After filming at my model flying club today, I shut off my A1. Tried to turn it back on in any camera mode and it won't come on. Came home and hooked the ac adapter up and still no go. It will come on in vcr mode and play back the tape. Tape eject mech is working also. Is there anything I've missed. I'll hate it if I have to send it in for some long service turn-around.

Have you tried the standby/lock position on the record button? That sounds like the culprit.

Well bless your heart, that is exactly what it was!! It was slightly bumped out of the standby position. That's a huge relief. I'm gonna epoxy that thing in place! Holly, what is meant by Coalville? Is that WV?

Hey wade... I wouldn';t do that. It's nice to flick the cam into stand by without turning it off ;)

Just pulling your leg :)

I love the standby feature.. I've used it so much!

I actually did do it. Took me just a moment to realise, but there was a silence. I use it everytime I take the cam out.

Honestly, I had forgotten it was even there. But now after reading about it, I can see where I will be using it quite a bit. I found myself going over each setting yesterday after turning it back on and with this switch, I won't have to do that. Of course, the gain switch could still be easily bumped.

Yeah

Heaving been an XL2 user for the last 2 years, I am not used to those switches! Standby is just aneat little button on the side.

I am gonna have to remember that whenever the heck my A1 Ships!

Yeah

Heaving been an XL2 user for the last 2 years, I am not used to those switches! Standby is just aneat little button on the side.

I am gonna have to remember that whenever the heck my A1 Ships!

That's me too.. for the past two years with an XL2..

My wife LOVES the A1.. but quite honestly I miss the XL2's features so I'm thinkin about trading in MY A1 for an XLH1.. that or I'll just have to get used to it..

I miss the weight(shoulder mount), the hard buttons, the evf, manual lens.. :)
There are some things on the A1 that simply ROCK.. and others that Canon could have made more like the XL series.. perhaps on a revision.. in two or three years.. hehehe

I had a similar moment yesterday with a GL2, in which someone bumped the lock and I couldn't power it on and assumed the worst. Scary!

Scarcely two weeks old, been out on one test shoot, worked fine.

Tonight, first paying shoot, I'm 15 minutes in, everything fine so far, I walk away from the camera, come back, and its off.

OK, first I think - did I remember to disable auto power off? Yes, I know I did. Plus, I had just cracked off a shot seconds before. Second, I try a different battery. No difference. Dead. The thing is still in M mode. I shut it off, then on, several times. It flickers on once, then dead as a stone.

What's odd is that it works fine in vcr mode. But it will not power up in any recording mode.

Thank God the shoot was 10 minutes from my house and I haven't sold my dvx. Still, that took a few years off my life. Needless to say, my dealer will be getting a call tomorrow.

Anyone have any guesses?

just checking... the switch around the thumb button isn't set to lock, correct?

Do you mean the one on the handle, near the mic bracket? If so, no it is not. Is there another lock? Boy I sure would love this to be operator error...

Okay... right where your thumb goes to hit record when holding the cam corder normally...

There is a circular switch which circles the button. it can be flipped from Standby to Locked.


Locked doesn't allow the camera to power up. Standby is used when shooting. You can switch it to locked to put the camera in power-off mode, and then switch back to standby to shoot again...

Or, if your camera powers itself off, you can turn it back on by switching to locked then back to standby...

Make sure your switch is on standby.

1. Boy am I glad it was my f*** up.

2. Boy am I appreciative Matthew.

3. Boy, do I not want people to panic when they read the title of this thread.

It's okay Stu, it happens to the best of us :)

Cheers

Boy, do I not want people to panic when they read the title of this thread.

I changed the title to help with #3 :-)

And now I know why I screwed up. On the dvx, this is where the power switch is. By force of habit, when I walked away from the cam, I must have flipped that switch, which for years has been turning my cam on and off. Not anymore.

And thanks, Boyd. At least the thread might spare someone else coming over from the dvx from making the same boneheaded mistake.

Actually... your little bit about owning a DVX is what tipped me off... I worked with a DVX a while back and I kept turning it off thinking I was putting it in lock :P

What I thought was really weird was that on my first shoot with the 100A, the cam actually did die.

The motor controlling the zoom simply stopped working, no manual or auto zoom. This was one of the very first 100A's, it was 10 days old - B&H has a 7 day return policy. Thankfully Jan Critteneden read a post and stepped in and fixed it, which is why I feel for you & your hot pixel, & hope Canon puts someone on these boards and does right by you.

that lock switch is really easy to hit and shut the cam off... almost a little too easy I think.. I am afraid of hitting it while recording... I'm sure this has happened to others

Thanks Stu,

Yeah, still no reply. I love Canon, so it kind of disappoints me that I am getting no help with this issue.

Actually one could argue that the fact that the OFF is not more visible/noticeable in some way is a usability error on the designers part - seriously.

i'll have to chip in on accidently switching the lock switch, mostly during hand holding. It just needs a little more resistance in the switch. I like the location, as I find I switch the camera off all the time between shots. But as I have owned the A1 a month or two now, it has been a while since I have knocked it

Did the same thing precisely when first playing with the camera. I was seriously hoping there was a standby feature somewhere I had missed and on first cracking the manual, found that there was. That's a sneaky (but handy) button.

I did the same thing.....2 hours after opening it. Took me 5 minutes to figure it out....but that was the longest 5 minutes of my life!

Guilty as charged. I fiddled around with my cam at home, drove 20 minutes and pulled it out of the case and thought it died. Tooke me a good 4-5 minutes to figure it out; a rough couple of minutes for sure.

Hello everyone,

Over the weekend, I was shooting a show in a club with the XH-A1 and at the end I turned the camera off. A minute later, I tried turning it back on and there was nothing. So obviously, I assumed it was the battery. Plugged in the power adapter and still nothing, but here's the thing, Playback would turn on, but Record modes would not. Put it away for the night and the next morning took another look. Same thing was happening. Finally, while in Record mode (though not working) I flipped to Lock and back over Standby and it came back on.

Now I'm not sure what exactly happened but I wanted to let you all know in case something like this happens again. I don't think I was near the Lock button to have possibly knocked it over, but who knows, maybe I did.

Kevin

not a problem at all, this happens when you leave the camera in standby without recording or touching anything, the camera automatically "shutsdown" somewhat of a battery saver or something, this happens to me all the time when on shoots, I think it's after like 5 min. or something it will do this. To change it you must switch the switch/lock thing to lock and then back to standby to "turn it on". Sure would be nice if they made a way to turn it off like I could on my good ole GL-2. If anyone else has found out how to turn it off let me know!!!

Eric Hansen
www.ehansenproductions.com

Look in the custom functions, you can turn it off.

That was one of the first things I did, turn that off.
A few days ago I ran into that problem with the little lock switch. I had been doing a lot of handheld and moving around, putting the camera down, picking it up, etc., and the record button would do nothing. I figured I had flipped something accidentally, but it too, me a gut-wrenching moment to remember that switch. Good thing somebody on here had mentioned it a couple of weeks ago; otherwise I could have panicked.

not a problem at all, this happens when you leave the camera in standby without recording or touching anything, the camera automatically "shutsdown" somewhat of a battery saver or something, this happens to me all the time when on shoots, I think it's after like 5 min. or something it will do this. To change it you must switch the switch/lock thing to lock and then back to standby to "turn it on". Sure would be nice if they made a way to turn it off like I could on my good ole GL-2. If anyone else has found out how to turn it off let me know!!!

Eric Hansen
www.ehansenproductions.com

Yeah, Bill, I completely freaked out for a night. I had a feeling though that I was being duped by the camera.

Thanks for the tips Eric & Stefan.

I just bought the A1 a couple of days ago and I can't power it up today. I used it last night while getting used to it with no problems.

Today I was going to do the same and I can't get it to power it on. It powers on as VCR but not as camera.

Please if anyone has an answer I'll appreciate it. I have two jobs Saturday with a total of 6 HD cameras.

EDIT: I found my answer

I had the LOCK ON instead of STANDBY

I am new to CANON. I love the Image. Even my new HV20 is beautiful.

Do not feel bad - you are not the first person to post that question (and answer).

Just like the title says. I am packing to drive up to Atlanta today for a shoot and I check my cam and find out its not turning on in any playback mode. It will, however, turn on in in VCR or EXT CONN mode.

What could be wrong!?! This is a freshly charged battery!

Your standby switch is flipped.

The LOCK switch was not engaged (i thought it might be). The same behavior happens weather or not the LOCK is engaged.

Whoops, looks like that was a typo. I meant to say: It works in playback mode but does NOT work in and recording mode.

I'm typing this from a cell phone so its a little confusing...sorry! :p

The previous posts indicate the answer to your problem.

Fair enough. I'm on the road right so I can check this moment, but is there another "standby" switch I don't know about with the excepton of the LOCK switch on the top left on the handle?

Yeah, it's part of the recordbutton that's NOT on the handle. It's a Standby/Lock-switch which you can turn.
Located at the back of the camera - near the tapecompartment.

The 2nd switch wasn't engaged, but after fiddling with it for a few mins it finally turned on...if it happens again, I might have to get it looked at.

Thanks guys for all your help!

The 2nd switch wasn't engaged, but after fiddling with it for a few mins it finally turned on...if it happens again, I might have to get it looked at.

Thanks guys for all your help!

Yah, must have been the switch.

Okay, so I was on a shoot and some construction crew was cutting some pavement about 30 ft. away all of a sudden the "concrete dust cloud" started to blow right into my camera. I covered it up with this tarp thing i had but it was by no means airtight. The dust kept blowing over it for about 10 or 15 minutes but the camera kept working fine. Then about 30 mins later when i went to check some of the footage i turned the cam to vcr mode and when i tried to turn it back to record mode it wouldn't turn on. The cam works fine in vcr mode but none of the recording modes work (no lights turn on or anything). I'm guessing the dust did something but am not sure why it only stopped working once i turned it off the first time. Has anybody ever had anything like this happen? I'm hoping i'm just being a dunce and there is some button i've flipped or something that is screwing it up but i know this is wishful thinking...

Havent flicked your standby switch to lock by any chance?

Take it to your local panel shop or mechanical workshop and give it a good blast all round with the compressed air nozzle.

Still sounds like the standby switch - which I discovered by hitting accidentally - and now use all the time

Trish

stand by switch. i've been caught in the rain at least 4 times, ungodly humid conditions and major dust/ sand. the a1 is a beast.

Yeah, if it plays in VCR mode, that's the standby switch. But that kind of dust is not a good thing. Might be a good idea to send the camera in to the Canon service place and have it cleaned.