view finder went out on my Canon Rebel T3

ctopanga14 · Jun 26, 2012

Hi everyone,

I was just out shooting with my Canon Rebel T3, and the viewfinder suddenly went out. I was shooting with a 55-250 mm lens, and it was like something was blocking the viewfinder. However, when I took off the lens and inspected it, everything looked fine. My friend who is a semi-professional photographer looked at the camera herself and couldn't find anything obviously wrong or any reason for this to happen! The camera will still take pics, but I have to use the screen to see the photo. It also is affecting the auto focus - I can only take photos when it's in manual focus mode.

I'm still learning my way around photography (aka I'm very new at all this), so any advice or expertise would be very appreciated!

prodigy2k7 · Jun 26, 2012

Is the viewfinder completely black or is it just really dark? Does it auto focus at all or just going slowly? When you say you have to use the screen. Do you mean live view?

Robin Usagani · Jun 26, 2012

mirror lock?

ctopanga14 · Jun 26, 2012

Yes, I have to use live view (sorry for being such an amateur!). The screen is almost completely black, but it looks like there are tiny pin pricks in the viewfinder that I can see through - but it will not take a photo if I am not in live view.

ctopanga14 · Jun 26, 2012

Maybe?? I am not sure what this is!

prodigy2k7 · Jun 26, 2012

My viewfinder is really dark when the battery is removed. Obviously you can't use live view with no battery. It just stopped working? While you were shooting? Didn't drop it or anything did ya?

ctopanga14 · Jun 26, 2012

No, we were literally in the middle of taking a picture when it just went black. My friend did say her hand accidentally hit a button (she was using it at the time) so perhaps it is on mirror lock. If anyone could explain this, I'll take a look.

Overread · Jun 26, 2012

Check your camera manual for mirror lockup.

If you've enabled it you will have to press the shutter button twice - once to make the mirror in the camera flick up (viewfinder goes black )and once again to make it take a photo. It should be easy to see if you have this as pressing the shutter twice will then restore the camera to normal and you can easily disable the mode.

Outside of that mode the only other custom I'm aware of that flicks the mirror up permanently is cleaning modes - which clearly if you're shooting with liveview won't be enabled.

It sounds like something might have stuck/broken inside. Sadly if this is the case and its not mirror lockup (or another custom I'm unaware of) then you'll have to send it in for repair/warranty.

xjoewhitex · Jun 26, 2012

My guess would be that your mirror is jammed.. its not the first time this has ever happened. Sometimes these newer cameras, or even older ones have a bit of malfunction when the shutter is triggered and the mirror jams blocking the viewfinder. I don't think you're going to be able to fix this yourself. Luckly you have Liveview.. so you can still use your camera.

prodigy2k7 · Jun 26, 2012

To me is sounds like maybe they are stuck in live view? There is a switch for live view. You said your friend hit a button and it went black. Maybe it's simply in live view mode?

KmH · Jun 26, 2012

The mirror has to move up out of the light path to use Live View or to take a still photo. In other words, when Live View is active, the viewfinder is not usable.

If Live View is being used, the mirror is up, blocking light from entering the bottom of the viewfinder.

If the mirror is stuck in the up position, it can be seen stuck in the up position with the lens removed.

TCampbell · Jun 26, 2012

Even if you put the camera into "Live View" mode, it SHOULD have reset when you powered off the camera.

You might see if you can reset it.

Remove the battery... wait a few seconds, then re-insert the battery (the power switch is technically a software function... so if something in the camera's computer has "hung" the way to force the camera's internal computer to reboot is to pull the battery.

Turn on the camera and, if the problem didn't clear itself, hit Menu then look for the "Clear settings" function (it'll be on one of the yellow menus with the wrench icon. On my camera it's on the 4th "wrench" menu... but may be different on your T3.) Confirm that you'd like to "Clear all camera settings"

If that doesn't work... call Canon, the reflex mirror may be jammed in the "up" position and would need to be serviced.

Solarflare · Jun 27, 2012

I dont get why the autofocus doesnt work either, though. Should still work nicely, even with the mirror jammed.

Overread · Jun 27, 2012

Far as I recall the mirror itself reflects part of the light up into the viewfinder, but also reflects some in another direction to the AF sensors - so without the mirror assembly in place the AF sensors are unable to get any light to function with (so they are also, most likely, set to disable and thus not drain power, when the mirror is flipped up).