Why do my digital pictures have lines on them?

February 28, 2007 12:18 PM

Digital Camera Filter: I have a Canon Powershot A300 that I have used for a couple years, but recently got strange lines that appear on my pictures. Example of picture with lines (Notice the horizontal lines across the face/body) I have made no settings changes. Is this fixable? And if so, will it be worth the money?
posted by unceman to technology (8 comments total)

You may be in luck.

In fact, you may have extremely good luck: when this happened to my uncle, they couldn't fix his camera, so they sent him a new & better one.
posted by alexei at 12:37 PM on February 28, 2007

They fixed our A40 and my father-in-law's A70 for free, based on that recall. They were quick, too. Ours was less than 2 weeks; the FIL's took longer because they had to ship the part from Japan to China. (Interesting that Canon in Beijing will honor an American warranty; the reverse is probably not true.)

We also got our Canon camcorder fixed free. It uses the same CCD.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:24 PM on February 28, 2007

Sorry to derail, but I have both a Camcorder and a Camera that are on that list but I don't think that they would qualify as broken (although we alway get orbs in our digital camera shots when they are taken in low light situations). What would Canon consider broken enough to send back to them?
posted by smcniven at 1:29 PM on February 28, 2007

smcniven,

When my A510 had dust problems, I sent it to Canon and they fixed it for free. It probably cost them more to open up and clean than it would have to replace, but they probably don't want people thinking this is an easy route to a brand new camera.
posted by sindark at 3:11 PM on February 28, 2007

That's a sensor failure, the readback is being corrupted. You need to return it like alexei says and they should give you a new one.

Sony had a very similar problem recently (and they OEM sensors for nearly everyone... though I wouldn't expect to see a Sony sensor in a Canon since canon does its own CMOS sensor research. the recall notice says "CCD" though, which makes it possible they bought the Sony one for that camera) to do with the packaging on the CCDs slowly failing in high-temp, high-moisture atmospheres.

smcniven: the orbs are bits of dust reflecting the flash very close to the camera. They're only visible on small-sensor cameras because depth-of-field increases with decreasing sensor size for any given field of view. For a larger sensor camera (eg DSLR), such orbs (really a defocused point of light) would be entirely out of focus and cover the whole image, resulting in uniform haze. Only the ones really close to the camera do it because flash intensity drops off with the square of distance. So you're seeing dust that's about an inch in front of the lens.
posted by polyglot at 3:33 PM on February 28, 2007

Nooo that's not what I wanted to read.

Canon Digital IXUS II

Has been doing the line thing but much heavier and at times distinctly blue ect, but very sporadic. Thought nothing of it, worsened slightly then bang! ONLY grainy squiggles. Photographs as it appears either red or purple. Everything else grea,t but nothing. Squiggles. So now I'm here.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 12:42 AM on May 27, 2007

Found the solution to my trouble, thought I'd come back and share because for an issue encompassing so many cameras and ranging several brands it was really tricky to find.

Basically Sony was cheap and encased the CCD sensor in epoxy rather than ceramic. Between 2002 and 2004 (and used until 2005) they were pumping them out, other companies were buying them (Canon, Nikon ect). There was a general recall 27th Oct 2005 - if I remember correctly.

There was a list but it's incomplete. If your camera was manufactured between 2002 and 2005 and has a CCD sensor definitely investigate the possibility.

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news/story/8651/comment/51496/

So what now? Let you know how I go...
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 10:16 AM on June 4, 2007

just want to say this thread is amazing, i wanted to post about this same thing, but found this thread. sent in my sd100 (purchased on ebay for 200$ 3 years ago) and they are sending me out an sd630 as we speak. woooo!
posted by thisisnotkatrina at 2:22 PM on August 14, 2007