Error 80 - 5D Mark III

[Jesse]

It's not built like crap, you just need to learn how to remove a lens properly. Try turning your camera off first.

[neosec]

Hi all,
FYI I just got the Error 80. Camera locked up with the last photo taken on the LCD screen. No buttons worked and even turning it off would not shut down the camera. I had to remove the battery. I've literally had this camera (5D Mark III) for less than SEVEN hours. It's brand new. I DO NOT have an Eye-Fi card. I am using the Canon battery that came with the camera.
The lens on the camera is a 24-70 f 2.8 L. I have installed a brand new, unused SanDisk Extreme 60Mb/Sec 16 GB card and a Kingston SC4/8GB SD/HC card. The mode was A+ (Auto) and Live view was on. I was intentionally moving the camera during the exposure looking to motion blur while shooting with Live View (just screwing around with my new camera). I low-level formatted the SD card but not the CF card. Camera was set to write to the CF card only. No flash. Battery indicates full. Shutter count reads 88. Writing RAW+L(superfine) JPEG. Hope we figure this out soon.

[wickidwombat]

Hi all,
FYI I just got the Error 80. Camera locked up with the last photo taken on the LCD screen. No buttons worked and even turning it off would not shut down the camera. I had to remove the battery. I've literally had this camera (5D Mark III) for less than SEVEN hours. It's brand new. I DO NOT have an Eye-Fi card. I am using the Canon battery that came with the camera.
The lens on the camera is a 24-70 f 2.8 L. I have installed a brand new, unused SanDisk Extreme 60Mb/Sec 16 GB card and a Kingston SC4/8GB SD/HC card. The mode was A+ (Auto) and Live view was on. I was intentionally moving the camera during the exposure looking to motion blur while shooting with Live View (just screwing around with my new camera). I low-level formatted the SD card but not the CF card. Camera was set to write to the CF card only. No flash. Battery indicates full. Shutter count reads 88. Writing RAW+L(superfine) JPEG. Hope we figure this out soon.

it could be the SD card what speed is your SD card even if its not writing to it certain SD cards have caused problems I think (I only use 45mb/s Sandisk SD cards in mine and have not had a problem. even shooting raw to both cards)

[jaayres20]

I have been shooting with 2 5d3s all wedding season.  I shot 146,000 frames with one of my cameras.  I always used 64GB extreem pro Sandisk or 600x Lexar cards.  Both CF and SD.  I never had an issue all season and used the same cards many times.  I sent my camera in to get the shutter replaced and cleaned.  Sure enough my next wedding it locked up on me with the last picture taken frozen on the LCD screen.  I had to remove the battery grip.  I was a little worried because the buffer light was still on.  Has anyone had any of their images damaged or cards corrupted due to this error?  Luckily none of mine had any issues and I had a back up camera to use for a while until I got enough nerve to take the grip off.  It is not fun to have that issue at a wedding.  Makes you look stupid while you are getting it sorted out.  Im like I know you paid me $2,500 but my camera just malfunctioned.  Embarrassing.   

[neosec]

it could be the SD card what speed is your SD card even if its not writing to it certain SD cards have caused problems I think (I only use 45mb/s Sandisk SD cards in mine and have not had a problem. even shooting raw to both cards)

I just looked, It's a dog slow 4MB/sec. I read that the CF cards can be MUCH faster than the SD cards so there will usually be a speed difference between them anyway.

[wickidwombat]

it could be the SD card what speed is your SD card even if its not writing to it certain SD cards have caused problems I think (I only use 45mb/s Sandisk SD cards in mine and have not had a problem. even shooting raw to both cards)

I just looked, It's a dog slow 4MB/sec. I read that the CF cards can be MUCH faster than the SD cards so there will usually be a speed difference between them anyway.

yeah you are better off leaving that card out of the camera
these are the SD cards i use
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SanDisk-32GB-Extreme-SD-SDHC-card-45MB-s-Class-10-UHS-I-3D-HD-Video-TAX-Inv-/250991084949?pt=AU_Electronics_Memory_Cards&hash=item3a703c0595

I dont think the 5Dmk3 SD slot can go faster than this anyway so why waste money on more expensive SD cards
My CF cards are 60 or 90 mb/s transcend cards

[glongstaff]

just came across the link of errors
http://oneslidephotography.com/list-of-error-message-canon-eos-dslr/

Error 80 is so miscellaneous in its description from Canon

[neosec]

just came across the link of errors
http://oneslidephotography.com/list-of-error-message-canon-eos-dslr/

Error 80 is so miscellaneous in its description from Canon

Thanks Glongstaff!
That link leads to... 
Error 80 means "Malfunctions related to the electric control or images have been detected"
That's not much help. I shot a couple hundred more pics today with no problems. Hopefully there is nothing physically wrong with the camera. Might be something a future firmware update can fix. There do seem to be too many people having the issue.

[neosec]

Well, I had another lockup last night. This time I had a 550EX Speedlight on the body and the lockup was somewhat different. There was no image on the LCD, pressing the shutter release did nothing and all controls were unresponsive. I was writing RAW to the SanDisk Extreme  16GB 60MB/S CF card and JPEG to the same 8GB Kingston SD4 4MB/S SD card. I left the SD card in because I wanted to duplicate the error if I could. I ordered and should receive a new SD card soon, a SanDisk Extreme Pro 16 GB Card 95MB/s (overkill I know, I read the camera's SD slot can't write that fast) I'll swap that in and see if the issue occurs again.
On a related issue, for the first time I'm disappointed with Canon for one of there policies. It seems that I can't return my $3,000 camera that is only 3 days old. Canon's policy for store return is 30 days OR 200 shutter releases (I now have 475 releases). Now it has to go for warranty repair. I have to give up my 3 day old camera for 7-10 day repair turnaround!!!

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Use the camera with only the CF card, and then with only the SD card installed to see if  you can pin it down.
Be sure to do a low level format or erase of the SD card.  If the problem is card write speed, a low level format will greatly speed up the SD card until it fills up with used sectors, and then it will be slow again, since it must first erase a block before writing to it. A low level format will also fix any card errors, a regular format will not fix errors.

[neosec]

Just an update. Since replacing my old, slow, SD card with much faster one and a different brand I have had no lockups or errors of any kind. Have shot thousands of pics since the last lockup. Got my fingers crossed.