ALERT - READ how I killed my brand new camera... (Help!)

[smilynn]

ops: I'm a newbie with her first digital: an Olympus C-3000ZOOM. It was working perfectly until I did a bad bad thing - forgot for a split second the info. in the TINY note at the bottom of page 36 which says: "do not turn on the power without removing the lens cap first", and did precisely that. I only wanted to erase a pic and was not intending to take a photo so simply forgot to remove the lenscap. In a half second I realized my mistake and turned the camera off, but electricity, being far faster than myself has done ????? and now the camera seems completely non-functional. Could some kind soul explain to me what has happened and advise me as to what I should do after I finish kicking myself into the next time zone? So far (with the lenscap off!) I have only tried the "P" and the " :arrow: " on the mode dial: no power. Then I took out the 2 CR-V3 lithium batteries (included with the camera) and tested them...the results read 2.8V and 2.7V respectively, so I put them back in the camera, closed the door, removed the lenscap and retried the "P" and " :arrow: " again: still no power. I am SO not happy about this. Rant and vent: How many jokes have we heard about someone 'forgetting to take the lenscap off'? Or looked through binoculars only to see the lenscaps? These digital cameras have many functions other than the taking of a picture during which protection of the lens would, of course, be preferable (understatement). I can almost smell a rat in what is an accident waiting to happen (NO inclusion in the manual of a Caution! or Warning! or Danger! before the tiny note and no indication of what the result is going to be: (i'm guessing) an expensive repair!! I can turn on my camcorder (Sony) with its lenscap on - no problem! A friend called it "planned obselecense" (sp?) and another referred to it as a "built-in malfunction"!!! All thoughts and, hopefully, advice will be gratefully accepted! Has this happened to YOU? Take the Poll..

[luisr]

My camera (a Kodak DX4330) also has a lens cap but you can safely leave the cap on when you turn on the camera. The lens (not the actual glass of course) pops it out power up. Even the manual says it is safe to do so. I normally remove it before turning it on but I sometimes forget to take it off.

However if the batteries are almost dead, there is not enough power left for the mechanism to pop the cap out. When this happens the lens retracts back to its original position and the camera turns off. But it won't die the way you describe. Just take off the cap and turn the camera back on without problems as long as there is enough battery power left.

[Mathilde uP]

Hm, as far as I know; Point and shoot cameras have either a fully retracted lense behing a 'lensdoor', something that slides away at power on. Or they have a lenscap on the moveable lense part.
In case of lensecap they sometimes even have a 'lensecap on' warning at startup (Nikon coolpix 4300).

So lets assume you powered the camera with lensecap on. The camera was about to warn you of such, but instead before camera fully started, you turned it of again to prevent any possible damage.
Short burst of power should be ok for electronics, but itn reality it is the way to trace the weak spot.

I advice to see how the camera behaves with another smartmedia card. Although those sm cards are quite different than cf cards, I have once seen a Canon play 'dead' untill CF card was replaced.
Give the camera a second or 5 to start. If that fails power of and bring it to repair?

[jawz]

I'll bet that most owners of Oly C- series have turned on their cameras with the lens cap on at least once--I have done it three times with my C-3020. Two of the times the camera reverted to normal operation when I powered it up again. One time required me to remove the batteries over night to let the camera reset itself to the factory default condition.

In my case (maybe luck of the draw) my heart stopped, but the camera didn't. Try removing the batteries for a fairly long time, I suggest overnight, and hopefully your camara can be restored to proper operation.

[digcamfan]

Hi smilynn

Welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear about your Oly C-3020.

You might consider leaving batteries out overnight then replace
them in the morning.

Also, you may still be in warranty period if all else fails.

Also, if that does not work and you are in warranty period
you may be able to pick up a warranty fairly cheap ($30-40)
on the olympus Ebay site. Lots of C-series warranties are
there.

http://www.stores.ebay.com/olympusam...l?col=2&dir=-1

All you had to do was have bought your dig cam w/n 364 days
of purchase date of your warranty!

Good luck, Smilynn!

[smilynn]

Thank you for your responses!
I took the batteries out yesterday afternoon and reinserted them a few minutes ago (3:00 PM), but I still have no power in the "P" mode nor to the LCD monitor/control panel. Now, I'm headed out to buy a new pair of Olympus CR-V3 Lithium batteries and try again. Jorge from Peru was right about not being able to rely on my battery test because they were not under a load when I tested them and without power to the display the camera can't tell me if its batteries are low. This is the only response (of 3) from tech support at Olympus that made any attempt at an explanation so far: "What can happen if the lens cap is not removed is that the lens would be stuck on the rail and will not go out, that would also cause the camera to shut down because it will generate an internal error." I am not altogether sure what that entails... It doesn't explain why there is no power to the LCD display. Or does it? I am pressing them for more information, but they havn't been very forthcoming. Hopefully one (1) second wasn't enough time to strip gears or burn motor. I'm guessing that those questions can't be answered until there is power first. (If the motor is somehow connected to the LCD monitor/control panel, then my guess could easily be wrong). Next, I'll try a new SmartMedia card....and continue looking for your advice and experiences! I've also posted this problem in the Olympus forum where you can find some more responses.

[BillDrew]

Try taking the batteries out and leaving them out for a couple of days - long enough for the camera to lose track of the date and any other settings. That should put the camera into the same state it was in from the factory: somewhat equivalent to rebooting.

Probably won't solve the problem, but it is simple, easy, and won't cause any further probems.

[Wildman]

I'm not familiar with your camera model, but my Canon has a small watch battery that retains date and setting information when powered down. Look in your user manual. If it has one, try removing it then putting it back in. This should put the camera back into the "stupid mode " and delete all settings. Might fix it for you.

[gibsonpd3620]

The olympus cameras do not have batteries to maintain date and time settings. If you leave batteries out of the camera for several hours all the settings revert to factory defaults.

[PrmseKpr]

I know this doesn't help, but I find it hard to believe that the camera doesn't have a lens cap detect function to protect against such thing.

My JVC camcorder will display "lenscap??" on the viewfinder if you leave the lenscap on and my FZ1 will beep at me and display "Remove lens cap and press SET to resume" (or something like that).