whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Hi everybody,

I'm a regular here and something has mysteriously happened to my camera over night. I have a Fuji Finepix s9000. When I leave for work in the morning the moon is setting and appears enormous near the horizon. I wanted to get some pictures of this so I set my camera to the daylight settings that I usually use for moon shots. When I got to work I shot a few pictures of the moon. Then I wanted to try different shutter speeds. It was not to be. Suddenly for no apparent reason, I can't change the aperture or shutter speed. I normally shoot manually but I can't get it to work using shutter priority, aperture priority or program, either. I believe the automatic setting is still OK. I can still change the ISO. My camera didn't suffer any calamity, it has fresh batteries in it, it wasn't near any heat source, etc. I'm baffled by this and freaked out because I feel lost without my camera. I feel like I lost my right arm. I'm doing the 365 day photo challenge which I enjoy so much but now I don't know how I will be able to continue without my camera. I bought this camera used about 7 months ago on EBay from a personal seller (not a store) so I can't return it.

Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, advice about what I should or can do? This is pretty upsetting to me because I'm on a budget and I'm afraid it will cost an arm and a leg to get fixed. Before I take my camera to the local camera store (they have been around for at least 40 years), I will wait to see what anyone has to say about this.

Thanks so much in advance to anyone who gives me some feedback.

Take care,

whitewitch :cry:

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Contact this guy: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-9370-1.html

He is a professional camera repairman, and a fellow HedgeHogger.

His website: http://www.discountcamerarepair.com

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Thank you SO much, Nikonian. I will do that and really appreciate the info :-)

tkhphotography Loc: Gresham, Or, not Seattle

Look in the manual for the factory "reset" sequence, it should set everything back to original settings. Then if you can't get it working, you should contact a repair person.

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

Thank you so much, TKH. I will see if I can locate that information ;)

ioptfm Loc: Isle of Palms, SC

Pull the battery out for a short and then try again.

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

I put fresh batteries in and it didn't make a difference but I'll try what you said. Thank you!

RocketScientist Loc: Littleton, Colorado

It is a 6 year old camera, at least it was October of 2005 when dpreview reviewed it. While it certainly is worth fixing, It might be time to think about a new unit.

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

I would love to do that but I don't have the funds now. I've been very happy with this camera. We'll see. I'll have to see what the damages will be to get it repaired. Thank you!

DennisK Loc: Pickle City,Illinois

Are you sure that you didn't accidently change some setting or turn a switch that should be in another position?
And the memory card is properly installed,right?

whitewitch Loc: Buffalo NY

I thought it might be something simple like that but so far I'm not finding anything. The memory card is fine because I've taken a few pictures on automatic. I'm still checking all the buttons. Thanks!

tenbanshee Loc: Woodstock, IL

I have found that for something that runs on batteries, to remove them for at least a minute then put them back in. It is kind of like with a computer when they tell you to shut it down for at least a minute then restart it. I do this with my modems, switches and even my weather stations.
Good luck

Nevada Chuck

Rocketscientist has a good point. I know that you've said that you don't have the funds to replace your camera, but I suspect that you haven't explored all possible avenues of approach to this problem.

I say this because the rate of change in new and better technology in digital cameras is so great that almost any money spent on repairs of a six year old camera is pretty much good money after bad. I know that what I'm saying isn't all that helpful up front, but be sure you've considered every possible way of replacing before spending on repairing. Any repair that costs more than about 1/5th of replacement cost is wasted money.

tomireland Loc: Louisville, Tennessee

I started to say, "pitch it and get a Canon." But I won't. I'm much to nice to be that calloused. Seriously, I bet the factory reset will bestow your camera to working order.

shadow1284 Loc: Mid-West Michigan

Just a thought. I have the next upgrade to the s9000, the f100fs. I bought it because I liked the s9000 I had previous. They are both great hybred digitals. I use it as a backup to my canon 7d, If you find you need to repair or replace the s9000 and would like to stay with the same features without breaking the bank. The f100fs is a discontinued model which has some very good upgrades to the s9000 and can probably be had at a reasonable price.