How can I fix a Olympus Pen Lite where the EPL5 shutter seems to be locking?

Question

I just bought an Olympus Pen Lite - EPL5 and am having an issue with the manual shutter speed setting (S on the analog control).

Each time I shoot a picture the screen goes black and it sounds like the shutter is locking. I can get it to reset by restarting the cam.

Any ideas what's going on? This only happens in S mode and everything else seems to be working great.

Answer 1

Have you checked if you are using a shutter time longer than expected? Or maybe Bulb mode?

In S mode the shutter time is shown as a highlighted number in the camera display, but if this number is shown with quotes then the time is in fact in seconds.

So a number like 30 means the shutter will be open for 1/30 of a second, but a number like 30" means the shutter will be open for 30 seconds. Time enough for you to interpret this as a locking or error if this wasn't what you intended.

Try rotating the camera dial to the right in order to make sure you have a small shutter time and see if the problem persists.

Answer 2

Details on what values you are setting and if images are correctly exposed would be ideal. Also, images would be even more ideal.

I can take you through some diagnostics, if you like.

Take the lens off and put it on S. Set it to 120. Take a shot while looking at the sensor. It should look like it simply closed.

Now set it to 2". Again, while looking at the sensor, take a shot. If I closed, opened up again for 2 seconds, and closed again, that's normal operation.

If it stayed closed for the 2 seconds, then you have a problem with the shutter.

If this is the case, takes it back to where you got it from or call Olympus. They should fix it up for you.

Hope this helps.

Also note, it may be an intermittent shutter problem.