6D shutter button not focusing or releasing shutter

ShutterPilot · Feb 16, 2019

Hello!
I was shooting with my Canon 6D and suddenly shutter button stoped working. I was not able to focus, when button was half pressed and release shutter when fully pressed (even in MF mode).

At first I thought that my shutter had gone bad, but I was able to focus and relase shutter to take a picture with my smartphone connecting through Wi-Fi.

Then I thought that maybe the shutter button itself was broken, but when I press shutter button in live mode, it just goes back to regular. So the button must be working.

I have tried reinstalling new firmware and reseting settings to default, nothing did work.

I would appreciate any help and tips, thank you in advance!

Derrel · Feb 16, 2019

Welcome to TPF!
SOUNDS as if you
have (accidentally) mapped/shifted/re-assigned the focusing to another button besides the shutter release.

ShutterPilot · Feb 17, 2019

Derrel said:
Welcome to TPF!
SOUNDS as if you
have (accidentally) mapped/shifted/re-assigned the focusing to another button besides the shutter release.

Thanks for your reply!
Could it be possible that I have re-assigned shutter release as well? I can take a picture only connecting my smartphone to the camera.

TCampbell · Feb 17, 2019

Disable the auto-focus on the lens (the MF/AF switch) and test the camera. If the camera is in "One Shot" focus mode *and* if auto-focus is enabled, then the camera will refuse to take a shot until it can confirm that it was able to achieve focus at your selected AF point (or at any AF point if you enable all AF points).

If that test worked, then the shutter button is fine and the reasons for it not taking a photo is because it wasn't able to focus.

If you're in extremely poor lighting ... that can be one reason the camera wont focus (some flashes have a "focus assist" beam feature which projects a pattern that the lens can use to lock focus even in complete darkness.)

If you've switched the camera to use back-button focus ... then *usually* the button it gets assigned to is the one that says "AF-ON" on the back of the camera (that way you can control focus with your thumb and control shooting with your index finger) but it is possible to map the focus to the button next to it that has the asterisk '*'. Check either of those buttons to see if the lens focuses (don't forget to flip the lens back to AF mode.)

Back-button focus is more popular in sports/action photography so that as you follow the action, you can prevent the camera from flipping focus to the wrong subject (e.g. imaging shooting a sports game and you WANT to shoot the person carrying the ball ... but another player gets close and the camera flips focus to that person.) The idea is you can touch (or hold) the AF-ON button as needed to follow the action but if you see another player about to get too close and don't want the camera to flip focus to them ... you can release the AF button, but still keep shooting. (high end Canon cameras have "intelligent Tracking & Recognition" (iTR) that makes this a lot easier.)

ShutterPilot · Feb 17, 2019

TCampbell said:
Disable the auto-focus on the lens (the MF/AF switch) and test the camera. If the camera is in "One Shot" focus mode *and* if auto-focus is enabled, then the camera will refuse to take a shot until it can confirm that it was able to achieve focus at your selected AF point (or at any AF point if you enable all AF points).

If that test worked, then the shutter button is fine and the reasons for it not taking a photo is because it wasn't able to focus.

If you're in extremely poor lighting ... that can be one reason the camera wont focus (some flashes have a "focus assist" beam feature which projects a pattern that the lens can use to lock focus even in complete darkness.)

If you've switched the camera to use back-button focus ... then *usually* the button it gets assigned to is the one that says "AF-ON" on the back of the camera (that way you can control focus with your thumb and control shooting with your index finger) but it is possible to map the focus to the button next to it that has the asterisk '*'. Check either of those buttons to see if the lens focuses (don't forget to flip the lens back to AF mode.)

Back-button focus is more popular in sports/action photography so that as you follow the action, you can prevent the camera from flipping focus to the wrong subject (e.g. imaging shooting a sports game and you WANT to shoot the person carrying the ball ... but another player gets close and the camera flips focus to that person.) The idea is you can touch (or hold) the AF-ON button as needed to follow the action but if you see another player about to get too close and don't want the camera to flip focus to them ... you can release the AF button, but still keep shooting. (high end Canon cameras have "intelligent Tracking & Recognition" (iTR) that makes this a lot easier.)

Thanks for your reply!
Unfortunately I am not able to take photos with manual focus as well. Only thing that works to take photos is conecting my smartphone to camera and releasing shutter through app.

TCampbell · Feb 17, 2019

Do you have any 3rd party accessories attached to the camera? I think it was on the Canon forums... but we had a guy who reported some of the buttons not working. Eventually we discovered he had a 3rd party battery grip. We had him remove the grip and ... magically everything worked perfectly. This isn't very common, but we've had similar stories (even a 3rd party lens that caused a problem). These things mate with the camera's electronics and ... if they aren't implemented correctly (and it's not like Canon releases a spec for the interfaces -- they have to reverse-engineer these things) problems start happening.

Ever since ... one of my suggested debugging techniques is to take everything off the camera that didn't come from Canon.

If that doesn't work (and it probably wont ... but it's cheap and quick to test it *just* to be sure) then follow these instructions to factory-reset your camera:

Canon Knowledge Base - Restoring the camera's default settings (EOS 6D)

And if *that* does not work ... your camera may have a more serious issue and you might want to call Canon support.

ShutterPilot · Feb 17, 2019

TCampbell said:
Do you have any 3rd party accessories attached to the camera? I think it was on the Canon forums... but we had a guy who reported some of the buttons not working. Eventually we discovered he had a 3rd party battery grip. We had him remove the grip and ... magically everything worked perfectly. This isn't very common, but we've had similar stories (even a 3rd party lens that caused a problem). These things mate with the camera's electronics and ... if they aren't implemented correctly (and it's not like Canon releases a spec for the interfaces -- they have to reverse-engineer these things) problems start happening.

Ever since ... one of my suggested debugging techniques is to take everything off the camera that didn't come from Canon.

If that doesn't work (and it probably wont ... but it's cheap and quick to test it *just* to be sure) then follow these instructions to factory-reset your camera:

Canon Knowledge Base - Restoring the camera's default settings (EOS 6D)

And if *that* does not work ... your camera may have a more serious issue and you might want to call Canon support.

I don't have any 3rd party accesories, but this happened after I had bought a used Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS. I had shot only about 50 photos with that lens, when the shutter stoped working. Resetting settings have not helped. Is there a way to do a hard reset?

TCampbell · Feb 18, 2019

On some pro models, the battery that retains the date/time and settings is a removable coin battery. Pulling that battery will cause the camera to lose all settings and, when re-inserted, it will revert to factory defaults.

But most models do not have a coin battery and instead rely an on internal rechargeable battery (possibly a type of supercapacitor) that "battery" (or supercap ... not sure which they use) is charged when the main battery is in the camera. On those cameras you have to pull the main battery and just leave it out a long time (overnight is probably enough).

You'll know if it was out long enough because if it lost all settings, it would immediately prompt you to enter the date/time when you power it up. If you don't get prompted to enter the time, then it didn't really lose its settings.

ShutterPilot · Mar 14, 2019

TCampbell said:
On some pro models, the battery that retains the date/time and settings is a removable coin battery. Pulling that battery will cause the camera to lose all settings and, when re-inserted, it will revert to factory defaults.

But most models do not have a coin battery and instead rely an on internal rechargeable battery (possibly a type of supercapacitor) that "battery" (or supercap ... not sure which they use) is charged when the main battery is in the camera. On those cameras you have to pull the main battery and just leave it out a long time (overnight is probably enough).

You'll know if it was out long enough because if it lost all settings, it would immediately prompt you to enter the date/time when you power it up. If you don't get prompted to enter the time, then it didn't really lose its settings.

Little update:
I left my camera for a day without battery - didn't help. Then I left it for a week without battery, didn't reset either, so I took it to Canon service. Turns out there was a problem with some kind of wire from power board. Now the button works again.