A couple years ago, I bought a Nikon Coolpix 5700 digital camera. I played around with it a little, then went back to using my 35mm.
I’m still using the 35mm, but now am finding uses for the digital. The first problem is that I’ve misplaced the manual. (If I really can’t find it I know I can download one.)
So I dusted it off and charged the battery. Except that now, when I’m looking through the view finder or the monitor, all I see are quickly-changing horizontal lines of black, white and gray. No image whatsoever. And there’s a faint sort of chattering sound, like the autofocus is searching for an image. This definitely did not happen when the camera was new. What happened since then?
Your batteries could be shot after sitting unused for so long. Many rechargeable batteries don’t like that. Can you take pictures? Do they have lines across them as well. Your CCD could be shot, although it’s not clear why that would happen after the camera sitting idle.
Panache,
You might be in luck; your camera may be under recall for defective CCD. This link may be of assistance in getting your camera fixed. You’re in good company: Nikon, Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, and Olympus announced recalls about a year ago for this reason. See this article for more explanation and some samples.
Good luck and fingers crossed!
My Sony camera was repaired free-of-charge because of that class of faults - apparently, it was something to do with defects in the epoxy packaging of the CCD chip - on exposure to changes of temperature, pressure, humidity, etc - or just over the passage of time - the seal would become compromised and the connections inside the device would oxidise, resulting in partial or total failure.