My Camera Committed Suicide

Well, I may have helped it along a little bit.

When I turned on my camera today -- an obsolete-when-purchased 3.2 megapixel Canon SD200 (which I got in October 2005) -- the lens extended a bit, then the screen went black, except for an error code in the bottom left corner: "E18"

Doing a search shows that when the lens gets stuck (possibly due to foreign object debris), it throws an E18 error. It happens soften enough that it has its own Web site.

The Web site suggests a few measures, including a few varieties of "helping" the lens along.

I think I may have been a little too helpful.

I may have to take it apart, and I'm not confident -- I think I already damaged one of the connectors.

I like the Canons; heck, if I can get an SD200 cheap, I may just replace it, since I like the form factor. However, I would like something with better low-light performance, since at high ISO settings, the pictures are awful noisy.

So if I can live without a camera for a while, I may poke around and do some more research.

On the plus side, if it's irrevocably broken, it gives me some time to catch up on my backlog of untreated photos.

Tags: cameras, canon, e18