I’ve got a Canon PowerShot A70 that recently accompanied me on a trip to Peru. While attending a wedding there, the low battery indicator popped up (not surprising - I’m an Irishman surrounded by people who love to dance; taking constant photos is an excuse to save myself undue embarassment over the dreaded “whiteboy rhythm” thing. By the way, I was forced to exhibit my whiteboyishness). At any rate, shortly after the low batt indicator cropped up, the LCD shut down. I figured this was a sort of battery self-defense thing, and continued using the camera using the viewfinder.
Problem: Now, with fresh batteries, I can’t get the LCD to display in shoot mode anymore. In review mode, it works just fine. I’ve scoped out the user manual, and see nothing helpful. I’ve reset to factory default settings - nothing. Looked at all of the (limited) manual settings I see, and … nothing! Anyone ever bump into this? I’m sick of pasting this thing against my mug to get a shot!
I have an A95, and the camera generally powers down very shortly after the low battery indicator comes on. It’s a two-minute warning, if that.
This is pretty obvious, but have you tried pressing the DISP button? You might have the LCD turned off in record mode.
I’ve not had this happen to me although I do own an A70 or similar (it’s not with me right now so can’t check). I think Roches’ suggestion of pressing the DISP button would be my first port of call.
One thing to note is that I have it switched off when I’m taking pictures anyway. It uses a lot of battery to have that screen on, so if you use the viewfinder to take the pictures you’ll save considerably on the cost of batteries. I have noticed that what you see through the viewfinder doesn’t always agree with what ends up on the photo though - the frame isn’t quite the right size.
I have an A80, and while I’ve been frustrated by the rate at which it burns through batteries, this has never occurred to me. Thanks for the tip!
I have a PowerShot A60, which I believe is very similar to the A70. It doesn’t have the problem you’re experiencing, but I suppose there’s possibly a connection:
I sometimes (not always) get a crappy display image while in shoot mode. The picture is kinda fuzzy and jerky, with strange black lines across the screen. I can usually get it to clear up with a little percussive maintenance - a moderate whack with my hand. I suspect there’s an intermittently bad connection in there someplace, but haven’t checked it out much further.
In review mode there’s no such problem - the image is crystal clear.
I suppose maybe our cameras have a similar issue, and that yours is just more serious than mine. Don’t really know, though.
The exact thing the OP described happened to a friend of mine with an A75 (which is just an updated A70). I just pushed the DISP button a couple of times and all was well. I don’t know if the change of screen mode was part of a last-gasp power saving feature as the batteries drained (they were rechargables and go from full power to nothing very fast) or she perhaps had pressed the DISP button herself in her confusion.
Kudos to Brad_d! I had already tried cycling through with the display button to no avail, but the left handed pimp-slap actually did the trick! I’m feeling guilty now, since I work in a tech field and am constantly chastizing “ignorant” users for kicking and slapping PCs and gadgets. Of course, part of that concern is that, since they’re cops, they’ll also follow through on threats to “put a f*^$ing bullet in the piece of S@#t!” Thanks again, Brad_d.
Hey, cool! I’m glad that helped. 