Retailers and camera reviewers in the US are reporting some early releases of the forthcoming Canon EOS 750D and 760D cameras have defective sensors.
The two cameras are called the Rebel T6i and T6s in the US and Canada.
At this stage the extent of the issue is not fully understood, and there has been no public comment from Canon US. However, the image effects seem to be mild, and they only appear when a lens is stopped right down.
Roger Cicala, principal of leading US photographic gear hire company Lensrental.com, alerted the industry to the issue on May 1, having first brought it to the attention of Canon. He wrote: ‘Every once in a while we notice something, because of the large quantities of cameras and lenses we buy, that we think people should be aware of…The bottom line is that four of the Canon T6s, and two of the T6i cameras we received had to be sent back because of a defect in the sensor stack (the layers of filter glass over the sensor). This is out of about 10 copies of each; the others were absolutely perfect.
‘The affected cameras all had a dramatic pattern that at first we thought was oil or dust on top of the sensor glass.’
As the defect is embedded in the sensor stack, it would appear replacement, rather than repair, is the obvious remedy.
Roger Cicala added that Canon was ‘aggressively looking into it’: ‘It will take some time for them to figure out what the issue is, where it occurred, and what cameras might be affected. They’re actively looking into the situation. They are NOT telling me, as some manufacturers do, that there is no problem.’
This was followed up by an extensive article by photography website Imaging Resource which also discovered that a Rebel T6s they had in for review had the sensor stack problem, while a T6i was OK. They put the faulty camera through a range of tests and concluded first; ‘you honestly have to look fairly hard to see the effects of the flecks in your images. Even at f/22, they were almost invisible in the raw images; we had to really crank on the tonal range using Photoshop’s “levels” control to be able to see them clearly’; and secondly; ‘the good news about this is that it’s not at all something that can develop over time. If your camera doesn’t exhibit the problem now, it never will.’
There ave been other reports of the sensor problem. Canadian photo specialist chain Dons Photos noted on its website: ‘A couple of our stores checked their stock and we did find some sensors that had the same issues that LensRental.com, PetaPixel, and DP Review have all found. We pulled the defective sensors off our shelves and won’t sell it until we hear of a remedy from Canon.’
The new models have only just been released in North America. While they were slated for local release in April, they don’t seem to be fully rolled out as yet. While Ted’s Cameras website appears to have the cameras in stock, they are only for pre-order or ‘coming soon’ on the Camera House, DigiDirect, DCW and Canon online stores.
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