The first trick after taking the obligatory shot from the holiday hotel balcony was to drop the camera on the nice ceramic floor:-(
Everything works except the flash.
Symptoms are ... continuous charging and no flash.
Are these things user repairable or is it back to the manufacturer?
Olympus stylus 410, fairly old now but adequate.
regards
Probably broken flash tube. Can you hear bits of broken glass when you shake it?
Even the manufacturers tend not to repair these things. Inside you will find endless stuff crushed up together - in that "one-time- assembly" sort of way.
My sis recently took her broken Sony T4 for repair. The manufacturers price for a repair was identical to the price they offered her for a new Sony camera that was a considerable upgrade - after a trade-in discount on her broken camera.
Unless your camera is pretty new and an expensive model, repair may be uneconomic.
Don't know about Olympus but Fuji have a very good repair service. Give Oly a ring.
Peter Scott
For this camera, I can't see it making economic sense, even if they would offer a repair.
A quick search indicates this is a 4mega pixel 3x zoom camera from about
2004, as such it is pretty much a bottom of the range camera from today, which you can probably get for about £60 or so. I'd just buy anew oneEg Canon A495
With my experience of the digital cameras I have owned, I would say much the same. Dump and buy a new one.
Dave
Insurance?
Given the price of an equivalent new camera, unless Tim has no excess it's unlikely to be worth it
Alternatively if you spend more money you can get a camera with more pixels,
10 or 12 times optical zoom and possibly quite good video.I was frustrated when swmbo's AGP film Canon Ixus was uneconomic to repair, but please when my then 15 year old Pentax was repaired by some probably Indian gentleman in Dubai.
I agree. I dropped my Olympus camera earlier this year. It only cost me £70ish for a new one with 3 times as many pixels and a battery that lasts 5 times longer. It also takes reasonable quality videos with sound.
I would have said that my Olympus was adequate, but looking at the photos taken with my new camera I realise that it was barely adequate.
In message , Michael Chare writes
Oh, I agree, if I was buying a replacement, I'd be looking to move up a bit more. I was just pointing out just how cheap a more than comparable new camera would be.
Bought a Panasonic TZ10 earlier this year, when our the flash on our canon stopped working properly. I do like the video function on it. The quality is plenty good enough for video of the kids which is all we want really. And having it on the camera in your hand means you are more likely to take it. (The Canon did video as well, but the quality was no where near as good.
I have one of those. It's not up to the standard of the latest digicams but as you say, it is adequate. As with most Olympus digicams, the colour rendition is very natural.
On eBay, they sell used in excellent condition for about £35. That's probably less than you would pay to repair yours.
So consider buying another one on eBay.
You should try comparing them to a camera with an APS-C sized sensor, you may decide the new one isn't adequate.
You don't actually want more pixels unless you expect to enlarge the picture a lot. At which point the average quality of the optics will become apparent (unless it's a DSLR). If it's a pocket job then 6 or 8 Mpix with 4 or 5 times optical zoom is all you need.
Yes, or the Panny/Olympus micro four-thirds system, which also gives you a larger sensor (not as large as APS-C but still a lot larger than the tiny jobs you'll get in the ordinary pocket digicam).
You may be correct, but at what price? I am NOT David Bailey. I believe that some of the newer mobile phones could take better quality photos than my old camera. Personally I am happy to own a mobile phone that does not take photos.
even with a DSLR its a toss up which is the limiting actor: optics, CCD noise or the pixellation.
In message , John writes
regards
In message , Bruce writes
Right.
Having asked the question in here I then phoned Olympus. Their service charge for this model is around £100! They kindly gave me the contact details for an agent who happens to be *just up the road* at Luton. His repair charge is £40.
He did mention that a common fault for a dropped 410 is that the PC board breaks.
Armed with the *replace it* comments in here, I feel fully justified in taking it to bits:-)
regards and thanks to all.
>
I agree with much of what has been said here, particularly the comments about the number of pixels - you do only need something around the 6 Mpix for all reasonable photography. The marketing gambit of increasing the number of pixels results in a slower camera - more bits to process - and with all small cameras a totally useless low light capability as the output from each pixel is so small it requires significant amplification to be usable, which correspondingly raises the noise floor level.
I decided some years back to switch to a lightweight camera for my mountaineering days out - something that I could attach the rucksack strap and have to catch the moment. I bought a Panasonic FX01. At some point the screen got broken, so I bought a second one for something like =A340 off Ebay; I then found I could get a replacement screen off Ebay and suitable instructions for =A320, so I replaced the screen and gave the second one to my wife. Everybody happy. Rob
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.