In memoriam: Canon Powershot S2iS

I bought the Canon Powershot S2iS a couple of years ago from a friend. Prior to my possession of it, he had the camera for a little over a year. He gave me a good package: the camera, 8 pieces Energizer rechargable batteries with recharger, bag. When I got the camera, I instantly fell in love with taking photos; it was a fun companion in our treks and family outings.

Alas (or shall I say, malas? hehe), the camera simply stopped functioning a couple of weeks ago. I was taking some shots and then suddenly it was giving me "whitwashed" photos. 80-90% of the photos were white. My companions said it just might need some rest, so I gave it a break and tried again. Same result.


A few days later, it finally started working again but this time there were fine, horizontal lines.

It was time to bring it to the Service Center.

I dropped by the Canon Center along Pasong Tamo in Makati one morning to have it checked. The front-line service took a look while I described the symptoms. He then said that the lens assembly was malfunctioning. Did I happen drop the camera recently? Nope, I said. And then he proceeded to explain that the aperture is supposed to close when taking shots, but it's not doing so, thus the overexposed shots. And the horizontal lines mean that there really is something wrong with the lens.

Then he said "thank you."

How much will it cost to repair the camera? He took a quick look at his laptop and wrote the cost on a piece of paper. 10,000 pesos!

I asked... what if I purchase one of those wide angle lens / photo lens thingies instead? The agent said that the malfunction is in the integral part of the camera, so that won't work. I really need to have it fixed.

Then he said "thank you".

And then, like an afterthought, he said that they can "buy back" the camera and deduct this price from a new Canon camera. And how much rebate can I get from this? 1,800 pesos. Whaaaatttt... I bought the camera at around 20k, and all I get is 1,800?

And then he said "thank you."

Man, the "thank you" parts were really very irritating, like he wanted me to scoot the soonest possible time.

I feel that giving away the S2iS at the price of 1,800 is really unfair, even when it's malfunctioning. I would have expected that Canon thinks more highly of their products. But that's consumer products for you I guess.

And so I left the service center feeling that I did not get the service a customer deserves. Well, Jo-Lo now has a new toy to play with (he's a wizard with gadgets! At two years old!) and I hope I can have a new camera soon. I need to save up; the Canon S2iS was a great companion and preserved a lot of happy memories, but this time I'm getting a Nikon.

Anybody need a part-time writer / contributor? :-)