bought the camera in Germany October 2015 and am currently on a project in Asia for the next month and then will return to North America so I guess that I will have contact Canon to see what their suggestion is. My feeling is that this must be some kind of design error/ flaw because, as I mentioned, I take extremely good care of my equipment. Let's see what Canon have to say.
Kind regards 🙂

[sotis_tseles]

I answered quickly because no one answered quickly to me and I want to save you the stress 🙂
It is not a design flaw with YOUR camera, all C100's MK2 have a very thin protective layer that gets damaged extremely easily. Don't use water. If you need to use some liquid buy a specially designed for cleaning lenses. But better avoid it. Have a nice shooting in Asia!

[Jona1]

I understand and appreciate your point. However, in my view this is a design fault because if you use cameras under difficult conditions for documentary film you know that the get dirty. Not cleaning them is not a solution. This reminds me of a similar situation with the Macbook called 'Staingate' where the anti-glare screen coating slowly began to come off promoting Apple to have to fix the problem for free because it was a design fault. Not not clean a dirty evf for fear of damaging it is not a solution for professional equipment. Can you imagine what a producer would say if you told them the shot was ruined because you were not able to view it through a clean evf for fear of damaging it with a gentle cleaning? This is my first camera that this has ever happened to in this way and I've had many.
Im sure Canon will see the value in my position and remedy the situation.

[BananaManFilms]

I had the exact same issue but I use my camera all the time for work and can't afford to send it off.  

Here's my fix:

I removed the rubber around the EVF with a plastic pry bar used for car interiors.  Then there's a then rectangular piece of plastic that holds the glass piece in place, that popped off easily and the scratched glass piece is accessable.  I pulled it out and used the classic scratched CD trick of rubbing toothpaste over the outer surface of the glass with my fingers.  Toothpaste is a mild abrasive and I was simply removing whatever coating was on the glass to begin with and removing the scratches that were in that coating.  Perhaps it was an anti-fog coating which it won't have now but my EVF wasn't usable before so it's an improvement.