Canon 5D MarkII - The Grip Errors

Canon 5D MarkII Error 80 (Crop)
Well it's TRUE!!!

Canon has done it again. A brand new camera with lots of great features but again errors are arising from it.


I thought carefully if I could put my mouth to the world, about this, or wait until a couple of rumors started to arise on the web.

After a lot of thinking I decided to release this info to all you people that purchase the new Canon 5D MarkII or are planning on buying it in a couple of days, weeks or months.

This is nothing that I was not expecting after I received the BG-E6 and looking at it carefully.

It has the same connections problems has previous models and it continues to be very fragile. (Canon you are so mean after all this years you did not have time to replace this series with a better grip, shame on you guys!!!)

Maybe you will never experience this problems, maybe you will start to experience them as soon as you got the grip... well you all know that technology is a f... s... sometimes it comes perfect while some other times it simply sucks no mater what you do the faulty ones need to be replaced.

Canon 5D MarkII Error 80
Canon 5D MarkII Error 80

This error 80 is one of the main errors that the 5D MarkII gives me almost all the time.

Here is the Camera combo I normally use when these errors occurred:

- Firmware 1.0.7
- Canon 5D MarkII
- Grip BG-E6
- 2 Canon Batteries LP-E6 (On the Grip)
- EF 24-70 L USM
- EF 70-200 L IS USM
- CF Cards Sandisk Extreme III, IV and Ducati (4Gb and 8Gb)
- 580EX

Canon 5D MarkII with Grip is worst than Windows Vista!!

Then on another assignment while using the 24-70 L with 580EX flash and grip on the vertical position the Error 02 appeared, after 30 frame shots, apparently from nowhere and it caused the camera to stop working.

After removing both batteries and unscrew and screw back on the lens the camera started to work normally but the card warning came again saying that the card was not formatted and if I wanted to format it.

I kept the card for later inspection and worked with another one. After arriving home and analyzed the card I noticed that all the 30 pictures take were gone. I had to use Sandisk RescuePro to get those pictures back from the card. UFFF, assignment saved!!!!

I also got a strange "Card Full" information when I had only taken 20 pictures and the camera had always the red light on. I found that strange since I was certain that I had formatted the card before starting the assignment, but you never know... maybe it was my fault so I removed the card after the red light turns off and decided to keep the card and see what the problem could be afterward in the computer.

You will not believe this... the ,card had 4 folders the normal MISC and 3 DCIM more. When inspected the each of the DCIM folders I found that the camera had created 3 more identical folder with the same the same 20 pictures I took copied endless times untill the card was full :)

So the camera got this copy/paste issue and copied all the pictures to those folders until the card was full and this happened with no grip attached.

Please Canon send us a firmware to correct this ASAP!!!

Canon 5D MarkII error 70

Another error that's been giving a couple of times and while shooting with 1/30 or 1/20 speeds is the Error 70.

Canon 5D MarkII Batteries levels

Here is a page with some of the "normal" Canon errors ;)

I finally figured out what the problem is.

After a group investigation with some of other fellow photographers, here in Portugal, that have the same camera but not use the grip or not have the double batteries, I concluded that the problem is the grip with 2 batteries.

When the batteries start to become empty like the above image it seems that the grip looses it's power and start giving failure messages. It cannot process the images or have a failure to the drive because it lacks power to function properly.

I contacted Canon Portugal an they do not even know what's going on with this. No one has reported this so far and since the replacement batteries are now available at the moment and people are using Alkaline batteries on the grip they do not have received any reports from this errors.

Not happy with the Portuguese reply I decided to write to Canon Europe Headquarters (Germany) and send them the above pictures to support my complain.

I received a reply 2 days later saying that they are aware of this situation and that a couple of grips were released with defect and they will send me a replacement one in a couple of days so I can test it out.

It's impossible for me know which serials are affected since the grip apparently do not have serial number on it but I will try to check with Canon and report it here as soon as I got some more good news.

Meanwhile if you get any of these errors please report them immediately to your Canon supplier in order to have them replaced at no cost.


Here is the table of the Error Codes for the 5D MarkII as stated on page 209 of the Instructions Manual.

I do blame Canon for this happenings and for letting us, the consumers, be their Beta testers.

Remember when they release the 1D MarkIII flop with it's super fast shutter speed but with lot's of problems and issues with the mirror and auto focus performance.

And if you do not know what I'm talking about just check the Rob Galbraith extensive review on this issue.

With this Canon has lost part of the share market to Nikon and it looks like they do not even care or worry about it because technology its first than photography and photographers.

While Nikon, on the other hand, they improved their infrared flash system, improved the flashes and released 3 cameras that beat out of the Canon arsenal and also made great improvements on their lenses.

Canon on the other hand gave us the 1D MarkIII flop and now with the 5D MarkII, stated as a video recorder that you could control its functions, turns out that you do not have control over the video mode and the most important one is the faulty grip BG-E6.

If you can remember well this has also happened a couple years ago when they released the Canon EOS 20D with it's also faulty grip that I also complained and send back, a couple of them, before I move to the 1D series.

From everyday that passes I noticed that Canon has a more commercial approach to the market than making things happen to photographers, they always want to be ahead of technology and introduce more new things but forget about improving the ones they already have, I mean the old ST-E2 for example.

This could mean an advantage over the other manufacturers ... just imagine Canon could introduce on their flash system something like the Radio Popper to control their flashes and also improve the 580EXII with a more powerful and better balanced one something in the range of the Nikon SB-900?

They could improve the sharpness of the 100-400mm by releasing a new one and while talking about lens why not a 12-24 L USM (Nikon has it so don't come saying that it will be impossible) and a replacement for the bulky 24-70 L USM lighter and with better overall sharpness or replace it for a 24-85 2.8 L USM IS ?

Turn their heads toward the photographers instead of just releasing new things that most of the people would not use them anyway.

So what would you like to have on the new cameras and flashes systems and why?

Write your suggestions maybe Canon guys would read this and could give us what we really asked for ;)



14 comments:

Mitch said...

wow - thanks for the information - We've added this to the 5D wiki at http://planet5d.com We've got more 5D reviews/still/video samples than anywhere else on the planet. (check the blog for the post)

Anonymous said...

Hi, I have same setup as you. Mostly I've shot without the grip, but since getting it I haven't experienced any of the errors you mention. I hope you find a solution. If it's true some "bad" ones were made, it would indeed be useful to get a list of affected serial numb ers.

Unknown said...

The 580EX II is already more powerful than the SB900. SB900 has the zoom 200, that's it. The Nikon's play better with their light metering as apposed to the Canon bodies, but there is no surprize there, based on other things Canon has neglected.

Unknown said...

Hi, thanks for this article. I have a Error 70. I have also the grip, but only one battery inside (the battery alone is not available yet here in Malaysia).

edi hirose said...

Hi, I have the same error 80, but wothout the grip. Also, the battery suddenly is empty.
I don't know what's wrong.
I live in Peru and I sent an email to Canon Spain and Mexico (language support) but I don´t receive a reply.

If somebody can help me, please, reply this comment.

Thank you.

edi hirose said...

Hi, I have the same error 80, but wothout the grip. Also, the battery suddenly is empty.
I don't know what's wrong.
I live in Peru and I sent an email to Canon Spain and Mexico (language support) but I don´t receive a reply.

If somebody can help me, please, reply this comment.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

thanks for posting this. i've been trying to find out more about this error 70 ... i get it way too often on my 5d2. but i don't have a grip, don't shoot in live view, haven't seen the error while doing anything that other people have reported. i'm simply shooting. canon had no response for me (they hadn't yet encountered this error when i called), and since then i've tried to remove every possibility: i cleared all custom functions and shot auto (still get the error), bought a newer and faster card (still get the error), bought a new battery thinking perhaps mine was defective (still get the error), etc. i'm stumped and am thinking i might have to send the whole body to canon to see if they can find something. ugh. so, i'm glad to hear others are also having problems; it might seal the deal for me to return my 5d2 and get an older 5d.

Anonymous said...

To micheleomega - Canon told me the same thing today. "We have had no reports of error 70". Hmmm?? I mailed it in and had to pay $45 to ship it and insure it. I hope they fix the problem. I love the images from this camera!

Unknown said...

I started getting the dreaded Error 70 last week after 6 months of trouble free shooting. I've done most of the things suggested by others (eg battery grip etc) as being the root of the problem without anything untoward happening. Believe it or not mine started, immediately, when I mounted it on a new tripod for the first time. I know it sounds unlikely but could it be screwing something into the tripod thread that causes the problem???

ruimleal said...

Hi Treveor,

thank you for the comment.

What type of cards are you using? It seems that Sandisk Extreme III 8GB are giving a lot of random errors.

After I swap them for another type no more errors. It seem that the cards are too slow for the camera.

Hope this could help and I do not believe it has something to do with the new tripod ;)

hogluvr said...

I've started getting the dreaded error 70. Won't format, power off/on, remove/replace battery, etc. Once I can format, the camera works fine. Any new development son this error?

guyroch said...

I too have the same dreaded error 70 on a borrowed t2i from a friend :(

Any clues!!! Removing the battery/card won't to anything. I can't even access the menu, it jumps right to the error screen.

Thanks

ruimleal said...

hoggy and guyroch, Have you tried replacing the grip, sending it back to Canon? This was one of my problems, defective grip. Then the use of Sandisk 8Gb Extreme III 30MB/s as cause me some errors during a long period of time only figure it out later after one time the video get stuck and some photos lost. This occurred many time with 5D MarkII maybe you have the same CF card and that is causing that problem.

Have you tried sending the camera for Service Center?

Hope this could help.

guyroch said...

The camera is back in business. I’m writing software using the Canon SDK and I had accidently set the image quality using the Canon SDK to a value NOT supported on the t2i while doing some tests and this lead to the constant Error 70. After about 11 hours of going at it none stop (I don't like to fail!!!) I was able to reset the in-camera image quality to a supported one using the SDK because the camera would not let me pass the error 70 into the menu. Not satisfied with that solution because not everyone has the luxury of writing code to access the camera I decided to repeat the error (I’m I stupid or what) and try to see if I could fix it using tools that everyone has. Guess what, even with the error 70 I was able to connect to the camera to EOS Utility and set reset the image quality right there… ERROR 70 is history still.

Hope this may help anyone in the future.