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.
That’s always the problem with technology now, it just doesn’t seem to last, and always manages to break at the most inconvenient times. Still, at least it did it while still under warrenty, usually they wait until the day after the warrenty runs out to give up the ghost.
Comment by ren — April 23, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
I think most products are timed to break down the day after the warranty runs out. I got lucky with this one I think although, Canon might not cover the damage once they pull the lens out and see what caused the lens to not extend.
Comment by blulady — April 23, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
If it were damage to the lens itself they probably wouldn’t cover it, but if it’s the lens not extending it sounds like a mechanical fault which should certainly be covered by the warrenty.
Comment by ren — April 23, 2008 @ 1:40 pm