BIG A70 LENS/FIRMWARE PROBLEM

[cincophoto]

So I had my PowerShot A70 for about 2 years now taking pictures with it. My biggest photo album with my PowerShot can be seen at www.cincophoto.com (http://www.cincophoto.com/)



Now I am running into this problem and I am not sure if it’s the lens or a firmware problem. I went on the Canon site and upgraded my firmware to v.2.0 (latest) with no success.



The problem is that I go out to takes some pictures and then all the sudden my camera shows some purple lines vibrating. After some time (randomly) the purple lines go away and I can use my camera as normal. I tried switching batteries, CF card and I nothing seems to work.



Last night I went in downtown Seattle (where I live) to takes some pictures. I took my camera out and boom, the purple lines. I waited for about 15 minutes just enjoying the view and I was about to return home when I turn my camera on and it works perfect.



Here is some sample pictures that were resized for the sake of bandwidth to show you what is going on.



http://cincophoto.com/pic1.jpg

http://cincophoto.com/pic2.jpg

http://cincophoto.com/pic3.jpg

http://cincophoto.com/pic4.jpg (http://www.cincophoto.com/)



Any suggestion or help is extremely appreciated. Thanks a lot guys!

[likophoto]

sounds like you need to get a new camera. I think it's a hardware problem... maybe one of the folks on this forum is a techi and can help you out.

[Bodryn]

I have not updated ANY of my firmware just because I keep reading about problems like this.

[cincophoto]

NO there is no problem with the firmware, the camera did this before that and I thought the firmware might fix this but it didn't.

[jrobert]

This seems to be one of the ways the A70 (and other A series cameras?) can fail as it has been mentioned regularly in this forum (a search for "purple lines" will find several such posts). I don't know whether it's fixable (for a reasonable price), and it hasn't happened (yet) to my year-and-a-half old A70, but it is the reason why I bought an exended warranty with the camera. I hope you did too... Sorry to hear yours is purple-lining, and I hope you have some reasonable recourse.

-jeff-

[cincophoto]

This seems to be one of the ways the A70 (and other A series cameras?) can fail as it has been mentioned regularly in this forum (a search for "purple lines" will find several such posts). I don't know whether it's fixable (for a reasonable price), and it hasn't happened (yet) to my year-and-a-half old A70, but it is the reason why I bought an exended warranty with the camera. I hope you did too... Sorry to hear yours is purple-lining, and I hope you have some reasonable recourse.

-jeff-

so you think that the processor failed or what?

[jrobert]

I don't know the nature or location of the failure and I doubt Canon publicizes it (or if they'd even acknowledge it as more than a fluke). I've just read a few other owners' reports of it, and, recognizing that the few failures get disproportionaltely more attention than the many reliable units, I crossed my fingers and bought one anyway, with an extended warranty, then put it out of my mind.

I know that doesn't help you diagnose your camera -- I think only a trip to Canon will do that. I wish you a simple - and cheap - fix.

-jeff-

[Spirit]

My A70 did EXACTLY THAT about two months ago (10 days before the extended warranty was over - I got lucky). Turns out it was a "loose cable". Which cable, I have no idea... but Canon fixed it for free.

LOOK!! (Edited to add: If I hit the bottom corner of the camera with the palm of my hand, it tended to temprorarily fix the problem).

[cincophoto]

Does anyone recomend to take it apart and look for loose cables then?

[cincophoto]

How about just take it in to a camera shop?

[DarkStar]

This is an aknowledged design fault in certain Canon cameras. Canon are totally aware of it and will repair your camera for free. From the canon UK website:

Why is the image output abnormal? Applicable models

Digital IXUS II, Digital IXUS IIs, Digital IXUS V3, PowerShot A300, PowerShot A310, PowerShot A60, PowerShot A70, PowerShot A75, MV590, MV600, MV600i, MV630i, MV650i, MV690, MV700, MV700i, MV730i, MV750i, MV5i, MV5iMC, MV5, MV6iMC,

Solutions

Thank you for using one of our Canon products. It has been found, that in rare case, some of the CCDs, used in Canon digital camera and digital video cameras, have a problem that causes abnormal image output.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Canon will offer free repairs where an error is caused by this malfunction.
Canon would like to advise our customers of the details of this issue and our policy for handling it.
Problem details:
Among the CCDs used in the affected products, it has been confirmed that in extremely rare cases, under high-temperature/high-humidity environments, some of the internal wiring comes off.
If this defect occurs, the signal is not output from the CCD correctly when in shooting mode. This results in image abnormalities such as:

Images do not appear
Image colors are abnormal
Images appear distorted These symptoms can be confirmed on the LCD monitor. Solution:
We kindly request users who have confirmed these symptoms to contact the nearest Canon Service Centre.
Free repairs will be made for affected products in cases where it has been confirmed that the internal CCD wiring has come off.