I buy cameras with manual function control. All the cameras I use at work do not have a shred of automatic function on them. I want to be in full control at all times when operating a camera.

But what happens when you cannot be with your camera at all times? What happens when the shot lasts hours and hours? What happens when light changes, color temperature changes, distance from subject changes very slowly and it is impossible to adjust as time elapses?

Enter: Green Square and the use of a timer remote controller.

I first experienced the convenience of the full auto mode (located on top of camera via dial setting) on the Canon 5dmk2 DSLR camera when I shot a three week, day to night time lapse at Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. I wanted to capture “Ice-In” as the lake froze over. I needed a camera that could capture the stars at night and expose a bright cloudless day, without me being there!

The only manual setting I used was to slide a switch on the lens to “MF” for manual focus. I did not want the focus drifting at all in the low light.

Take a look at the video below. This time lapse was a true, “Set-it-and-forget-it”:

People on time lapse forums across the internet are looking for the “Holy Grail” of day/night time lapse settings. If you use Green Square auto, you run the risk of annoying flicker. There are post NLE filters for this, but I have never used them and do not own any. And so far, I am very impressed with the Canon 5dmk2 in full auto mode. For those of you who do not know anything about DSLRs or how to set them up, this camera in green square mode might be a perfect fit to shoot image-sequence time lapses.

Using manual settings are a must when shooting astro-timelapses. I set the Canon 5dmk2 to snap a photo every 40 seconds throughout the seven hours of darkness. The 5dmk2 is set to long exposure to take in what little light is in the sky. My exposure settings are as high as 30 seconds, but sometimes less if I want to take a photo every 20 seconds.

The video below demonstrates what happens when you take a photo every 40 seconds throughout the night with a 30 second “sensor burn” exposure. At the end, you will see the video go white. This is not a transition. The sun has broken dawn and since the camera was set to full manual, the settings forced the camera to continue taking a 30 second exposure with locked aperture blades.

I am running tests shooting day to night astro-timelapses for an epic video project that I will be releasing this fall. I am using the Green Square with some great results. I am also using the Kessler Oracle and Elektra Drive stepper motor system on my CineSlider dolly. Very impressed with this kit.

Yesterday, I set up the Canon 5dmk2 on a Bogen Magic Arm attached to the railing in the left field roof Coke-a-Cola corner. I work the large broadcast camera in that position so I was able to watch the 5dmk2 during the six hour timelapse.

I set the camera to snap a 21.1 mega pixel .jpg picture every seven seconds. I locked the focus to manual, but everything else was factory default using the dial set to “green square”. I weather proofed everything with zip-lock bags. The power was provided by the Canon a/c adapter and I used the Canon remote timer to trigger the camera to snap the pictures. The lens I used was the Canon 16mm to 35mm f2.8 “L” series lens. The lens was locked at 16mm. The shutter speed, iso, white balance and aperture fluctuated as the day turned to night and the stadium lights fired up.

I was quite impressed how the 5dmk2 camera tracked iris, iso, shutter and white as the night progressed. I had shot with my Sony EX1 in timelapse mode in the past using full auto and it did not work out as well. I had issues with the EX1 shifting color temperature.

Check out the video below for the tester six hour timelapse boiled down to a minute and a half. I did not add any de-flicker filters or grading to the clip. Music is by Nine Inch Nails.

As you are reading this, I have the Canon 5dmk2 setup to shoot a 24 hour timelapse in green square mode from the high home camera basket at Fenway Park. Great cloud formations happening as I type this blog during my dinner break in the media room! What happens at Fenway Park at night when the lights go out? Lets hope the green auto mode works as well as it has in the past. The one thing that I cannot get the camera to do in auto mode is longer exposure to add some motion blur to the action as people move around in the stands. Suggestions?

UPDATE April 26th, 2010:
I have finished up the 24 hour time lapse at high home at Fenway Park using the “Green Square” mode and auto focus. The test below was entirely shot in automatic mode where the 5dmk2 and the lens made all the decisions for focus, exposure, iso, aperture, and white balance. I wanted to try an experiment in full auto mode just to see what would happen. I have not found the “holy grail” for day to night timelpasing yet, but the green square mode works ok. NEVER use auto focus. I knew this going in using video cameras for time lapse, but wanted to test it out on the DSLR. Set your focus on a point in the frame and lock it down with a bit of gaff tape.

You will see the image “pulse” in and out as the camera is taking out of focus frames. I used an “L” series 16mm-35mm f2.8 and it did not track as well as I hoped. Again, NEVER use auto focus when time lapsing.

In my next tests, I will take the advice of many people who tell me that “Aperture Priority” is the best way to avoid flicker, and the camera adjusts well to drastic light changes. The “AV” (aperture value) mode on the Canon 5dmk2 dial locks the iris and uses shutter speed to correctly expose the picture. I am not certain where I will run the aperture, but I will have to run it at f2.8 wide open to expose anything at night. It will be interesting to see what happens at f2.8 with full sun!

More test to come on this page from Fenway Park.

I have been having a lot of fun lately. “Late” being the key word. And I am working on a new project.

I am very excited about the Canon 5Dmk2 DSLR, but not just because of the shallow depth of field people have been raving about. I am very excited about the low light capabilities of this camera. I have never used a camera that is able to shoot in available light in video mode or in near total darkness in still mode using long exposure. But now, I am producing video that requires nothing more than a table lamp as a key source. I am also snapping the shutter on the 5dmk2 all night capturing what most of us all sleep through.

Over the last few weeks, I have been experimenting with settings on the 5dmk2 trying to get the best night sky exposure. These settings differ depending on length of timelapse, moon cycle, cloud cover and what is in the foreground. As I master this tricky (and sometimes frustrating) shooting style I will share my settings and technique with you. But for now, I am still learning and getting help from people like Tom Lowe at timescapes.org and other insomniacs that use his forums.

Sorry, other than the experimental test I did a few weeks ago, I am not going to post any actual footage until the timelapse project is complete. But please keep reading…. please…. oh come on!

Setting up the camera is pretty easy. Basically, you just fire off a few test shots, take a look at exposure and focus and then let it go for the night. You can get more complicated and mount the camera to a step motor head, drag the camera across a dolly with a step motor, or use some crazy step motorized jib to get dynamic moving timelapses. For this project I will be using locked down shots (slow zooms in post), a motorized Celestron 114 GT telescope pan/tilt head (modified for 5dmk2) and a Mumford step motor to drag the pvc dolly using gravity as resistance.

I have found that it is best to go for just one long timelapse. The stars move pretty slow! You really want the camera firing off shots all night for best results. You get about 30 seconds of usable video setting the camera to snap a 20 second exposure every 30 seconds during the night. That is a lot of shutter clicks, like around 1400! Yes, you need a timer remote controller and enough power to make this happen with the 5dmk2.

I am not going to go that deep into this yet, but future blogs will contain information on what I have found useful and what is basically a waste of time. I will also talk about how to deal with leaving your kit in the wild at night and sleeping next to it. And if you did not know, you just take all these digital stills and place them on the timeline as frames. Resize, scale and then export the timeline. So easy with .JPGs, not sure with RAW files. That will be the next project.

My ultimate goal is to produce a three to five minute timelapse piece that will be a year in the making. I have about 5 percent of the project done and I have spent half a dozen nights outside under the stars (sometimes freezing my arse off) to get the elusive footage. Not every timelapse worked out. Frost, heavy wind and panning head malfunctions have burned me a few times. And I was very upset that a single leaf landing on PVC pipe at 3am while I was asleep could mess up an epic tracking timelapse shot.

Below are a few pictures from the last two days of shooting in the mountains of New Hampshire. It is starting to get cold up there and I will see just how far I can push the temperature limits of the Canon 5dmk2, the battery packs and myself!

Two nights ago, I set up the camera in a forested area in New Hampshire clear of any light pollution. I had the camera panning right to left and snapping a picture every 15 seconds with a 10 second burn (exposure). This worked out well, the sky is blue even at night and the moon lights up everything it touches like the sun during the day.

I will be testing this camera system out on the top (or near) the top of mountains in New Hampshire. This is from the summit of Mt Chocoura. The best way to attach this camera setup is to bring bags you can fill with rock to weigh down the tripod. Wrap the camera in a heavy plastic bag and make it tight so it does not act as a sail. Just hope the weather does not drive moisture into the lens. As far as making camp, never sleep in the alpine zone. I would say sleep just below treeline on the east side of the mountain. This way you are out of prevailing winds and the sunrise wakes you up! At least in this neck of the woods.

Another little trick is to car camp! There are many mountain roads in the state of New Hampshire that take you and all your kit up the hill with very little effort. I have a Honda 1000i generator in my car for just this “camping” technique. The pictures above are from a scenic pull out off the Kancamagus Highway (RT 112) between Lincoln and Conway New Hampshire. If you want to see my twitvid from that sleep-in-my-car-over-dramatized night, they are here and here. Turn the sound down for the first one, I am yelling for no reason.

The light in the above pictures is only from the moon. I was very surprised how much the Canon 5dmk2 can expose with almost no light. This is good in the video function, but absolutely insane in the still mode. Remember, I am new to the picture taking craft. Until four months ago, I never owned a SLR or DLSR! My first 30 second burn was quite memorable (say no to drugs, I’m taking exposure here).

And speaking of drugs, just how do I spend the time with me, myself and my 5d? I either sleep or read a book. If car camping, I have a generator, so if you think of it, I could power it. Perhaps a few of these little cosmolapse adventures will include friends who don’t mind staring at a cloud for eight hours.

I pointed my camera into the sky for many of my timelapses so far and I really like the effect of a slow twisting pan while the stars are moving in the opposite direction. In the shot above, I had the Celestron 114 GT set to “rate 1″ the slowest speed and just let the the panhead work its magic. With the moon full and bright, I was able to see what I was doing with out the need of a head torch.

One thing that I really do not like is clouds. Some are ok, but since the stars move so slow and the clouds whip by so fast it is a bit jarring. I am having trouble hitting a clear night with my busy work schedule. And the fact that light pollution is so prevalent where I live, I have to drive hours away for good sky. I hope to get some clear winter nights in the coming weeks and point my lens skyward.

I will keep you posted of my progress on this project. I am working with a music composer to create a custom score for the piece.

Thanks for reading and post any questions below…

Here are a few bonus pictures from the day light hours.

Thanks to my buddy Dave for his company and help over the last few days! I work with Dave in Boston television, but he lives in the north country.

I have been experimenting with a one second shutter and moving water. I have found I get the best results when using ND filters and a matte box. I did not have ND filters with me! These shots were taken with the 5dmk2 mounted on a rock with the Canon lens closed to f22! I shot “Falling Water“, “Water and Light” and “Champney Falls” at this awesome location. I use to climb these rock faces when I was younger.

Dave got this great shot of me on the summit of Mt Chocorua. The Mountain is just under 4000 feet above sea level and it rewards hikers with some bouldering and 360 degree wind blown views. This is one of my favorite mountains in New England. My dog Zac even made it to the top!

Two days ago, I was on the side of Mt Moosilauke in Benton New Hampshire looking for a place to setup a panning Canon 5dmk2 timelapse. I was very surprised and unprepared for the extreme winter conditions near the summit. It was mid October! How could there be a foot of snow and tons of rime ice coating the mountain?

Well, there was and this means we are in for one heck of a winter in New England.

I never got the panning timelapse shot this trip. But, I did shoot a short video blog explaining my situation and showing the crazy conditions.

Special thanks to Dave Hand for his behind the scenes help on this. Like Bear Grylls, my video blogs are not possible without my crew, And yes, this was a dramatization. I really was not in danger in any way!

Here are a few pictures I snapped with the Canon 5dmk2. It is really nice to have a stills camera and a 1080p video camera in a all-in-one super small package. All I had with me was my Canon 16mm-35mm f2.8 II L series lens.

12►

I am gearing up for a big job this weekend. Take a look at the gear I will be using!

I know I have the RED ONE, new Gamecreek MSG New York TV truck, Letus Mini and ContourHD video blogs to finish, but check out this one shot a few minutes ago!

Take a look at the new Letus Light Weight Support Rods! (LWS) I will be using.

Two of the guys I work with at a Boston television station joined me for a “business meeting” at a New Hampshire ski mountain. But we would not be skiing! We will be taking a “Daycation” (one day vacation) from work to have some fun with gravity.

Over the next two days, I am working with a World Cup downhill mountain biker to shoot a short documentary on the 17 year old kid and his riding. I am planning on using the Canon 5dmk2 and the Sony EX1 with Letus Ultimate to shoot the entire doc with prime lenses.

TJ and Jon asked if they could come up a few days before the shoot and ride whilst I tested a few pieces of gear for the weekend. I agreed as long as I was able to capture the entire day from my point of view…the Canon 5dmk2 DSLR bolted to the side of my head!

The Canon 5dmk2 easily mounts to a mountain bike helmet with just a metal angle bracket. I used an old Anton Bauer Hytron 50 for counterbalance. This battery did not power anything.

Before you watch the video, a few things I must add:

1. I set the aperture on the film lens (16mm f2.8 fisheye) to f8 or f11 to open up the depth of field. This was the first time I actually wanted a deep DOF to see everything from the first person point of view.

2. The exposure is a problem. I found that using Auto ISO works well in the sun, but when I travel into the shade, it just does not respond well to patches of bring sun all around. It is very dark. My way around this is to shoot the sunny open single track and the dark woods sections separately and with manual exposure.

3. I found the shutter to best work at about 1/100. Any faster and the shot is way to jittery. Plus with a slower shutter, you get a little motion blur and that seems to play well.

4. Wind noise. The Canon 5dmk2 does not have a windscreen on its built in mic. All the sound you hear on the video below was captured with the onboard mic built into the camera. I found that by placing a small piece of foam (from a Pelican Case) on the little mic holes in the camera body helps out a bit. It is very windy when you are going close to 50 miles an hour down a mountain!

5. Weight. This thing is heavy. The counterbalance weight spreads it out, but it kills the neck. I found that this old helmet is lacking proper padding to begin with, so the added weight makes it hurt even more.

6. Clearance. It is so easy to clip a tree with these things (expensive camera equipment) protruding off the side of your head. If the fisheye hits the bark at full speed whilst I’m leaning into a berm, it is game over!

So wish me luck tomorrow! I have no idea how I am going to keep up with a professional mountain biker. Should be fun tho.

I will be testing a demo version of the ContourHD “wearable” HD video camera. But I have not received it yet from the company. I have a shoot this weekend with a World Cup downhill mountain biker. So I had to come up with something!

I am going to be the “chase bike”. I will be trying very hard to keep up with a fast mountain biker as he rips down a mountain.

I wanted to mount my 5Dmk2 digital SLR to an old motocross helmet, so I did. I used corner brace metal as the mount and just bolted them to the helmet. I decided that a counter balance was necessary since the camera was a bit heavy. I used an old, dead Anton Bauer Hytron 50 camera battery.

I first tried a 24mm f2.8 Canon lens on the 5Dmk2. I found this was not quite wide enough. I next tried a 16mm Nikon (with Canon EOS to Nikon adapter ring) f2.8 fisheye. This worked great. Take a look at the video link at the bottom of the page for a test of the system.

The light was fading and I just managed to get this done late this afternoon. I hope to test this more on Thursday at the mountain in much better light. I will also experiment with higher shutter and closing the aperture on the fish eye for a deeper DOF.

This video blog is by no way endorsed by Philip Bloom of philipbloom.co.uk.

I decided to use the Canon 5Dmk2 DSLR camera because the director, Torey Champagne, wanted this shot in available light and with very shallow depth of field. I found it a challenge because “available light” in certain locations really meant, “no light”. I come from a television camera background where the biggest image sensor is 2/3 of an inch. It would be ridiculous to add 18dB gain into a television camera and expect usable results, but this camera is different. The Canon 5dmk2 sensor is much larger, that of a 35mm digital cinema camera. People across the internet are pushing the low light capabilities with this rig, so what the hell. Maybe it would be possible just to shoot it guerrilla style like this, after all, we were going for a grungy music video look.

Instead of me using my better judgment and telling Torey that it would be impossible to shoot in these locations without the help of a one ton grip truck and several people, I decided to take the Canon 5dmk2 and shoot at the dreaded ISO 6400. Not all the shots were at this nutty super high gain setting, just some of them. At this insane level of video amplification, I found noise and a bunch of dead pixels reared their ugly red eyes. In fact, whilst shooting at 6400 with a Nikon 55mm f1.2 prime lens, I said to one of the band members, “this is like shooting night vision!”

I used the Glidecam to shoot all the city shots with the band members/actress. I found pulling focus impossible to do whilst shooting so I just keep a specific distance between the film plane and the subject as I tracked them with the Glidecam. You will only find a couple focus pulls in this video. I later (or earlier in the morning) used Vinten tripods and my home made PVC dolly system during the music performance inside Union Station.

Take a moment for the video to load below and see for yourself. This camera is changing the way I look at a shoot location. It was simply amazing that the camera was even able to make exposure with little noise at the top of an dark parking garage or empty city alley without additional lighting.

This video is now on Vimeo. You can watch it by clicking here.

The Worcester Massachusetts band is called, “Sleep Alive” and this track is titled, “Put it on my tab”. Torey Champagne directed and edited the video. This video is copyright Torey Champagne Productions.

Use the comment box below to ask specific questions and let me know what you think. There was a behind the scenes doc crew (struggling with the low light conditions!) shooing with a Panasonic HVX-200. I hope to get that footage soon to post to this site.

During my days off, I enjoy videotaping nature, people and places. I mostly use this stuff for experimentation and testing of equipment, but I found out that some of my short “films” and narratives could be sold to companies interested in high quality stock footage. Those of you who have viewed the videos on this site understand how i spend my free time. This is just an extension of what I am already doing for fun. It would be nice to get a little gas money out of the deal!

When I say high quality stock footage, I do not mean 4k RED ONE digital cinema or Phantom 2k 1000 frames per second slow motion video. There are a few contributors working with digital juice right now acquiring that type of footage. I am bringing something different to the table with my own 1080p high definition camera equipment and shooting style. I will hike dolly track, jibs, and other equipment into the wilderness and down busy streets to bring back images that will be invaluable to people in search of eye-catching stock footage.

That all being said, if someday I get my hands on a camera that can shoot 4k at high frame rates, I will be able to offer something even better to the Digital Juice stock footage program.

My first project with Digital Juice will be shot in northeastern United States. I will be focusing on capturing small town living and the wilderness that surrounds them in the New England area. Farms, main streets, cities, people, animals, nature, landscapes, time lapses, and seasonal changes/activities will just be a sample of what I will be recording in the upcoming months.

The stock footage contribution program is on going at Digital Juice. This is the type of project that could feed their content library for years to come as Digital Juice releases new volumes.

The best part of this deal is that I can publish the footage to my own website to share it with all of you. The footage is not restricted to just Digital Juice.

I just got back from a quick couple days in the mountains shooting waterfalls and babbling brook footage. I will post a short video in the next few days, but first I must submit a few of the shots to Digital Juice to see if it is something they are interested in. Not all clips sell. Camera shots with a dynamic move like a jib or dolly will fetch more cash, but it is never guaranteed. So this brings me back to the “I’m doing this just for fun” factor.

If you are from the New England area and you have a few suggestions on what and where I should haul all my gear to, comment below. Also, if you want to help out, let’s try to match up our schedules and work together. Send me a message through the “contact me” page on this site expressing your interest and shooting location. I could always use an extra hand carrying the dolly or jib!

If you read this blog, you will know that I had a few problems with three dead/hot pixels on the Canon image sensor. You can read all about it by clicking here.

The guys in post have been busy logging footage and they have released a quick preview of the new video for a breakout Boston band who call themselves, “Sleep Alive”. This track is titled, “Put it on my tab”.

This video was shot with the Canon 5dmk2 camera and as you can see, the hot red pixel at the top of the fame has been cropped out. The final video will be presented in 1080p in the super wide 2.39:1 theatrical format.

I am posting this blog entry on my Blackberry whilst I set up my camp in the mountains. I will be shooting stock footage for Digital Juice’s new HD library in the remote Northeast for the next three days. Good thing there is a full moon tonight.

Here is the Youtube video embed:

OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO IS READY: click here to watch it.

I will be posting more from this band as the footage (and a behind the scenes doc) becomes available to the public. Enjoy!

I have used my Canon 5Dmk2 twice. Once to shoot a movie called “Burial Site” and the second time to snap off a few RAW stills while hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Things went well, I got the camera a little wet while hiking, but everything checked out fine.

I tried to use it for the third time and now the camera is a paperweight. NICE!

This has nothing to do with the light rain that I was shooting in while hiking in the mountains. It was something else all together. I slid the Kingston Compact Flash memory card into the socket on the Canon 5Dmk2 and found the camera to be malfunctioning. Nothing out of the ordinary, the card went in fine. The camera took about ten seconds to fully power up and it displayed the words, “Card Must Be Formatted” on the LCD.

I was surprised at this, so I went into the menu and selected “FORMAT”. Instantly, the camera stated on the viewfinder, “CARD CANNOT BE FORMATTED”.

I removed the card and looked at it. I noticed a slight indentation between two of the holes in the interface. I immediately thought that one of the pins in the camera must have bent and that was the cause of the mark. I did not force the card into the camera, I just pushed it in like I had done in the past.

Next, I grabbed a flashlight and a magnifying glass and looked into the CF interface cavity of the 5dmk2. I saw that one of the center pins was pushed down into the socket. I swore.

That is pretty much it. If you own this camera, be careful! I did nothing wrong. I did not insert the card incorrectly. I simply ejected it, used it in a external memory card reader and then reinserted it into the Canon camera. The CF card was carried inside the little plastic case so that it would stay clean. I tested the suspect CF card in my external reader and it works fine. I cannot explain why this happened, but I will be contacting Canon tomorrow and I plan to add updates to this page as I go through the repair process.

REPAIR UPDATES:
July 6, 2009 @11am – Called Adorama in NY at 800-223-2500. They told me to call 800-OK-CANON. Called Canon, they told me to call the service center in New Jersey at (732) 521-7007. I waited on hold for twenty minutes and when call was answered I was told I was in wrong department. The guy then told me that there was a long wait for repair. I told him I had been on hold for twenty minutes already. He said, then try registering for repair on Canon’s web site at http://www.usa.canon.com/repair. I am now trying that.

July 6, 2009 @11:15am – I have submitted a new repair request through the Canon website. I filled out all the info and this is what I posted when asked to explain the problem.

July 6, 2009 @2pm – I have packed up the camera and placed it in a small pelican case. I placed the peli-case inside a slightly larger box and sent if to the Canon Service Center in Jamesburg, New Jersey. It is due to arrive tomorrow.

Inserted a Compact Flash card into Canon 5D mark 2 for just the third time and powered up the camera, the camera did not initialize. Camera LCD stated that the “CARD MUST BE FORMATTED”. The card was already formatted.
I looked at the card and there was a mark between two of the contact holes.
I looked into CF camera cavity and found that one of the center pins in the interface was bent.
Camera will not format or recognize the CF card.
I posted pictures to my blog that might help you understand the situation better.
Link: http://bit.ly/OuIDd
Thanks and please help me get this fixed ASAP! I use this equipment on jobs as my source of income.

July 8 2009 @2pm – The camera arrived in New Jersey and I immediately received this email:

Dear Thomas :
We have received your equipment for evaluation and repair. Based on our initial examination, we will start the necessary repairs at no charge to you. You can expect the repair to be completed and returned back to you within approximately 7 business days* from the date shown above. There is no need to respond to this notice.
Please note that in the unlikely event that any additional internal damage is found due to liquid/water, sand, corrosion, battery leakage or impact (such as dropping the unit), a revised estimate will be sent for your authorization, since these conditions are specifically excluded from warranty coverage.
Thank you for purchasing Canon products and for allowing us this opportunity to serve you.
Best Regards,
Canon Factory Service Center

Great customer service thus far. Thank you Canon.

July 14 2009 @9am – Received this email:

Dear Thomas :
We are pleased to confirm that the service you requested on your EOS 5D MARK II has been completed and your equipment has been shipped to you on 14-JUL-09 . The tracking number for your package is 9************** . If you wish to track the status of your shipment through Federal Express, click here, or visit www.FedEx.com and use the tracking number listed above.
Please note that a signature is required for delivery!

Thank you for purchasing Canon products and for allowing us this opportunity to serve you.

Best Regards,
Canon Factory Service Center

July 15 2009 @1pm – Fed EX arrived at my home with Canon Package
I was not charged any money for the repair. The repair took just 12 days from the time of damage to the time of repair delivery.

The paper included with my repaired 5dmk2 stated:

BENT PIN. 1X COURTESY REPAIR. REPAIR TO GOOD WORKING ORDER.

Canon also added:

We have examined the product according to your request and upon close inspection the exact cause could not be identified but it was found that the memory card slot pins were broken. The internal component was replaced. Other electrical adjustments, inspection and cleaning and parts replacements were carried out. REPLACED MAIN PCB ASS’Y.

I hope this helps you if you are going through the same inconvenience. I have replaced my Kingston Compact Flash cards with Sandisk Extreme III cards. I am not sure if the camera had a bad pin from the factory or if my Kingston cards were to blame.

Based on what I have gotten back in writing from Canon, it appears that you get a one time “courtesy repair” on the PCB assembly. Not sure how much it will cost me if this happens again.