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Advice Needed: Repair or Replace?

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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-24-06 08:17 AM
Original message
Advice Needed: Repair or Replace?
Well, I took my new digital camera to Japan, and for the first eight days, no problem. I got some fun pictures, some boring ones, but most importantly, I had no problems.

(It's an Olympus FE-130, by the way.)

Okay, well, this morning I had some time before going to visit Art_from_Ark, so I went over to Asakusa Kannon Temple, just up the street in Tokyo, which has a touristy but fun street market, and I dropped the camera while paying for a snack item.

At first it seemed unaffected and took three or four nice pictures. Then another tourist asked me to take her picture, so I turned the Olympus off, since, among other things, I deiced that I had enough pictures of the area.

So when I tried to turn the camera on again, the "Olympus" logo appeared, but nothing else appeared on the LCD screen. I tried a couiple of times--same result. Inspecting the camera, I saw that the zoom lens was knocked off center.

I took it to the nearest little hole-in-the-wall camera shop (the only type in that neighborhood), and the owner told me that I'd have to send it to the manufacturer. On the way to catch the train out to where Art lives, I even stopped off at a famous camera super store, which boasts "repairs while you wait," but these people, too, told me that I'd have to send it back to the manufacturer.

Since I'm returning to the States on Monday, this means I'm stuck using a disposable camera (fortunately, available everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, in Japan.)

So here's my question. Has anyone had anything like this repaired? I'm assuming it's not covered by warranty, since one is not supposed to drop one's camera so that the zoom is knocked off center, so I'll have to pay the expenses.

How much would something like this cost? A little? A lot? Are we talking about fifty bucks? A hundred?

Or should I take advantage of the duty-free deals on digital cameras here, where I can get something comparable for less than what I paid in the States?

It's Saturday evening here, and Saturday morning in the States, so I'll check your responses on Sunday morning.

Thanks in advance! I await your collective wisdom.
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Lydia Leftcoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-27-06 11:27 PM
Response to Original message
1. Update: I replaced
The replacement is an Olympus SP-320, which, thanks to the wonders of duty-free and tax-free shopping for tourists at the camera super store in Tokyo, cost LESS than the FE-130 (even though I bought it at Costco), and has MORE features, including a viewfinder in addition to the LCD screen, more built-in memory, more megapixels (7.1), more built-in memory, and a few manual controls. Oh, yes, like the other dead camera, it uses AA batteries (available worldwide) and an xD card, which I could just transfer to the new camera.

I haven't yet figured out all the manual controls, because the advanced manual is written in Japanese, and at the moment, jet-lagged as I am, reading it feels too much like work. :-) (For those of you who don't know, I'm a Japanese-English translator by profession.)

Anyway, I took a couple of pix with it before leaving, and I'm very pleased.
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CC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-27-06 11:31 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Glad you got a new one, and before
leaving. I really didn't know which would be the better way though. Sounds like a good deal too. Please post pictures when you can. Also try looking up the manual online in English.



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