Chosen Solution
Hello, My optical view finder lens has become dislodged (It moves when I jiggle the camera). I’m not sure how it happened, but I reckon someone dropped the camera. The rest of the camera works fine (all buttons, screen, autofocus, etc…), I just have to use the screen to take pictures, and it is not very practical (super slow focusing). Even though I am comfortable with following this guide, I’d like to be sure it will give me access to the lens area, as opening up devices like these (even for professionals) involves some risks. I can’t quite tell what is accessible from the images. Thanks for confirming this, UPDATE: This is actually similar to the question @jlaurent asked here: Eyepiece is not working.
My guess is that the lens element that is right behind the eyepiece has come loose. This element moves back and forth when you turn the diopter adjustment wheel at the upper right side of the eyepiece. Use the guide you linked in your question to get the top cover off. Once you’ve done this, you can use this guide to get an idea of the necessary procedure to disassemble the viewfinder. This guide is for the 550D, the preceding model, so the procedure might not be exact but it will probably be close enough. I haven’t found a proper service manual for the 600D, but there is a parts manual which has exploded views and might be useful. Get it here. You’ll want to look at pages 5 an 10 specifically. The drawings are true vector line drawings so you can enlarge the !&&* out of them, which is way cool. When dealing with the optics, wear latex gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. Especially the focusing screen on the bottom of the viewfinder assembly is extremely delicate and must be treated with all due respect. Once you have the eyepiece off, you’ll most likely be face to face with the offending lens element. Given that there probably is not enough room for the lens to have flipped itself around its orientation will most likely be correct. It might just have popped out of its frame, but it might also be that the frame is broken. In the former case, a bit of patience might be sufficient to pop the lens back in place. In the latter case, you have a problem because you wouldn’t want to use e.g. a cyanoacrylate glue on optics (cyanoacrylate tends to fog optics). If you’re going to take the plunge, take pictures if you can and let us know how you get by.
See my How to get access to fix the optical view finder lens? for the details. Here are the pictures.
Here you see my plastic spudger pointing at the ploppy lens.
If you wonder what that piece of paper with numbers and holes is: I put the screws through a piece of paper labeled with each “step” and oriented like on the step picture. Safeguarded with tape. That way, I do not lose screws and won’t mix up the different lenghts.
