Image is black

[Prismpic]

HUGE DILEMMA, help!

I was shooting beautiful images then all of a sudden this black area towards the bottom creeped in. not talking "smudge" here: Half of the frame is in black.

Now it appears on all images! Help, what is this? this is a serious problem!

Find it attached here.

[wolfnowl]

Looks like maybe your shutter is stuck.  If it's a DSLR, take off the lens and have a look...

Mike.

[Per Ofverbeck]

Did you use flash?  It does look like a classic instance of too high shutter speed with flash.

[Prismpic]

Wow, if so how do I fix that?

[Prismpic]

Oh! Yes I was using flash and hope that’s all it was.

At the time I panicked and didn’t think to change any of the settings. More worried about the hardware.

I will try that too. Thanks.

[NikoJorj]

I was shooting beautiful images then all of a sudden this black area towards the bottom creeped in. not talking "smudge" here: Half of the frame is in black.

This seems quite close to a known problem of the DRebel/300D : stuck AF mirror.
The AF mirror aka secondary mirror is behind the main mirror and reflects some image to the AF sensor in the bottom of the mirror chamber. The axle on which it swings or should once broken (1 hi-speed cycle per shutter actuation) is made of plastic   , wheras it is metal in any other SLR I think. Do you got a 300D or something else?

Set your camera in sensor cleaning mode : do you see anything like a mirror protruding in the path to the sensor? If yes, follow this link :
http://web.abo.fi/~jskata/300Drepair/
And... Godspeed.  

For me, I knock (hard) on wood but so far so good.

[rcannonp]

Your shutter speed is too fast at 1/400. Try changing it to 1/200 and see what happens.

[semillerimages]

Rcannonp is right, exif shows 1/400th of a second shutter speed... it's a flash sync issue for you, nothing else.

*steve

Your shutter speed is too fast at 1/400. Try changing it to 1/200 and see what happens.