Err 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty

Err 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty

A few weeks ago, in the studio with a client, I had a major disaster — I broke a lens. I’d just set the lights up and we were ready to go when the back of the camera flashed up

ERR 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty

Err 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty
Err 01 Communications between the camera and lens is faulty
Not a good sign. I tried cleaning the contacts as suggested. No luck. Every time I zoomed the lens the error message popped up. Clearly the lens had failed and I needed to carry on with the shoot. My client was already very nervous and letting her know I’d suffered a catastrophic equipment failure was not an option. Instead, I

just said “Right, we’re good to go. I’m just going to swap lenses as the optics on this one are much better for you” and reached into my bag for my backup body and the 70-200 f/2.8L.

Needless to say she was blissfully unaware of anything going wrong. Meanwhile, I was sweating buckets, dreading the thought of a hefty repair bill or worse, having to buy a new lens to replace the faulty one.

As soon as I was back home I called the Canon service centre in Elstree. They were extremely helpful and quoted a fixed price (just over £150) to have the lens serviced, cleaned and repaired. They even put 6 months waranty on it for me.

I dropped the unit off the very next morning and had a call later that day to say it was ready. The fault was just a broken ribbon cable in side the unit – worn out after several years of constant use.

Now that’s what I call service and I’d like to say a huge thank you to all the folks at the Canon service centre for world class customer service.

(Compare that to my recent experience with Apple. I love the products but my first experience of customer service and tech. support was absolutely dreadful.)

In conclusion…

This does bring home an important point: As a photographer, I’m only a photographer as long as I can make pictures. In the event of a catastrophic failure such as a lens breaking on a revenue shoot it’s always good to have a backup to turn to.

In this case, my client was completely unaware that anything untoward had happened and we made the images she wanted. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.

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