Canon 1D Mark II - Mirror Box

After sending my 1D mark II to Canons Repair facility two weeks go, they contacted me today to explain that it has taken a while to work out what was causing the problem but they now know that it is the mirror box housing which needs to be completely replaced. That didn’t sound good, neither did it sound inexpensive. Canon had called a week ago and asked if the camera had been dropped to which I had replied that it hadn’t but they seemed to think an impact must have caused the problem. After thinking about it, I remembered that whilst I was in the hide at Mere Sands Wood over the Bank Holiday weekend in May, during my exhibition, the hide got very busy at one point as families came rushing in to try and see the kingfisher. I was sitting on the bench and was using the 5D at the time, with my Mini Trekker backpack beside me. Someone knocked the backpack onto the stone floor - luckily I always zip it up after removing anything.

I had opened to check everything was OK, which it seemed to be and then placed it on the floor under the bench. Recalling the incident, I realised that this had happened the day before I noticed the problem with the auto focus and that I hadn’t used the 1DII again until the following day and that the 1DII was in the bag. It would have landed upside down and therefore the camera could have suffered quite an impact right on the top of it. Canon said that sounded like what had happened as although there was no physical sign of damage, it had received quite an impact. The repair is going to take a while to do and it iss going to cost £320 - at least it can be repaired! Time to call the insurance company I think.