Friday, January 19, 2007

My Camera Committed Suicide

Well, I may have helped it along a little bit.

When I turned on my camera today -- an obsolete-when-purchased 3.2 megapixel Canon SD200 (which I got in October 2005) -- the lens extended a bit, then the screen went black, except for an error code in the bottom left corner: "E18"

Doing a search shows that when the lens gets stuck (possibly due to foreign object debris), it throws an E18 error. It happens soften enough that it has its own Web site.

The Web site suggests a few measures, including a few varieties of "helping" the lens along.

I think I may have been a little too helpful.

I may have to take it apart, and I'm not confident -- I think I already damaged one of the connectors.

I like the Canons; heck, if I can get an SD200 cheap, I may just replace it, since I like the form factor. However, I would like something with better low-light performance, since at high ISO settings, the pictures are awful noisy.

So if I can live without a camera for a while, I may poke around and do some more research.

On the plus side, if it's irrevocably broken, it gives me some time to catch up on my backlog of untreated photos.

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2 comments:

Adam said...

The Canon SD800 IS was the camera I had pretty much settled on until Jen's Dad went one better and got me the SD900.

As a cheaper option - the SD600 appears to be the new Point and Shoot king post-Christmas, so I'm guessing it is selling at the right price - in fact if memory serves I brought one home for my brother's girlfriend at Christmas and it cost about $250 including 2 1GB cards and a case.

In any case - screw the camera - you *need* a phone that receives text messages. That old phone you use must be the first model post-analog.....

Hammer said...

Sounds more like your camera died from complications after you violated its "do not resuscitate" order.