450D error 99

[TheAnimus]

Bob it's not just luck.

Its either mechanical failure due to bad design / manufacture, or use outside of the designed operating procedures.

The fact that your body might be the one which has the tendency to fail young due to bad manufacturing is I suppose luck. But these are things that can be designed out.

For instance on some cameras like the smaller Ricoh or the Pentax Q, they will not suffer this kind of failure.

Obviously for anyone who is doing something professionally for a living, having a spare camera makes a lot of sense, I mean you never know when you might drop it.

Now the reason I'm saying this is we know that the prosumer end of canon fail earlier than most competition devices, because their build quality is sub par, they have a total lack of seals which allows more dust etc inside, use more plastic and less mag etc. This isn't a jar boo sucks to OP at all, just something to keep in mind.

The difference between taking apart a 300D which shutter froze shut (I kid you not, iceland!) and a K200D which had been accidentally dropped is enough to make me never consider canon for myself.

However in this case it looks like the shutter won't have been able to damage the CCD, and its very unlikely the pin will have either. Meaning a fix is very doable.

[Bobster]

My 50D has survived a drop of 18ft!

My 2003, 300D survived a 6ft drop onto concrete (the popup flash may never work again) but everything else is still functioning

and the sensor is covered by glass.. so the curtain or anything else would have to get though that first..

[Ruggerbugger]

I've decided to go with the 7D, since that was going to be next year's upgrade anyway. I'll either keep the 450D for a have-a-go repair, or flog it for spares on ebay.

Thanks for the input everyone!

[TheAnimus]

and the sensor is covered by glass.. so the curtain or anything else would have to get though that first..

This is going way off topic, but its accepted fact canon sacrifice build quality, you can debate that if you want, but stats sadly are pretty damning. As I mentioned there are also designs that make this failure impossible. Enough said.

Also when I refer to the CCD I'm refering to the unit, the unit has some crystal normally over the top of it, this is done in clean manafacturing environment, the crystal is designed

I've decided to go with the 7D, since that was going to be next year's upgrade anyway. I'll either keep the 450D for a have-a-go repair, or flog it for spares on ebay.

Thanks for the input everyone!

Depending on how strapped for the cash for parts you are, I'd really suggest having a go, it's really interesting to strip down a camera.