On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:34:00 +0000, Adrian Tuddenham wrote:

I have a three year old Canon A420 which has been working perfectly
until last week. Now pictures are coming out grossly over-exposed,
although they look satisfactory on the LCD screen right up to the point
where the release button is pressed.

Moving from light to dark subjects, the system adjusts the image on the
screen to the changes in light level in a normal manner. Holding the
release button half way down 'freezes' a satisfactory picture, but then,
after pressing it the rest of the way, the stored result is whited-out.

The storage card appears to work normally and an external card reader
allows me to store and retrieve other images undamaged.

By deliberately choosing dark subject matter or something which needs
flash, I can force the correct exposure. The picture then appears to
have a fine horizontal line structure imposed on it.


I have re-set the camera by removing both power and memory batteriea,
and fitted new batteries, but it makes no difference.

The camera has not been dropped or exposed to damp, although it was
recently subjected to unusually cold conditions whilst taking snow
photographs. The rotary function selector switch became very stiff and
then eased-up suddenly just when the fault appeared - but I do not see
any obvious connection between the two events.

Does the switch have multiple contacts? Any other suggestions?

Find someone who can repair it for less than a new camera would cost.



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Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse