Dust in LCD display?

[Disneyfreak92]

First of all, HI! I have been lurking here for a month or two now, and have to say thanks to you all. I have gotten some really great tips/ideas here. I have a question now that I haven't seen asked here though.

I have the Canon Digital Rebel XT. I got it almost a year ago, and I LOVE it! I am leaving for a short trip to WDW in 4 days, and I have just discovered that I have a small amount of dust in the lower right corner of the LCD display on the back of the camera. It functions fine, but is really annoying, and I am concerned about it getting worse. I have emailed Canon with the question, but thought I'd post here too to see if this has happened to anyone, and if so, how it was dealt with. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Lynda

 

[Kelly Grannell]

If it is on the LCD itself, I've never heard of that. If it is on the CCD, you can carefully clean it with a sensor brush (don't use a blower or regular brush, you'll ruin your sensor)

 

[Disneyfreak92]

Nope, it's on the display on the back of the camera - where the pictures are viewed. That is why I don't know how it got in there.

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Sorry, Lynda. I don't know what to say. I've never encountered something like that. Theoretically, it's something easy that a Canon repair centre can do. But in order to do so, they will have to open the chamber and that may 'invite' other problem(s) to enter the camera (if you're not in luck).

Annoying as it may be, my suggestion is just to leave it.

 

[Disneyfreak92]

Thanks Kelly! I heard back from Canon. They wanted me to ship it to their nearest service center, which is several states away, of course. But we also have the service plan on the camera from Best Buy, so I might take it there to see whether it is something they will send off to Canon for service or replace. I have a feeling they will send it to Canon, which would be better than me sending it, but I agree that opening it up could cause other problems down the road. I was thinking of keeping an eye on it to see if it gets any worse and just dealing with it in the meantime. I will have to deal with it for this trip at least. Thanks for your help!

 

[eeyoreiscool]

I would be very wary of giving anything to Best Buy for repairs. There are too many horror stories out there about how things get lost or are worse afterwards. I would just send it directly to Canon to be safe.

 

[robertchance]

if you have a bestbuy service contract, use it, or all you really did was waste money purchasing it. As for the repairperson opening camera and exposing it to dust, they are aware of this issue and I am sure that repairs are accomplished under dust free conditions.

 

[Disneyfreak92]

Well, I am not too worried about Best Buy losing my camera. If they do, it will be up to them to replace it, and we don't send anything but the camera itself. They prefer that you don't send any accessories that might get lost. Besides, DH and I both worked at our local Best Buy. We know the people there, and they know us, and we usually don't have too much trouble.

I will probably take it there eventually, but I don't have time to take it there before this trip (We leave in 2 days! ), and our next trip is 3 months after that, so I might check the turnaround time when we get back from this trip. I guess I wonder if they will clean the display or replace it. I would not be happy to get back a dust-free display with damaged pixels and have to send it to service all over again. But I will probably take it in to Best Buy after the trip and see how long it will take, and if they can tell me what will be done before doing it.

On a happy note, I got packages last night in the form of the UV filter I ordered for my new lens, a new eye cup (we lost ours), and along with my new tripod and remote shutter release, I can't wait to take tons of pictures this weekend!

 

[Kelly Grannell]

As for the repairperson opening camera and exposing it to dust, they are aware of this issue and I am sure that repairs are accomplished under dust free conditions.

I hope that is the case. Not to scare anybody, and also hoping that US service centres to be better than the Canadian counterpart, I've visited several Futureshop stores (own and operated by BestBuy Canada) and several Canon authorized service centres. None of them can be considered to be dust-free environment. In fact, if you actually see those places, you'll faint.

I almost fainted seeing the way they 'cleaned' my sensor. Surely enough it came back with more dust then when I handed the unit to them. In the end, I just buy specialty cleaning brush and cloth to clean the sensor myself.