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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I've had a Canon PowerShot A1100 IS camera for almost a year now.

About a week ago, I went on a trip, took pictures the whole trip, everything was ok.

When I got home, and tried to turn the camera to move the pictures to my PC, I got an error: "Lens error, restart camera"

The lens doesn't even start to open, doesn't make any sounds of trying even.

What can I do to fix this?

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If the problem is keeping you from moving your photos to the PC, you can remove the SD card from the camera and use a card reader to read it. If you don't have a card reader in your computer(s), they are available inexpensively, for example: amazon.com/Mini-Memory-Card-Reader-Writer/dp/B000FNDWLQ/… – coneslayer May 6 '11 at 13:54
2  
I got this issue with my camera too, when my son dropped it in the sand. The lens mechanism retraction is very fragile. One grain of sand is enough to break the camera. In our case, we got the camera for less than a week, so we returned the camera for an exchange. – decasteljau May 6 '11 at 14:01

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Lens errors are fairly common. Usually it's sand or grit interfering with the lens extension mechanism. Or the camera's been dropped with the lens extended. Or the camera has been powered on, but the lens had been blocked preventing its extension.

I have written a blog post about some things that you can do to try to correct it. They only seem to work for about 50% of lens errors, but they're worth a try.

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2  
Welcome to Photo.SE! Your blog post seems to have helped many people, so I edited your answer to include the disclaimer required in our FAQ when linking to one's own site in hopes that your answer won't be flagged as spam. – Imre Oct 6 '11 at 5:02
1  
The link helped me. Number 7 tip eventually solved the problem (Tapping it lightly on the back a few hundred times) – Yochai Timmer Oct 6 '11 at 12:12
up vote 3 down vote

This can come up for a variety of different reasons, typically it happens after the camera is dropped. If the camera was dropped, compressed in your luggage too tight, gathered a grain of sand while on the beach, or had a similar occurrence, you can find yourself with this error message. These cameras are mostly made of plastic, and it can even happen under regular use where nothing was done wrong.

Don't fret, you have options. Some people have luck with removing and replacing the batteries multiple times, so you could try that. But if you are still within the warranty period I would do that before taking more invasive measures such as giving the lens a nice hard bump. Head over to Canon's repair website here.

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up vote 1 down vote

Less than a year? Cool. Send it to Canon for warranty service. The lens mechanism on compact cameras is one of the most vulnerable points, and it can get damaged even under normal use. They should fix this for free.

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up vote 0 down vote

Seems like a similar issue to this question

As I said on there, remove the battery (batteries if it has a small watch-style one too for keeping the time etc), and leave for no less than an hour. Then put batteries back in and see how it goes. Ensure lens mechanism is clear of dirt/sand/etc...

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