Expert: John Oliverio - 4/16/2009

Question
I've had a Canon PowerShot S1 IS for probably 4-5 years now and I absolutely love it.  I can't find another camera that can compare to the pictures this camera takes.  Problem is when I turn the camera on now, what you see through the lcd screen and the veiwfinder is all blurred - looks like a stretched-out blob of whatever color I'm pointing it at.  But it's only blurred on camera mode, when you switch to video mode it clears up.  It has been doing this for about 4 months.  The image through the lcd and veiwfinder used to turn to normal after about 30 seconds in camera mode, but now it doesn't clear up at all in camera mode.  Video mode is still perfect.  What could be happening here?  I really appreciate if you can help in any way.  I really miss my camera!  Thank you.

Answer
Karla,

Hello.  Sorry you are having trouble with your camera. Well, if I had to guess...  I would say that the camera's CCD has gone bad.  The fact that the video mode still works gives me pause in my diagnosis. But I think it is still possible because video mode uses only a fraction of the pixels the CCD has. (29,000 out of 3 million)

What this amounts to is its time for a new camera.  There are no settings you could have set by accident that would cause this.  And a repair would cost more than the camera is worth.  

Canon still makes a version of your camera...  it has evolved into the SX10 IS. It now has a 20x zoom and 10 million pixels. If you would rather stick with the amount of zoom you have, you could get the much smaller SX200 IS.  It has a 12x zoom and 12 million pixels.

John