Troubleshooting a Canon digital camera

[gwendee]

Are any of you more serious photographers? I'm hoping someone will be able to help me troubleshoot a camera (Canon S2 IS) about which I know precious little despite the fact that it came with 2 lengthy books in English and 3 in Spanish.

In all of the troubleshooting guides nothing as basic as "It won't take pictures" shows up.

It hangs from the ceiling, runs on AC. I use it with software specific to my business (picture framing). I operate it remotely from the PC. I uninstalled and reinstalled all the drivers and software associated with the camera and ditto the framing program.

I can release the shutter from the computer, there's just no image. I took the camera off the ceiling and put batteries in it, I believe the connections are good and feel like the probelm is isolated in the camera itself.

When I look through the camera's viewfinder I see a little hand in parentheses. I cannot find a hand in parentheses in any of my books in any language.

I think what I'm really asking is what help topics should I be reading at Canon's website?

[Gorsnak]

The hand typically means the camera thinks it needs to use shutter speed too slow for you to hold steady, so you should flip up the flash or break out a tripod. Don't know what your other problem might be. I have an irresistible urge to suggest that you'll find it works better with the lens cap off, though.

[beowulff]

Does it take a photo when you press the shutter release?

[gwendee]

Latest update...after the camera is turned off for several minutes it will take one photo, but then it's back to the black display both on the camera. The camera acts like the shutter is being released (and by that I mean it makes the noise) but thats as far as it goes.

I don't know if that hand appears when it's in it's normal position (bolted to the ceiling), and cannot check without some Mission Impossible pulley systemm

Also...so far until this trouble started, when the camerais on but "resting" there was an amber LED lit on the top of the camera, and when I opened the camera window or the framing software the camera would "wake up" and the LED on top (near the shutter) would light green, and so would one on the front near the lens. That is not happening anymore. The light does turn green if I turn it to playback mode.

And the lens cap is in a drawer and hasn't seen the light of day since I installed the cameraalmost 2 years ago.

[Gorsnak]

I was just joking about the lenscap. :)

From your description, I'm going to guess (and it's just a guess) that there's a small battery on one of the internal circuit boards that's no longer holding a charge. Generally such batteries aren't intended to be replaced - to do so would require disassembling the camera, and they're kept charged by the main power circuitry in the camera.

I would suggest posting this question on the dpreview.com forums in the appropriate section (Canon Talk). If that model has any proclivity for such behaviour, someone there is bound to know about it.

[Uncommon Sense]

Is the shutter set to "bulb"?