Back in the USA the 5D battery door was an easy $7 fix. The 28-135 zoom lens is still broken and the parts to fix it are nearly as much as a used lens. I may not even replace it as I’ve gotten away from hauling the big 5D on motorcycle trips. It’s a great camera that takes beautiful pictures but magazines and web sites do not require technically perfect photos, only interesting subjects.
The Little S95, by dint of its size was harder to fix. I bought a new top switch plate for $14 and using a microscope, replaced the part without damaging a lot of other parts in the process. To my surprise the little camera booted up and would take photos. The broken screen was slightly annoying but the worse problem was that the front ring did not work anymore. The S95 really needs that ring to operate correctly. I’m pretty sure I broke the ring in the process of installing the top switch. These tiny digital cameras pack a lot of components into a tiny space. Fixing them is nothing at all like concrete work. The S95 was consigned to the busted camera drawer.
Joe Berk and I recently went to Mexico to road test the new Royal Enfield 650 and that trip convinced me that I needed a decent point and shoot camera. The cell phone camera is great but there were times I needed zoom but didn’t feel like digging out the big camera. I wanted a pocket DSLR.
Back to the busted camera drawer and the S95 I went. The parts to fix the screen and the front ring switch cost around $50. Add to that the $14 I had already spent, and the fact that I would probably end up breaking something else while fixing the S95, and things were looking glum for my S95. The little beat up Canon is a great shooter and I’ve had two-page spreads published in magazines with it, so while I hated to give up on an old friend I began to look for a used, working S95.
Prices for used S95’s hover around $100 for a fairly straight, functioning example. The funny thing is the next generation model, the S100, was the same price as the older unit. With a wider and longer lens and a much faster processor than the S95 the only thing making me hesitate was the S100’s bad reputation for a lens error glitch. When the glitch hits the lens stays extended and the machine refuses to take photos. So it’s kind of a major glitch, you know? Here you can see the extra bit of S100 (left) vs S95 (right) wide angle.
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