Bemoaning the faults that develop in digital cameras

The Technomage's old Canon digital camera has just stopped taking pictures - or more precisely it's started taking psychadelic shots like this.



This prompted us to run through all the problems we've had with the various models we've owned over the dozen or so years since we started moving away from 35mm. All but one still remain in use and have given years of service - but virtually all had a trip to the camera doctor relatively early in their lives.

Our film cameras were relatively trouble-free - in my 20 years or more of using Yashica SLRs I can recall only one fault, while he had no real problems with his Olympus ones. My beautiful tiny Minox 35GT was perfect - but then it got stolen. Even my lovely 1960s Kodak Retinette 1B needed only occasional servicing and I bet it would still work if I ran a film through it now.

But digital is another matter...though luckily we've managed to get most faults fixed cheaply, under warranty or under a product recall notice for a known problem.

My Nikon Coolpix 950 was a top of the range, £750 camera when it was launched in 1999 (I paid about £450 once prices had dropped). Its selection dial failed - fortunately just inside the warranty period - but since then it has been a great camera, especially for special tasks - particularly 360 degree panoramas, macro and copying 35mm slides and negatives. Its swivel body design is a classic that I wish would be reintroduced on something with a few more megapixels.

All three of my / my Dad's gorgeous tiny Sony U models - U20, U30 and U40 - have been back to Sony for free repair having developed the same known CCD fault one after the other. But again, they still take decent pics and remain in regular use (and are often admired - they too have a great design).

Then shutter button popped off my two-year-old Sony H5 recently though we managed to get a new part for a fiver from Hong Kong and - fingers crossed - it seems OK now.

The Technomage's first Canon was an A5 - its battery compartment failed and it now lies broken in a drawer. His second was an A90 which decided to put a spot on all pics and so the money was refunded by Argos and he replaced it with the A95 that has failed today. Luckily, I spotted the similarity with effects of the Sony CCD problem and it turns out that Canon has a similar free repair programme and so should fix it.

So that just leaves his new Canon SX20-IS, which seems very robust...but only time will tell.