Last week (4/04/17) I saw a Canon Powershot SX40 HS point-and-shoot camera in a secondhand store. Because its price was so low (less than $10), and it looked to be in excellent condition, I bought it. It didn't have any signs of rough treatment -- no dings or scratches or other damage evident that would indicate that it had been dropped either on a hard surface or in water. In fact, the only condition problem evident that gave me momentary pause was that the lens had a slight film on it, but I'm pretty sure that I can easily clean the film off.
Since the camera did not have a battery or memory card with it, I couldn't do a quick checkout of it in the store, but because of its low price, I decided that it was worth taking a $10 risk, and I bought it.
Obviously I don't want to spend a lot of money to buy what I'll need just to test to see if it works -- if it doesn't work, then every dollar I've spent will be a dollar I've lost. Online I found a kit consisting of (2) Vivitar NB-10L-compatible (supposedly) batteries, a battery charger, a micro-cleaning cloth for the lens, and a clear shield protector for the LCD screen. Though the kit costs six dollars more than what I spent for the camera, I bought it.
Once the kit arrived, I checked that both batteries had been pre-charged (they had), and then installed one in the camera. I thought I had a memory card around here somewhere that would work, but I'll have to do a more thorough search to find it. That being the case, I decided to test out the workings of the camera without a memory card installed. With the new battery installed, I turned the camera On, and, to my pleasant surprise, everything seemed to work perfectly -- the camera came on, the LCD screen lit up, the focus changed as I pointed it at different things, the macro worked, etc. Next I turned the camera Off, and took it outside to test the lens' zoom capability. Once outside, I pressed the camera's On/Off button, but it wouldn't power up so I took it back inside to examine it more closely.
After fiddling around with the camera a little more, I discovered that if I remove the battery and then put it back in (the same battery), the camera would power On again. But after I turn it Off, it won't power back On until I remove and then reinstall the battery. i.e., I have to remove and then reinstall the battery every time I want the camera to power up from an "Off" state.
For those whom I haven't yet bored to tears with my lengthy background material, my questions are:
(1) Is the camera exhibiting these symptoms because there is no memory card installed?
(2) Has anyone else experienced this problem?
(3) Is there a solution?
Thanks.
