Canon S2 IS black screen
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BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH – FIXED AT LAST - After doing
several hours of research on the internet, I have been able to eliminate the
problem on my Powershot S2 IS. I
started with the “fix” as suggested by guidofoc in a post on the “flickr” site. Thanks guidofoc! His procedure did fix the problem for me but it only lasted a
day. The next day, back to the same old
black screen. For the next few
days/weeks, when I wanted to use my camera, I did the same procedure and it
would come back to life but would be black again the next time I powered up the
camera or a day later.
Back to internet research!
On the “Fixya” site, I found a picture of the camera shutter and
diaphragm blades. This picture was
posted by “andyhutton” who was also having the same “black screen”
problem. He had disassembled his camera
and found what appeared to be an oil exuding on the shutter diaphragm
blades. He disassembled the camera,
cleaned it thoroughly, and reassembled it.
This fixed his camera. Other information I found indicated that what
appeared to be oil was a little “stiffer” than oil, almost hard. It was thought that this was happening
after leaving in a hot car other high temperature environment.
All this made sense to me but I didn’t relish the thought of
tearing the camera apart and reassembling it.
This procedure reportedly took about 6-8 hours. And this was by a person
who considered himself, to have a reasonable amount of mechanical ability. I definitely DON’T RECOMMEND this approach
unless you have tried all else and are ready to junk your camera. Using this information I theorized that if I
used the temporary fix procedure and then repeatedly activated the shutter,
perhaps the “wiping action” may wear down the frictional areas and free up the
shutter blades to move more freely. I
tried it. Voila! It has worked now for the last 6-8 weeks
without a failure. Here is my final
procedure:
Set the camera in Tv mode, (delayed shutter mode) set the
shutter at 15 sec, click to take a picture and during that 15 secs (like, after
7 seconds) open the battery, compartment which cuts contact with the battery
circuit. Close the battery cover. At this point the camera works fine for me
but only temporarily as noted above.
Sometimes however, this procedure had to be performed more than
once. Here is the key to the permanent
fix. While the camera is working via
the temporary fix, take many, many pictures.
Hundreds! I probably snapped
400-600 pics. The idea is to wear down
the little patches of hardened oil on the shutter blades. For the next three of days I took hundreds
of pics each day. Basically, I just
aimed the camera at the wall or whatever and snapped off several hundred pics.
Now that I seem to have my camera working permanently, my
plan is to NOT leave my camera in a high temperature environment, and to
try to use it regularly. Maybe, not
unlike many other things, if it gets no regular use, it may start to
deteriorate.
No guarantees but I do hope this helps someone.
