XH A1 viewfinder has a sharp blue tint

Moseph

Moseph

Veteran
I finally bought one of these because I will be moving into New York to go to school and will obviously have to give back the one from my high school, and it was all I could really afford and put up with. There were a few differences between my new one and my schools one, such as the shutter / white balance dial having much more definitive notches and the rings all being much more loose, but the most annoying thing is the viewfinder having a rather harsh blue cast. I compared both cameras side by side, with the same white balance dialed in. The LCDs were fairly similar but the viewfinder on my new one was totally wrong. It's not just the image either, it's everything on the screen (markers, safety guide, all the little indicators). I suppose that's a good thing though, as it indicates that it probably is just the screen itself and nothing wrong with the circuits that come before that.

Has anyone else encountered this? Is there any easy fix for this that doesn't require spending any considerable amount of money?
 
You bought a new A1 not A1s .. right?

Your new one should be in way better condition than the one owned by the school. They're notorious for having a hard time by some of the students.

You need some time with the manual and the cams menu. You can alter the LCDs and viewfinder indicators and the bightness/contrast of the EVF. To start with make sure the auto white balance is on, that might help cure some of the 'blue'

I'd also get a quality UV filter and leave it on the lens for protection .. but you know that :)
Cheers.
 
It's a used A1 but yeah, not the A1S.

Believe me, I've been using this camera for over a year now so I know about the settings and such, the menu was the first place I looked to see if it was possible to adjust the color temp of the viewfinder and LCD. The only settings are brightness, contrast, sharpness, color level, and backlight level.

Do you mean make sure auto white balance is off? I have it dialed in to what looks realistic on the new cameras LCD and I dialed in the same temp to the other camera and it looks good on that cameras LCD and VF. It's almost like the backlight on the viewfinder is blue, even when I switch it to black and white it looks very blue. This is kinda what I was expecting, since like I said earlier all the markers and other info have that same blue tint when they should be white.
 
Ok.

No, auto WB on. I figured it might have gone unserviceable but it doesn't sound like it.

Have you tried a camera reset?
Cheers.
 
Nope resetting the camera didn't work, but I'm afraid I have a much more severe issue now, the dreaded back focus problem (which the seller failed to tell me about).
 
Sorry to read that, maybe the fix it price will add up to savings you made and you'll get a *new* cam out of it.

I believe they do a complete camera realignment as part of a fix. If it hasn't got the new free replacement handgrip support you could get that as well.

Let's know how you go .. good luck with it.
Cheers.
 
Yeah, it came from a pawn shop (probably wouldn't have gotten it if I knew that was the case but the ebay store didn't make that clear at all, I found out later it's some sort of subsidiary of Al's Superpawn). My theory is that someone had it before and it developed the problem, then they took it to these guys thinking they probably wouldn't pick up on it. Apparently they didn't because nowhere in the description was this mentioned and I haven't even taken it outside of my house (well, out on my porch once). I don't see how it could have possibly developed this issue under my ownership. At least I got it for a pretty good price though, 2019 with a huge pelican case and battery.
What does canon charge for repairs though? I've heard it's a $500 flat rate for out of warranty service, is that true? Also, would they be able to make it 50/60hz switchable or does that cost extra?
 
Don't know the latest repair rates for your side of the globe, but it does cost to include the PAL swapover.

Never seen one but it must be just a new menu setting .. they just click on a few options in the engine room.
Cheers.
 
PAL/NTSC is $500 stateside. ive had it done to 1 of our A1 units now. any out of warranty work ive been quoted $500+ for.
 
Zissou .. so you can swap to PAL and back to NTSC?

What are the noticable pix differences between the 2 and can you shoot at one and play back on the other? Thx.
Cheers.
 
I just gave video one repair out by LA a call and to my surprise they actually are capable of fixing the lens alignment / back focus issue. They said it would probably cost anywhere from $220 to $330 and explained what they actually have to do to fix it. Considering that Canon has a $500+ service fee and that I've heard pretty good things about these guys, I'm pretty set on sending it to them. I know with Canon you'd get that extra assurance of knowing for a fact that they'll do it right, but video one doesn't seem like the type of place that would screw it up, considering how specialized they are (they'll only service 40 models).
 
Still trying to figure out if there is in fact a flat rate service charge for this camera, and will they make me pay more if a part needs to be replaced? There's gotta be someone who knows, the person at Canon who I spoke with didn't give me a straight forward answer.
 
video one repair did a fantastic job on my XH A1; the HDV jack was broken and my AF would hunt constantly. Canon wanted $500 flat out, plus whatever it cost to fix an issue i had with AF suddenly going bonkers. works perfectly, and at half the cost of Canons estimate.
 
So it sounds like they want $500 for the service and then however much it may be for major new parts. I can't imagine that they'd replace something like the lens unit or VTR for just $500.
Anyways, I got the camera back and video one fixed my back focus problem AND viewfinder problem for just 275. Now we'll see if the other problems that they found will cause any issues...
 
Yet another bizzare issue has surfaced, I had no idea until today (technically yesterday). The combination of two specific settings yields totally unusable results. White balance presets (including degrees kelvin) with the 1/32 ND filter is no good. The whole image becomes extremely red or green, depending on the setting. Auto white balance or the traditional manual white balance work absolutely flawlessly with that ND filter setting but anything having to do with a preset does not work. I cannot think of any possible explanation for this, I didn't even know there were any electronics hooked up to the ND filter other than the detector that makes the display flash "ND" in red if you're split between two positions, but I couldn't make this up if I tried. That'll be somewhat annoying since for the last year all I've ever done was dial it in, but at least there's a workaround that doesn't require spending any money.
Buying this thing was probably a mistake.
 
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