When the shutter on your new camera stays open for 30 seconds, it’s not normal

My sisters and I recently chipped in on a brand new digital SLR camera (think the next step beyond your typical point-and-shoot camera) for my dad. Being the techie in the family, it became my job to hand deliver the new camera to my dad so I could teach him how to use it. This was a job I was actually looking forward to because up until now, I haven't had a lot of hands-on experience with digital SLR cameras.

My dad and I only spent a minute or two before the new camera was up and running. We decided to play it safe on the first few pictures and use the "auto" setting which basically tells the camera to do all of the focusing, light metering, etc. for you. But after snapping the first few pictures, we started to think the auto setting wasn't as idiot-proof as it sounded.

Felt like we were in a blizzard in the middle of spring

The pictures turned out horrible. Everything was washed out and the people in the pictures looked like ghosts. We tried to figure out a way to take a picture without the flash, but on the auto setting this is out of your control (the camera is in control on auto).

So we did the next best thing and dove into the manual settings on the camera. We did our best to guess at things like F-Stop, ISO and shutter speed and snapped another few pictures. This is where things really went south. Each time we snapped a picture, the camera locked up for 30 seconds. When it finally displayed the picture on the LCD screen, the picture was completely white. Not washed out white, but blizzard white.

Things can't be this complicated

Of course, being noobies ourselves to digital SLR cameras, my dad and I spent at least an hour pouring over both the settings on the camera and the manual that came with the camera. Yet nothing we tried worked.

As a techie, there comes a point where you start to get a sinking feeling that things can't be this complicated. Yes, technology can be confusing but no technology gadget should make you jump through this many hoops to make it work.

Meet Casey, my digital SLR camera expert

That's when I decided it was time to call someone whom I really trust when it comes to digital SLR cameras. Her name is Casey and she writes a blog called Moosh in Indy. Whether Casey admits it or not, she is a fantastic photographer and an expert on digital SLR cameras.

Casey was happy to help me (despite it being late on a Sunday night) and walked me through how to check a few settings on the camera. She then taught me how to read the metering on the camera so I would know what the camera intended to do when I pressed the shutter button. This is when Casey discovered that the camera wanted to keep the shutter open for 30 seconds on every picture. If this sounds wrong, you're absolutely right. But it does explain why the camera kept locking up for 30 seconds and why the resulting pictures turned out completely white.

In the end, Casey reached the conclusion that my dad and I were doing everything right and that there must be something "wonky" (her word, not mine but I love it) with the camera.

At this point, I was pretty sure I would be returning the camera but thought I better call Canon support first. I did this in case Amazon (where I purchased the camera) wanted proof the camera wasn't working when I went to return it. I reached a Canon technical support person surprisingly fast and within 60 seconds he told me there must be a mechanical failure with the camera and that I should request a replacement from Amazon.

Lesson learned with a replacement camera

I could write an entire separate blog post about how easy it was to get the replacement from Amazon.com, but let's just leave it at this--I had a replacement camera via FedEx the very next day.

And guess what? The new camera takes gorgeous pictures, both on the auto and the manual settings. So the entire time my dad and I were trying to figure out what we were doing wrong, it was really the camera that was in the wrong.

This is a great lesson for anyone that is spending an hour or more trying to figure out how to use a technology gadget. If it starts to feel like maybe the gadget itself isn't working, you might be right.