Rant: A Canon 5D mirror just gave up the ghost mid-shoot

Honestly, I was fixing a friend's camera from a wedding gig and the mirror assembly just locked up completely. Tbh, it happened right after the third shot during the ceremony, total nightmare. I had to strip it down and found a tiny spring in the mirror box had snapped clean in two. Has anyone else run into this specific failure on the older 5D bodies? I'm curious if there's a better source for those springs than the usual parts kits.

3 comments

3 Comments

marybutler10d agoMost Upvoted

Ugh, classic 5D move right there. @abbyp61 might be onto something with the whole box coming loose, but a snapped spring is a new level of bad luck. Hope you had a backup body.

abbyp6110d ago

Wow, that's a rough spot to be in. I'm pretty sure the 5D mirror lock-up is a known thing, but it's usually the mirror box itself that fails, not just a spring. The whole assembly can come unglued from the frame. You might want to check if that's actually the root cause before you order parts.

the_claire9d ago

Totally agree about checking the box first. Seen that glue fail so many times. If the whole frame is coming apart, a new spring won't fix anything. You'll just waste time and money on the repair. Gotta open it up and look for cracks in the plastic.