5D Mirror detaches - Help?

The same thing happened to me.

I live in Ghana, so needless to say, there’s no Canon service center nearby. I badly needed the camera, so I put the mirror back in with superglue. It actually held several months without any problem – focusing was still accurate.

A few months later, during a trip to Canada, I brought the camera to Canon, after it had spent two weeks there, they told me my “repair” looked good, and that they didn’t want to touch it. I was a bit surprised, but took the camera and came back to Ghana. On my first job, the mirror fell off again…. I superglued it back. This time again it held for nearly 6 months without affecting anything.

On a subsequent trip to Canada I went back to Canon, where I was finally told that a service note had come out about the glue holding the mirror. Apparently, there had been a few occurences of this problem in Southeast Asia, and had something to do with hot and humid climate – conditions that definitely match the weather in Accra, and many parts of Brazil. They said they’d fix it for free and ended up replacing the entire mirror box and shutter free of charge.

Now I always carry a tube of superglue eveywhere…

Boa sorte!

Thx Olivier.

Nice one Olivier. I always have the same anxieties myself after reading a thread on how the 5D’s mirror broke into half after subsequent hard use. Hence, I never use the motordrive of the camera. Shooting in single shots works for me.

Mine just fell off yesterday, when walking through and taking photos at the huge PAD (People’s Alliance for Democracy) demonstration outside of my office (this is in Bangkok, where I’m based now).

I’ve taken approximately 10,000 frames so far. From a quick Google search, for those also experiencing problems, it seems that the mirror falls off around 10,000 frames.

Unfortunately, I think the Canon Service Center here in Bangkok is closed on the weekend – I’ve called them several times Friday evening and today (Saturday) during the day, but there is no answer. The Canon Thailand website is quite useless with no mention on the business times for their service center. I’ll have to go early in on Monday morning to drop off my gear.

Does anyone know if Canon Professional Services operates in Thailand (or in Asia)?

I’ve had problems with the Canon service center in Toronto (Mississauga) – got an older lens cleaned (28-135 IS), and soon after getting it back, one of the internal screws fell away and managed to get caught between the internal lenses and scratched the insides of the lens.

Happened to me in Vietnam, I think it was the humidity. I brought it to a tiny camera repair shop, not certified by Canon or anything, and it works fine. They basically just glued it back on for a few bucks.
Best of luck,
J

Superglue works always !

just happened to me today in the middle of a jungle area in Bolivia. Thank god I have a second body… but I am really pissed off! I don’t want to have to superglue my freaking camera….

So I never got back to this post. But for all here involved here goes what happened to me. I went to Cannon in Brazil, Sao Paulo and explained to them what many of you here have described. At first instance they were unwilling to help. I pressured them into acknowledging that Canon in Asia had recognized the problem, so they should too. Of course they tried to avoid this responsibility claiming they are an independent offices, to which I pressured that you are Canon’s representative and cannot set differences for customers in one part of the world when the camera has been purchased with an international warranty, even if now it is expired. I further pressured them to know if they had had any similar situations in Brazil, to which they replied with difficulty of five cases. Of course at that moment I knew I had won the argument but they insisted so I then pressured on with this superglue dilemma and said, it will take you five minutes to do what I can do in a non-professional manner so if your not going to help me have the decency to tell what glue to use and where to put in the mirror after having purchased this camera for thousands of dollars. At that point the manager succumbed and did it for free. Of course she begged me not to tell any other photographers.

Get your rights people!

An update from me here. I found out that there is a Canon repair centre in MBK (Mah Boon Krong) shopping centre, on the 5th floor. The always helpful clerks at PhotoFile guided me there, of course.

Upon dropping it off there, Canon agreed to fix the mirror for free, even though my warranty is a North America (and probably over).

I asked the repair technician about the circumstances I’ve read on the web, and he nodded in agreement: early production bodies, operating in humid climates, failing around after 10,000 frames.

Anyhow, got the rest of my gear (several lenses and another body) cleaned. Body+lens general cleaning is 535 THB (that’s about $15 USD). However, the service centre staff have never heard of Canon Professional Services – which is too bad.