Strange Canon 5DMKIII Focus Screen Problem

kdog

So my 5DMKIII which is just a few months old is doing something very strange. The focus screen grid is being displayed in the viewfinder along with outlines of all the focus points all the time, even with the camera turned off. The viewfinder is also dark, making it hard to compose a shot. I've verified that the focus screen grid is turned off in the menu. Of course, it shouldn't appear in the viewfinder with the camera switched off, I'm assuming. If I pull out the battery, the grid does go away. But it appears when the battery is inserted again. Oddly enough, if I enable the focus screen grid, the grid goes away (exactly the opposite of what's supposed to happen.) However, the AF point grid is still being displayed and the screen is still dark.

The camera appears to focus ok, but there's no focus confirmation beep which is enabled in the menu. I've done menu Set Up4 Reset All Setting, but didn't help. At this point I'm assuming my camera is broken and needs to go to Canon for repair. But I'm posting this in case it rings any bells with anyone.

Thanks,
-joel

ziggy53

You might try a hard reset by removing the battery and turning on the camera (with the battery still out of the camera). Let the camera sit for 15 minutes or more, which should completely drain the CMOS backup system.

Have you ever used the Magic Lantern firmware overlay with this body?

Edit: I should mention that a dark viewfinder generally indicates that the primary mirror is not fully down and locked. You might try "very gently" pulling on the primary mirror with something clean and soft which can hook behind the mirror to see if can be pulled into the latched position. You do this at your own risk, of course.

lensmole

Did you switch something from A/F to manual ? What about the focus ring on the lens itself ,is it working properly ?

kdog

ziggy53 wrote: »

You might try a hard reset by removing the battery and turning on the camera (with the battery still out of the camera). Let the camera sit for 15 minutes or more, which should completely drain the CMOS backup system.

Have you ever used the Magic Lantern firmware overlay with this body?

Edit: I should mention that a dark viewfinder generally indicates that the primary mirror is not fully down and locked. You might try "very gently" pulling on the primary mirror with something clean and soft which can hook behind the mirror to see if can be pulled into the latched position. You do this at your own risk, of course.

Ziggy, no I don't use Magic Lantern. Trying the hard-reset thing now. I don't think I'll mess with the mirror. If something isn't seated right, there's a good chance it'll happen again. Better to have Canon figure out why it's happening. Thanks for the input!

kdog

lensmole wrote: »

Did you switch something from A/F to manual ? What about the focus ring on the lens itself ,is it working properly ?

Not really applicable to my problem. The focus screen is messed up even with the camera turned off as I indicated. It's even screwed up with no lens at all mounted on the body. I will say that the camera does seem to AF just fine if you can manage to get the focus in the right spot given the difficulty in looking through the viewfinder.

kdog

Update: Canon confirmed that the viewfinder was broken and repaired it under warranty. No other explanation was given. They did a firmware update to the new v1.2.1 which was nice.

Brett1000

kdog wrote: »

Update: Canon confirmed that the viewfinder was broken and repaired it under warranty. No other explanation was given. They did a firmware update to the new v1.2.1 which was nice.

good that it happened under warranty