A200: Hourglass on black screen, followed by 5-6 shutter rel

[A-lex]

This occured to me only twice, and in both cases, in different conditions. It's not bothering me any way, but I'm interested, only I'm so lucky?

1. Turned off camera, but instead of turning on, it showed hourglass on black screen, and doesn't responded to keys. It in 2-3 seconds made 5-6 shutter releases (I hear mechanical sound of shutter, not electronic signal) and turned off. After turning it back on, 3-4 images was distorted. card was Medion 128mb 32X

2. Turned on camera, discovered that forgot to put card in it, turned it off, but it showed hourglass on black screen, and doesn't responded to keys. It in 2-3 seconds made 5-6 shutter releases (I hear mechanical sound of shutter, not electronic signal) and turned off.

So, this is definetly not memory card/write access problem.

[a200user]

My A200 does a similar routine on occasion when I turn it off, however I have never had any distorted pictures. The situation you describe is probably what is shown on Page 162 of the (US Version) instruction manual "Trouble Shooting".

"Problem- Occasionally the camera will not turn off immediately."

"Symptom - The sandglass (hourglass) indicator appears on the blank LCD monitor"

"Casue and Solution - The CCD is being calibrated. This procedure lasts several seconds. Do not remove the battery during this time. This is not a defect and the camera will turn off automatically."

How do you like your A200? I've had mine a few weeks and am having a lot of fun just learning how to use it.

[A-lex]

Yep, I've contacted minolta service, and they sad it's ok.

Speaking about A200... Since this is not my first digicam, and I have experience with various cameras, ranging from $100 point to shoot ending Canon 5D...

A200 gets 7 stars out of 10.

Biggest disapointments are:

1. Bad focusing speed in darkness

2. Blooming causing purple fringing, and that can't be corrected by F number

3. Totally useless Ultra High Speed mode.

I had choice between A200 and Sony 828. Only one reason why sony was declined, was much more blooming that A200.

[A-lex]

I've got some bootleged Minolta service manual from russian sources, and it says, that this operation is automatic calibration of the sensor, to remove hot or dead pixels.

[guili]

Hi all,

I took this from the instructions manual:

Sometimes, the camera doesn't turn off immediatly. The hourglass appears in the LCD screen.

This is cause the CCD is calibrating, it isn't any problem in the camera and the camera will turn off in several seconds automatically.