I'll start:
Yesterday I was shooting a timelapse with my T3i when I began getting very strange black obstructions to my pictures, never exactly in the same place, like this:
I curiously inspected all around my camera, in front of the lens, between the camera and the lens. I investigated the consistency of this black obstruction by taking a picture, checking to see if it was there, repeat. I took about 4 pictures when I got "Error 20" and couldn't take another image. After cycling on/off a few times and replacing the battery, I continued to get this error. I looked it up on here and it turns out that it is a mechanical issue. Upon returning home, I investigated the issue further. I went into the menu and flipped the mirror up by going to "Clean Sensor Manually". Curiously enough, I found these small black pieces of plastic sheeting blocking my sensor:
When I would try to take a picture these would stay jammed up and wouldn't move out of the way of the sensor. The one with a small wrinkle had been folded over itself, which I used a small metal prong to unfold (didn't hit my sensor whilst doing this). As far as I can tell now, though, these black sheets are still stuck. Whenever I try to take an image, I now get "Error 30", which is a shutter issue. I can turn the camera off and back on and take a picture but immediately following the shutter release get "Error 30". The recorded picture has the black sheets in it still, so I'm feeling that they're just not moving at all, and they really are stuck.
My best guess is that I've finally seen my camera to its shutter life expectancy. The T3i has a projected 100k shutter life, and I breached that about a month ago and am at 108k right now. (The reason I have so many shutters is because last summer I foolishly took all of my timelapses with 2 second intervals, meaning that I got up to around 80k shutters in one summer. Extraordinarily stupid, but I just didn't think about it at the time.). So, I'm thinking that I've just taken that amount of pictures that my camera can't go any further.
So, NS, what would you suggest? Should I send the camera in to Canon to have the shutter replaced, or should I bite the bullet and just get a new camera? Due to the time sensitivity of my summer timelapse project, I need a camera ASAP, so I went ahead and ordered another T3i body that I can use while this one is out of commission, but if there is a better solution and I can fix this one, I've made sure that I can return the new one.
So, guys, what problems do you have that other members might be able to help out with? Please post any issues in this thread and we'll try hard as a community to set you straight!
