Help! Broken camera?

[Water Hazard]

I have a Canon PowerShot A70 that is almost 5 years old. I used it without a problem on Thanksgiving to take pictures as my wife ran in the Drumstick Dash. This weekend, I went to use it at the resort we were staying and none of the pictures turned out.

The outdoor pictures (Auto mode and Landscape mode) were black...but not completely black. Thy were very fuzzy with no obvious features. The indoor pictures were lighter, but again fuzzy without any obvious elements of the pictures I was trying to take.

I reviewed my pictures from Thanksgiving and they are still there and appear normal. The camera doesn't have a lens cap, so that wasn't still on. I turned the camera on and made sure there weren't any fingerprints/smudges on the lense and it is clean.

When I used the camera over Thanksgiving, it was outside in cold weather, but I had read a comment Steve made about keeping your camera warm, so I kept it inside my jacket. I only took it out for a few minutes at a time.

This weekend, it was outside for 2 minutes tops.

Any ideas what could cause this change? Could it just be that the camera is old?

Thanks for any suggestions that you can provide.

[finnbay]

Planned obsolescence? In all seriousness, can't off the top of my head come up with a definite answer. If the camera goes through the motions of opening and closing the shutter, I would have to think that it could be something with the sensor.

[Dbl]

I'm with Ken it really sounds like a sensor issue or the autofocus in the lens itself. I'm sure you've done this but fresh batteries? Does it come with a power chord to hookup to a computer that might provide another power source? Take a shot or two with it hooked up and see if power is an issue.

What other modes do you have, try one of those and see what the results are, even if it is not the correct one for the situation. Wish I could be more definitive but let us know what happens. Good luck.

[Water Hazard]

Thanks!

I'll try a new set of batteries this weekend.

There are 10+ modes on the camera, so I will try some of the others as well.

When I turn the camera on, the lens goes out just like normal, so maybe it is the sensor part.

I'll post the results early next week.

[Water Hazard]

All right...over the weekend, I tried the following to no avail:

-new batteries

-each of the modes

-different memory card

-resetting the factory settings

When lining up my shots, if I look through the viewfinder on the back, the image looks normal. If I look at the LCD screen on the back, the image is unfocused and severly pixilated. After the shot, things aren't any better.

I am thinking the camera has died.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice upper-entry level digital cameras?

Thanks!

[Steve Foss]

Canon's S-IS series and Panasonic's Lumix series are the two that get consistently great reviews by users, including several people right here on this board.

[WifeKidsandDog]

There's a few models in the Canon A range, depends on what features you want and your budget. Or, you might want something different such as the S range which has the huge zoom.

Then there's all the other brands with their various models ...

It gets very confusing picking out a new camera.

[yakfisher]

I have an Olympus 770SW. It is waterproof and shockproof and takes great pictures with many setting and is very small. On the downside it has a very limited zoom and no view finder. It is a great p&s for fishing and hunting though. Good luck!