Broken camera question

Factual Questions
1

I have two broken cameras which belong to a friend - they broke while she is on a round-the-world trip & I brought them home after I met up with her for a couple of weeks. One is a Samsung Digimax 430, about four years old so out of warranty. The other is a Samsung Digimax S500, less than six months old. However, it was bought in Bolivia and the receipt was lost before it conked out in Ecuador, & my friend’s Spanish does not extend to consumer law so she never tried to get it fixed under warranty.

The odd thing is that they both seem to have a similar fault. When either camera is turned on, the lens is exposed & pops out of the body of the camera as it should, but then the camera beeps, the lens retracts and the camera turns itself off. Does anyone have any experience with broken Samsungs? Is this a common fault? Would it be cheap to fix? It’s not my responsibility, but if it would be fairly reasonable to take care of it would be a nice surprise for my friend to come home to a camera that works.

Disclaimer: You are not a camera repairer. You are not my camera repairer. I should contact a camera repairer in my jurisdiction.

2

Troubleshooting Samsung Digimax S500 Digital Camera –> It don’t turn on

Ignoring the thread’s ‘english’, it sounds like you could have either a bad memory card, or a stuck lens.

3

Likely there is an obstruction in the lens which causes it to retract and shutdown. Sand or grit getting in the mechanism is very common. A gentle (or not so gentle) hit on the side of the camera as the lens is extending might free it up or loosen things. But these are hard problems to fix, and the camera will fail again at some point.

My advice, get something better then the Samsungs (which are generally not great cameras right now) or get one that doesn’t have an extending lens.

4

I couldn’t find anything on google, but that site describes exactly what the cameras are doing. I still can’t get them to work though. O well. Thanks anyways.

5

Neither of those cameras are worth the cost of repair; what most places would charge to open it up would exceed the value of the unit.

Pocket digitals are cheap these day, get some new ones.

6

An update - it works! The newer one, like. Which is good because I thought I had broken it twice.

Thank you Squink & thank you Straight Dope!

& Telemark - it’s my friend’s camera. She replaced it with a Kodak. I still use old fashioned cameras with film, which is a false economy I know but I am set in my ways.