The Digital Photography Blog: all you need to know about digital cameras and photography
Pete Versteegen writes of his experience with the Canon Rebel EOS 300D (know as the Digital Rebel in the US) and the dreaded 'Error 99' message.
I purchased the Digital Rebel about a month ago. I took it on a trip to the Virgin Islands to test it out in preparation for a Safari we're doing in February. I had the kit lens 18-55 and a Sigma 70-300mm. Both worked fine. I took about 150 pictures, a mixture of both lenses, and never had a problem.
Just now I received the Canon ES handgrip
and installed it with 1 battery. The camera worked fine with the kit lens but did not with the 70-300 mm lens. I got the Error 99 message. It took the picture, but I would not store it.
I also have a Sigma 28-200mm compact hyperzoom which works just fine, and I have a Canon EF 18-55 that also works, but a Sigma zoom 28-80mm does not work at all.
I recharged the battery, took the grip off, but had the same working and non-working results.
Next I tried memory cards. I have a 128MB Kingston, a 512 MB Viking, a 512 MB SimpleTech, and a 1 GB Sandisk Ultra II.
All of the above trials were with the Utra II card.
I started with the 128 Kingston. I inserted it firmly into the camera. The card was full and I had to clear a few pictures to take a test shot with the 70-300 mm lens. It worked! I cleaned off all of the pictures from the card and took another 4 pictures with the long lens and they all worked. Then I used the 512 Viking; worked fine with the long lens. Then onto the 512 SimpleTech and boom... error 99. Inserted the Ultra and also got error 99. Back to the 128 Kingston and the Sigma lens that would not work at all, but behold, It worked, but only for one picture.
One more experiment... I used the 128 Kingston and the long lens and the picture taking went just fine. Then I took the lens that previously didn't work at all and it worked for the five pictures I took with it. Then I inserted the Ultra card and both lenses worked.
Note that I have an EOS 55 on which all lenses work just fine, and have for some time.
What to make of this? I believe it has to do with some kind of contact problem or a circuit that gets saturated but is able to reset itself with the right kind off electrical load.
Hope this helps.