Yesterday I brought my camera with me when I stopped at my daughter's to hold my newborn grandson for awhile and visit with his siblings and my daughter. I wanted to take a few pictures but when I turned on my camera there was nothing but a black screen in my view finder and no matter what I tried in my camera settings nothing took the black screen away. When I got back home I did some online research and even though I tried a few of the suggestions that were offered....none of that took the black view finder screen away either. I don't know what to do now but I know that most times if you have to take electronic equipment in to be fixed...it will cost you almost as much as just buying new stuff. So before I decide what I'm going to do here I thought I would ask if any of you have had this problem and if so what did you do about it? My camera certainly isn't new anymore....but I sure hope it really isn't ready to give up the ghost.
For sure, camera repairs aren't cheap. When the screen on the back of our old Panasonic digital showed wavy lines, I found out that it would definitely be cheaper to buy a new camera than to have the Panasonic repaired. Ours had both a viewfinder and a screen on the back, but when the screen gave out, I could no longer do any settings or take a picture with the screen in the back. Gave the camera to a photography school. Problem with getting a new camera, it didn't match up with our old computer. So, yep, had to buy a new desktop. I process all of our digital photos on our desktop. IOW, "new" may not match up with "old".
Good luck with getting your camera working again, @Babs Hunt . We seem to have several people here who are very knowledgeable about cameras, and hopefully, someone will be able to give you some input that helps. It is always hard when we get used to using one device and then it quits and we have to find a replacement that looks enough like the old one that we can figure out how to use it, and still has all of the new improvements with it. I used to have a little Casio that had a charging dock, and also would send the pictures to my computer. When it quit, I looked and looked at the new ones, but by then, charging docks were out of fashion. I eventually found another used one that was similar to my first one, and that worked fine. After Robin got me an iPhone, I started using the camera on the phone, gave away the Casio, and all I have used for the last 4-5 years is the iPhone camera. It automatically transfers everything right to my iPad, and since I always have my phone along, I am never somewhere and wish I had remembered to bring my camera. Plus, I just LOVE the Live Photo’s that the iPhone takes. I don’t know if regular camera do that or not, but since you like taking pictures of your family, you might really enjoy that feature. How it works, is that the camera takes 1-2 second video, as well as the still picture, and when you look at the picture, and touch the screen on the phone or ipad, then you can see the person waving at you (or whatever action you were filming), as well as the still picture.
We use our iPhone a lot for picture taking as well as video taking. But, unfortunately, an iPhone isn't cheap to have. Unless it's a refurbished one, they are fairly expense to buy and then there is the monthly fee for internet use. I like using our iPhone for photos/videos, but I'm pretty much a "digital camera" man and like using our Canon Power Shot SX530.
I'm sorry I can't help with your problem Babs, because I've never had that happen to me on any of my Cameras... I use both my fuji finepix and my iphone for taking pictures. The fact is that my fuji is now so old , my iphone takes better pictures than my camera, however I prefer the much better zoom on my camera and the optical viewfinder.. so six of one and half dozen of the other really...
I can now take pictures with my phone too...although it is not an expensive phone so the picture clarity isn't the same as with more expensive IPhones. I really haven't been taking as many family pictures anymore since my daughters, etc. all have IPhones and my oldest daughter has a very nice expensive camera that takes great pictures too...so I let them take most of the family pictures now days and just ask them to send me the ones I want. But I do like to take pictures of the sunrises and sunsets, the cloud formations, the moon during its lunar phases, and the beauty in nature and the things we grow, etc. I don't think my phone camera will do justice to these things. My husband told me to just order myself a new camera for Christmas....and I may do that even though it will not be a real expensive one. For now I am not ready to give up trying to see if I can bring back to life the one I have. My daughter was able to bring my touch screen laptop back to life even though she had to reset it completely to do this. Now though I have put the Notebook I bought away and mainly am using my old laptop once again. I'm just waiting to see if anyone else has ever had that problem with their cameras and what they did about it too before I make up my mind what I will do.
Have you checked the storage and video card? I’m sure you have but if you haven’t and the camera’s storage is full and the memory card is either full or corrupted then that might serve as being a problem. Solution: Install a new memory card and dump the cache. Solution #2. Drop it from a three story window. It doesn’t help the camera but it gets rid of a lot of frustration.
OMG! Y'all won't believe this but after playing with all my camera settings and trying a few things that I found about online I decided to take my camera apart and see if something looked wrong on the insides. So I unscrewed all the tiny screws I could find and was able to take the back off. Everything looked okay but I decided to get my small soft bristle brush and brush all the insides. After I did that I put my batteries and sim card back in and turned the camera back on....and lo and behold my view finder was not black anymore but showing whatever my view finder was pointed at! I kept trying it over and over again as I began putting all the screws back in and it was still showing the views in the view finder. Now it is all put back together and I have just finished taking some pics around the room I am sitting in and here are some of them. It works again. I am truly blessed! You are seeing a part of my kitchen and my happy Honey who was just as excited as I am that I fixed my camera! So now if anyone else finds their view finder goes black and nothing they do helps fix it...try taking it apart and lightly dusting off the insides and maybe it will work for you too. What a blessing.
Excellent, good for you Babs!! See even with your cheaper and older camera, it's still taking better indoor pics than my Fuji....