Coming into the weekend I had a few pics in mind that I had envisioned and visualized over the week and now was the time for execution. So I got my camera out to shoot, took aim and shot, but the Rebel fired only blanks! So I tried again; compose, focus, click: heard the shutter open, but it stayed way long open than the shutter speed setting dialed in, long enough to take several breaths and at the end of the wait, just another blank and no picture captured. That got me worried, and I thought perhaps that I had given a wrong shutter speed. So changed the exposure settings, compose, focus, click; but only a blank again. I tried several exposure combinations in all the creative modes, but to my great dismay, no pictures, only blanks! Then I tried in the Basic modes, and this time the cam worked just fine. Now this got me gunning for the panic button. My first notion was that the battery did not have enough juice, so placed the batteries for charge. But that theory was soon proved wrong. By this time I was swathed in cold sweat. The thoughts of giving the camera for service raced through my head; the warranty period was over, the cost et al. In a mad rush of frenzy, I grabbed the manual and quickly had a cursory check, then the troubleshooting section. But nothing at all there! The panic button was flashing crimson red by now and feeling desperate I called one of my fellow photographers who used the same model as me. But he could not give me any clue to the prob. So I went back to scouring the manual albeit this time a little more religiously. The desperation getting the better of me, I then turned to the net and voila, soon enough I found a post on a forum with exactly the same problem as mine. But did I get a simple straight solution? Nope! Fast losing hope, I searched for some more solutions. And then I read in one of the forums in very fine print, the Mirror Lockup*. Yeah, so what? I know about the Mirror Lock* and how it works and its use and so on. But that does not solve my prob! Then it hit me like a storm. Bingo! If the Mirror Lockup* was enabled then the shutter had to be clicked twice to record the picture! Aaah, that could be it. Why didn’t this strike me all this while? So with trepidation I checked whether the Mirror Lockup* was enabled. A sense of relief washed over me; indeed the Mirror Lockup* functionality was enabled. I quickly disabled the Mirror Lockup* functionality, compose, focus, click and sweet relief, the pic was recorded. Phew! Thank you Lord!! Later on I realized that in my previous shoot, I had used the Mirror Lockup but failed to revert back the setting. Heights of gaffe! And sheepishly, I had to explain to my friend that there was nothing wrong with the cam. It was just one of those days that I made a total fool of myself!
* Technical info: Mirror Lockup aka MLU is a functionality in most SLRs. It is employed to reduce camera shake and accompanying blur, induced when the shutter button is depressed during exposure. Normal operation in an SLR camera involves flipping the mirror up out of the light-path just before the shutter opens, and then returning it when the shutter closes. This causes vibration of the camera, particularly when the mirror slaps into the top of the mirror box. Mirror lock-up involves flipping the mirror up well before the shutter opens, allowing the vibrations to die down before exposing the film. In the Canon EOS SLRs the MLU is operated by an extra push of the shutter button, the second push resulting in the actual opening of the shutter. Note that when the mirror is in the up and locked position, the subject is no longer visible through the viewfinder. Therefore, the photographer must compose the photograph prior to activating mirror lock-up and keep the camera from moving. Use of a tripod helps prevent movement of the camera during this operation. Combined with a remote or cable release, this greatly reduces the potential for vibration of the camera.
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