Suddenly - (no damage to camera) the camera won't operate on AF. It has always done so. I may have been playing about with different functions but if so , don't know what Ive done. I've tried a lot of things and the manual is not really helping.
I'm a long long way from any kind of shop and wondered if anyone has any ideas . I've tried it on all shooting modes. Dont know what else to try. Help!

 

Not wishing to state the obvious, but have you accidentally knocked the switch on the lens to MF? Also try removing and reattching the lens.

 

Another possibility is you may have accidentally reassigned AF to another button.

 

The two things are: disabling AF and remapping the AF function from the shutter release. If you have been messing with the custom functions then that's most likely what you have done. Often called back-button focus it lets you use AF to fix a focussing distance. Useful when AF by itself keeps jumping about.

 

I don't mind anyone stating the obvious. Rather feel an idiot and have my camera reigned to full health.No - the lens is still on AF. I have tried detaching nd attaching the lens - will try gain . I DIS SWAP LENSES LAST TIME I USED IT

 

SO how can I get it back to 'say' factory settings?

 

I may - but not sure how. Is there a way of resetting the whole camera - like a smartphone

 

It will be in the manual which you can download from the Canon site. These days of context menus I'd expect it to be clear from the LCD description - not like when the options were all of the form CF 24 choice 1 or 0 when you needed the manual to say what function 24 was.

 

My Nikon Df did that a while back. I had managed to knock one tiny button near the lens mount when I was putting the camera into a pocket. It's worse still when you accidentally press TWO buttons in a particular sequence, and don't know which buttons or what the sequence was...

This is one of the many reasons I like film cameras!

Cheers,

R.

 

A long while ago I had the same problem with an Olympus. - completely cured by cleaning the gold contacts in the body / lens mount

That may not cure it but it is cheap

 

• Is this true of just one lens, or all lenses you have?
• Is it true for all camera modes (Av, Tv, M, P, etc?)
• Do you get an error?
• Does the camera take a shot, or does it refuse to and make the 'out of focus' beep?
• Does using liveview change the behaviour?

 

Could be something as simple as the lens being not quite mounted correctly. Remove it, clean the gold contacts on both camera and lens, and try again. Turn AF off on the lens and back on again.

 

Thanks - will try this

 

After Ive tried a few things - will check these questions. I have not had an error message. It was trues for all modes. No out of focus beep. It doesn't take a shot unless i revert to manual. Will check other lens. Will check live view.

 

"It doesn't take a shot unless i revert to manual"

What does that mean please? Does that mean if you switch the lens to auto-focus, it doesn't actually allow you to take a photograph?

 

Yes - that's correct. And it always has done before. Will take one on Manual, but sometimes out of focus.
Ive just tried AFon my long lens and it works perfectly...... what does that suggest? I've cleaned all the gold contacts as some people suggested.

 

Well it means your problem is with the lens, not the camera.

 

That's what I feared. It would certainly seem so. Does the mean a new lens?

 

Many thanks for all your suggestions. I think I will have to go to a shop and let them take a look at the lens