My DiMage A1 viewer stopped functioning!

[Carey]

Hello, all and, moderator, thank you for providing this forum.

I live on Cozumel island where we just had one hell of a little hurricane, let me tell you. I got out my refurbished DiMage A1 to take some photos of the recovery process this morning to stick on my website www.cozumelmycozumel.com and lo and behold, I can't get either the viewfinder or the LCD screen to show anything except blue screen. The battery is okay. The memory card is empty.

It worked fine last time I used it about two weeks ago and has been in a nice, protective case. The menu buttons work fine and allow me to move through the settings, change them, etc. The camera turns on. But when I look in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen, all I get is blue -- no image so that I can see what I'm aiming at.

The manual has no troubleshooting guide for this particular problem and I'm really hoping that perhaps I accidentally pushed some button I shouldn't have while putting it back in the case last time.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I might try to get this camera working again? Or is it going to have to go back to the states for repair.

Any suggestions would be vastly appreciated. Thanks in advance, people. As you can obviously tell, I'm a novice photographer and can use all the help I can get as I try to record what's happening down here in an attempt to encourage tourists to begin returning to the island as soon as possible. Otherwise, a lot of very nice folks are going to be hurting really badly in about a month's time.

[Coltess]

Have you taken a picture? Does it come out blue too?

[Carey]

I tried your suggestion of trying to shoot a picture even without any viewing screen or eyepiece references. And that's when I find that the shutter is very, VEEERRRY slow. Like more than 5 seconds between pushing the button and the shutter snapping.

So I think it must be the incredible humidity here -- particularly after the hurricane we had where the eye just hung right over our bunker like room for nearly 60 hours. I had the camera in a padded case. But not ZIPPED up. So I'm thinking the humidity got to it?? Any ideas?

I wonder if I could dry it out by putting in the bathroom with the humidfier turned on.

Good luck getting it fixed in Mexico where I live. Oh well.

Any ideas on whether trying to get it good and dry might have a positive effect?

[Coltess]

I'm guessing here, but maybe condensation caused the problem. Drying it out shouldn't hurt (just don't stick it in the oven ;) ).
Have you tried emailing KM support for their input?
What did the picture you took look like?

[rajivtyagi]

I am also having the same problem. I can't see anything in the viewfinder or LCD and shutter click very slow. I can play back old pictures but I am unable to take any pictures. Please suggest me what to do

[brobin]

I am having the same or a very similiar problem. When I look through my viewfinder all I see is varying shades of blue and purple lines. I can take a picture and view it. I have tried everything I can think of to normalize my camera but nothing works. Has anyone got any suggestions besides taking it to the repair shop.

[brobin]

I'm guessing here, but maybe condensation caused the problem. Drying it out shouldn't hurt (just don't stick it in the oven ;) ).
Have you tried emailing KM support for their input?
What did the picture you took look like?

We are experiencing the same problem. The cause of the problem is a defective ccd chip. There is a recall, Sony will replace the chip for no charge even if your camera is out of warrenty.