Getting 'BUSY' signal with Canon Rebel T6i - very frustrated and disappointed. Help?

[SergeTheBlerge]

Hi all, so I just joined this forum the other day because I was very excited about getting my new Canon Rebel T6i, and wouldn't you know it, on the VERY FIRST day of testing it out I came across a strange and very SUDDEN technical problem that just sprang out of the blue.

With almost EVERY setting I put the camera at, I'm getting a 'BUSY' sign on the screen every time I take a shot, and the shutter speed slows down resulting in a blurry image. It's like the camera is having trouble focusing at first and then having trouble taking the shot. The flasher pops up to even when I don't want it to. It seems to do so on Macro mode but I don't like using the flash AT ALL so don't know why my older PowerShot SX50 never had this problem but this Rebel does.
Anyway, I was just taking test shots as I had just got the camera out of the box, using the in-box 18-55mm lens. All was well but then decided to try out the 75-300mm lens that came with my package. After trying and failing pretty much (as I don't have that steady of a hand), I replaced it again with the 18-55 lens. After I replaced it is when this 'BUSY' problem started happening. I read online that people are blaming a slow SD card. I was using a regular Sandisk 8G so I switched it out with one of the cards my package came with, that being a Transcend 30mb/s 200X SDHC 1 card at 16G. I figured this was the "faster" card I needed but STILL am having the same 'BUSY' signal and shots still coming out blurry.

A few people online just said they switched to Nikon and never had this problem. I know that the Nikon D5500 is the most comparable camera and I may switch to this if this problem persists. I'm very disappointed in Canon right now because this feels like such a stupid problem to be dealing with, especially with a BRAND NEW camera. On top of that, the battery life is pretty poor.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thank you for ANY feedback.

[Mike Buckley]

The chances that your brand new Canon camera is malfunctioning are very, very small. (That coming from a Nikon user. ) I just now opened the manual for your camera and conducted a search on "busy." That signal is displayed in five or six different situations. If you conduct the search and read about those situations, it's likely that you'll realize what caused your situation to occur.

By the way, keeping the PDF of your manual handy and available will almost always be the easiest and fastest way for you to figure out stuff that is otherwise inexplicable, especially while you are new to your camera. Even though I have been using my camera more than six years, something happened a few months ago that I had never noticed and didn't know about. I looked it up in the manual and the problem was immediately solved. That explains why I always keep my manual on my laptop when I travel and it is always stored in my DropBox account, allowing me to use it anywhere I have Internet access.

[SergeTheBlerge]

The chances that your brand new Canon camera is malfunctioning are very, very small. (That coming from a Nikon user. ) I just now opened the manual for your camera and conducted a search on "busy." That signal is displayed in five or six different situations. If you conduct the search and read about those situations, it's likely that you'll realize what caused your situation to occur.

By the way, keeping the PDF of your manual handy and available will almost always be the easiest and fastest way for you to figure out stuff that is otherwise inexplicable, especially while you are new to your camera. Even though I have been using my camera more than six years, something happened a few months ago that I had never noticed and didn't know about. I looked it up in the manual and the problem was immediately solved. That explains why I always keep my manual on my laptop when I travel and it is always stored in my DropBox account, allowing me to use it anywhere I have Internet access.

I have the PDF of the manual and nowhere in it do I find anything regarding getting a busy signal. Then again I went straight for the troubleshooting section and there is nothing. I can't take pictures and there is nothing different about the situations I'm using that I wasn't using before I got those signals. It doesn't make any sense at all.

[Mike Buckley]

Why is it that I was able to find five or six situations explained in the camera manual and you weren't able to find anything? Click this to open the manual I used.
.

[Black Pearl]

There are 12 instances of BUSY in the manual that I can find. Most seems to suggest the camera will display this and won't take a picture while either the flash is charging or during a long exposure. You have mentioned using flash so that sounds normal and you have said you're getting blurred (I'm going to guess motion blur due to long shutter speeds) images so that also sounds normal.

Best advice - pour yourself a nice glass of your favourite beverage, find a comfy chair and work your way through the instruction manual with your camera to hand trying the various options as they are described.

[Sergio M.]

Sergio, check to be sure the lens is properly seated and attached. Also check to see if you didn't accidentally move the switch on the lens to manual focus from automatic. I'm not sure if this would cause the kind of problem you're describing, but it's worth a look. Hope you figure it out soon.

Sergio

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Sergio,

I am also a Nikon guy, so I may not be 100% accurate here, but here are some random thoughts that occurred when I read your post.


Best advice: SLOW DOWN.

First:
Are you switching off the camera when you change the lens?
If not, I believe you should be (else the electronics can get confused).
Have you tried switching it off, taking out the battery for 5 mins, then trying again?

Second:
That said, perhaps take the battery out and charge it up fully - these things usually do not ship with a fully charged battery, so you should have left it charging before even starting using - did you do that?
Comments on bad battery life are rather pre-emptive if not.

If/when you do put the battery on charge, please read the T6i instruction manual, you are lacking a lot of background knowledge and are probably not correctly understanding what the camera is telling you on its displays and in the viewfinder.
Using a DSLR is more complex than something like an SX50, especially if you only used the SX50 on scene modes - another point is that scene modes on the T6i will not do as much as they did on the SX50 - e.g. 'macro' mode will not, on the T6i, change how the lens behaves (e.g. it can't make it focus closer).

Third:
We have absolutely no idea what you have the camera pointing at, so either you've manually set a very slow shutter (possibly without realising it) or the scene is dark and, combined with other settings, is resulting in this behaviour. If it is firing an exposure of several seconds (for some reason*) and something called Long Exposure NR (noise reduction) is on, what you describe will be the correct function.

* e.g. I don't know how easy it would be (on a Canon camera) to confuse a shutter speed indication of "30", you thinking it means 1/30s, when you are actually have 30 seconds set. It is possible that some scene mode you have set is causing this.

So instead, let's try to start from a known point and see what happens; please do this:
Switch to Manual mode "M" on dial
Set a shutter speed of 1/1000
Set aperture to f/3.5
Set lens to 18mm
Set ISO to say, 400
Point the camera out the window, if daylight, or up at the room light if not.
Fire the shutter and take a picture of it

Did the shutter behave normally
Did it clickety-clunk and did you get a very brief flash of busy light?
Can you see anything on LCD in playback mode?

If so, and I expect it will, there's likely nothing wrong with your camera.

Let us know what happened.

Cheers, Dave

[Manfred M]

Best advice: SLOW DOWN.

+1 to that advice! That is usually the best way of solving issues.

If your camera reports that it is "busy", that is a clear signal that something is going on and it is not able to take a shot. The most obvious reasons of why that could be happening is a full buffer (shooting in burst mode and the camera has not finished writing to the memory card), internal flash has not recharged or some heavy duty internal processing function (long exposure noise reduction, etc). Figure out what it is and then work on a solution.

[rpcrowe]

Most times, the problems with a new camera can be traced to operator error. I have had my share of operator error problems since my philosophy once was "When all else fails - read the manual"

Since I slowly graduated from one Canon camera to another, that was a viable strategy... I used a 10D, 30D, 40D and 7D... These cameras were virtually so similar that I could use each successive model without many problems. However, the 7DII has so many bells and whistles that I find myself reverting to the manual quite often...

UNFORTUNATELY... Canon decided not to supply a full printed manual with my 7DII... I got an abbreviated user guide and a PDF on the disk. What a PITA, just when I needed the full manual in a small printed format the most, Canon got cheap on us and didn't want to spend the money to print a hard copy manual for an expensive camera

I would recommend a couple of ways to possibly work through your busy problems...

1. Go into your manual and revert the camera to the factory default settings...
2. Turn off your camera and remove both batteries for about five minutes...

Set your camera at ISO 400 and Programmed exposure and see if it is now working correctly...

[SergeTheBlerge]

So instead, let's try to start from a known point and see what happens; please do this:
Switch to Manual mode "M" on dial
Set a shutter speed of 1/1000
Set aperture to f/3.5
Set lens to 18mm
Set ISO to say, 400
Point the camera out the window, if daylight, or up at the room light if not.
Fire the shutter and take a picture of it

Did the shutter behave normally
Did it clickety-clunk and did you get a very brief flash of busy light?
Can you see anything on LCD in playback mode?

If so, and I expect it will, there's likely nothing wrong with your camera.

Let us know what happened.

Cheers, Dave

Ok, I tried those settings and the camera behaved normally. This does give me some relief as I was worried there was something wrong with the camera. I googled my issue and it seemed there were lots of people having this very same problem.

What you had mentioned before, about what I was trying to shoot. It was a statue standing about 3 feet away in a fairly well lit room. I had tried the camera on Program, Manual, and even Auto, all giving me the "busy" signal, slow shutter and blurry picture. Well, the Manual setting shutter clicks like 5 times while saying 'busy' and then I get the picture. In Manual mode I cannot adjust the ISO using Live View (using the back screen). I tried using Portrait and the flash comes up. Personally I can't stand flash because I feel like it makes the shot look like something out of the 90s. Therefore I just set to no flash mode.
Anyway, I'm beginning to see the cracks of the ins and outs of using a DSLR. You're likely correct that coming from years of a PowerShot I may need to slow down my expectations of my own abilities.

Thanks for the help!

[SergeTheBlerge]

Sergio, check to be sure the lens is properly seated and attached. Also check to see if you didn't accidentally move the switch on the lens to manual focus from automatic. I'm not sure if this would cause the kind of problem you're describing, but it's worth a look. Hope you figure it out soon.

Sergio

Hi, yes the lens was attached correctly. I cheked for that a few times. I try to leave the lens as for right now on Auto bc Manual I don't think I'm ready for yet. Thanks for theverything insight

[SergeTheBlerge]

There are 12 instances of BUSY in the manual that I can find. Most seems to suggest the camera will display this and won't take a picture while either the flash is charging or during a long exposure. You have mentioned using flash so that sounds normal and you have said you're getting blurred (I'm going to guess motion blur due to long shutter speeds) images so that also sounds normal.

Best advice - pour yourself a nice glass of your favourite beverage, find a comfy chair and work your way through the instruction manual with your camera to hand trying the various options as they are described.

Yes the motion blur is there because of the longer shutter speed (or slower, however you want to look at it). I have to look further in the manual because I so far can't find anything on busy signals.

I'll definitely take your advice on the time alone with the camera, manual and cold drink. 😉 thanks

[Rent]

If your shooting in large jpeg and large raw it will also slow you down As will a slow shutter speed
Roy

[Tronhard]

Another thing that may have an impact on the busy signal will be a slow SD card. One can get cheap but very slow, and often unreliable cards that will hang for a period while the camera tries to save to the card. This ties up the processor and buffer so you get a busy signal.

What CLASS is your SD card? it would look like a number inside the letter C - say a 6 or 10...

[SergeTheBlerge]

Another thing that may have an impact on the busy signal will be a slow SD card. One can get cheap but very slow, and often unreliable cards that will hang for a period while the camera tries to save to the card. This ties up the processor and buffer so you get a busy signal.

What CLASS is your SD card? it would look like a number inside the letter C - say a 6 or 10...

Hi. My SD card is a class 10. It's a Transcend 16G 'SDHC.' If there is any brand/type of SD card you or anyone could suggest that is optimal for my camera I'm definitely all ears. And thanks!

[Tronhard]

Hi Sergio:

I use class 10 myself, and it's the fastest of this class of cards and should offer no issues with read/write. I would suggest going into the menu and make sure that the ability to take photos with the card removed is turned OFF. I have on occasion forgotten to replace the card and having the camera prompt me to put in a card is very hand, rather than taking a bunch of images but not capturing them!

[loosecanon]

From what you say about shutter shooting several shots I suggest the following:
Make sure the camera is not bracketing - if this has been somehow set it will quickly fill the shot buffer - remember it haws both exposure bracketing and colour temperature bracketing.
Make sure the camera is not set to do HDR images - after shooting it's three bracketed shots the camera takes its time procesing the images to form the final HDR image..
What shutter speed, aperature and Iso have you set - and initally make sure that exposure compensation is set to 0
Don't set a mode that sets a slow shutter speed.

Finally remember if shooting raw and jpeg a 30mb/s card will need a second per image to write to the card.

[FootLoose]

What you had mentioned before, about what I was trying to shoot. It was a statue standing about 3 feet away in a fairly well lit room.

What we consider to be well lit is not the same as what the camera considers well lit. What shutter speed did the camera use for P and Auto, and what speed did you set in Manual?

Well, the Manual setting shutter clicks like 5 times while saying 'busy' and then I get the picture.

Clicks 5 times? Are you shooting bracketed exposures? That would fill up the buffer and give you a busy signal, particularly if you are shooting at a slow shutter speed.

[Tronhard]

Could I make two suggestions:
1. Reset your camera's setting to defaults - Ref P267 of your user manual
2. watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CH-...ature=youtu.be

cheers: Trev

[FootLoose]

. I read online that people are blaming a slow SD card. I was using a regular Sandisk 8G so I switched it out with one of the cards my package came with, that being a Transcend 30mb/s 200X SDHC 1 card at 16G. I figured this was the "faster" card I needed but STILL am having the same 'BUSY' signal and shots still coming out blurry.

30mb/sec is not a particularly fast card. I had problems with buffering delays on my old 600D so I switched to a 90mb/sec card. That helped. If you look at the at page 117 of the manual that Mike linked to (post #2) you'll get an idea of the size of file that the camera is generating. If you are shooting raw, then that is 28mb file. And if you are shooting a burst of 5fps (which is the 750D's rated burst speed [see page 2 of the manual]) then that is 140mb you are trying to record but your card is only writing at 30mb/sec. Hence there could be a 4 sec delay between the recording of the first and last image of the burst or bracket.