When I arrived in Oahu, Hawaii I discovered that my Canon Powershot S5 IS wouldn’t work. The lens wouldn’t open. The first thing I did was replace the batteries. That didn’t help, I’d still get the “Lens Error Restart Camera” error message. 
I didn’t know what I’d do without my digital camera. I had three other digital cameras but they were at home of course. I knew I should have brought my back-up camera a smaller Canon but I didn’t want to have any problems going through the security check at the airport.
Here i was in Oahu and without a camera! Grudgingly I purchased a couple of disposable cameras and took a few shots with one of those. I wasn’t a happy camper. You don’t have the control you do with a digital camera and there’s no zoom feature on a disposable camera.
As a last ditch effort to save my trip in photos I purchased another Canon Powershot camera, this time one of their Elph models. It worked great and it still took 8 mp sized photos and had a zoom. It took me a few days to justify the expense but I’m glad I did.
My Canon S5 IS is still under warranty and yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and send it off to Canon to have the lens replaced. I have a feeling the lens damage won’t be covered under the warranty but I’ll give it a try, who knows, I might get lucky and not have to pay any additional fees to have the camera repaired.
It’s going to take a few weeks to get the camera back but I really liked the Canon S5 IS. It was a good size to travel with and not nearly as heavy as my Canon Digital SLR Rebel.
