My camera's last day...

[Thefatkitty]

... but it was a busy one.

I have two Canon T3's. One I bought at the beginning of 2014, and one my brother-in-law gave me last year. The one he gave me went south just after Christmas; wouldn't power on no matter what. Well, extra battery and lens I guess So I've been using my original one, which worked fine.

Last night I thought to take some pics of the Moon as it cleared up just after midnight. I came in to process them, and my usual settings for processing gave terrible results. I wasn't sure why; I haven't changed any settings on my camera or software; at least I thought not. Hmmph. Well, maybe just one of those nights; sometimes it's hard to tell what the atmosphere holds...



After that I went to bed at 1:30. Thanks to my good buddy Mr. Bladder, I was up at just after 5AM. Of course, getting back to sleep was a no go, so I thought to take my T3, 60mm f/7 and 10X50's over to the schoolyard across the street and see Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. I took some bad pics of Mars and Saturn together, and had a look through the bino's. A bit hazy (Lake Ontario is to my south), plus the Sun was coming up. Still, was nice for a bit; so quiet out, and there's a big difference in air quality around here too as well.



The morning turned into a blue-sky day. Since I had my scope back in focus from shooting the Moon, I thought to check and see if sunspot AR2759 was still alive and kicking. Indeed it is. So at 10:30 I put the Baader film on my C80 and went to take some shots.

Normally, I shoot the Sun at ISO 100 and an exposure of either 1/1000 or 1/1250th second. Been that way with my T3 for four years. I did that, but in going downstairs and processing them.... The end result was so blown out in the middle of the disc it almost hurt to look at it. I could tone it down and even see some faculae, but then the edge of the disc disappeared

Alright then, back outside, this time at 1/2500th second. Better, but I had to mess with the settings in Registax to even make it passable.

At 2:30PM I decided to try again, after setting the White Balance from Auto to Daylight, and the Picture Style to Neutral from Standard. I was sure there were what it was at, and I'd probably changed them. Took some more shots at 1/1000, 1/1250, and 1/2500th for good measure. Went downstairs, processed, same thing. I used the settings I made up this morning in Registax again. What's going on here?

I reformatted the card, went through the settings again, and tried for a final time at 4PM. Took 20 shots at each exposure from before, and turned off the camera. Walking to the back, I noticed the Moon was at the zenith and was really clear. I got the scope, lined it up, looked through the camera's viewfinder to make sure, turned the camera on, set it to Live view.... Nothing. Oh, right, the low ISO/fast expose time. I reset it to ISO 1600 and 1/25th sec, back to live view. Nothing.

I'm starting to feel somewhat tense I crank the exposure up to 6 seconds. Nada. OK, maybe it's just the LCD screen, but funny it works for the menu stuff... I take a few shots at 2 seconds, ISO 1600.
I get what would probably be a good dark. On, no.

I take the camera out the back of the scope, and with the t-ring, take a 6 second exposure. Ohhh, look, there's some light... Yeah, there was this brightish area.

I believe the sensor is shot. I took it downstairs, and with the lens out (just the camera body) I took a half-second exposure of my monitor and then the wall. Can you tell which is which??




And of course, tonight is crystal clear out. As well, I had just finished my barn-door tracker and was waiting for a night like this.



This certainly couldn't come at a worse time. Laid off, very limited funds, and I'm worried for us if this goes longer than two months. But I also know I'm not the only one, and there's worse off than us by far, so I'm actually grateful for what we have.

It's just my DSLR was such a good time-filler, especially now. And really, just after I finish my tracker...??


And for what it's worth, here's the Sun at various times throughout my day; you can see the spot moving as the day passes As well, the images seem to darken as the day passes. Same camera settings all the way through.
Not my best job, but all considering...

10:30AM



2:20PM



4:00PM



Alrighty, rant/whine over It was a fun 6 years with it, and it served me well. It had just over 60K on it, and though I was hoping for 100K, it's not to be. RIP, my T3

Well, I'll be out tonight for sure doing the visual thing. I try to get that in even when I'm taking pics.

I hope you're all well, please stay that way , and clear skies to you.

[Juno16]

Aw, Mark. I hate to hear that your T3 has failed. You had so much darn fun with that camera. You and all of us here enjoyed the fine images that you produced with it. 60k is still a lot of images and it did do well. Sorry my friend.

Hopefully you had a good night to get out tonight. Totally clouded over here. Last night was clear until 11:30. Licky for that.

Take care and stay well!

[Don Quixote]

Bummer, Mark !
I am sorry to hear this bad news regarding the camera.

I hope you get some good visual outings soon.