I don’t know whether I should be happy or angry with Canon when I saw this press announcement last night. This news was been released earlier on this month and has been circulating around most major forums regarding photography for awhile, so I guess I’m pretty late on this. If you have no idea what it’s all about, you can read it all here.

Apparently it wasn’t only Canon that was affected by this CCD problem issue, Konica Minolta, Nikon, Fujifilm and Sony were all affected as well. Mainly those lower-end models of digital cameras by these manufacturers were hugely affected by the CCD malfunction. Only certain affected models are been mentioned, so check your respective manufacturer’s website for your digital camera if it has broke down or spoiled recently and has the anomalies or symptoms mentioned on the website of the manufacturer.

Thank you for using Canon products.

A problem has been discovered in some of the CCDs used in Canon digital camera and digital video camera products that causes images to appear distorted or not to appear at all. We apologize for the considerable inconvenience this represents for our customers. Along with our respectful apology, we would like to advise our customers of the details of this issue and our policy for handling it, which are as follows.

Affected Models
The CCDs in question are used in the following models.

Digital Cameras
PowerShot A60, PowerShot A70, PowerShot A75, PowerShot A300, PowerShot A310, Digital IXUS V3, Digital IXUS II, Digital IXUS IIs

Digital Video Cameras
MV600i, MV630i, MV650i, MV700i, MV730i, MV750i, MV5i, MV5i MC, MV6i MC
ZR60, ZR65 MC, ZR70 MC, ZR80, ZR85, ZR90, Elura 40 MC, Elura 50

The Malfunction
Among the CCDs used in the affected products listed above, it has been confirmed that, especially under high-temperature/high-humidity environments, the internal wiring may come undone in some places.

If this defect occurs, the signal is not output from the CCD correctly when in shooting mode, which results in symptoms like the following in captured images. These symptoms can be confirmed on the LCD monitor. The same symptoms may also occur in recorded images.

• Images do not appear
• Images appear distorted

Canon’s Response
With apologies for the inconvenience involved, we ask that users who have confirmed these symptoms contact the nearest Canon Service Center. Free repairs will be made for affected products in cases where it has been confirmed that the internal CCD wiring has come undone in some places.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this issue. We strive to make even greater efforts in our quality control to provide products that our customers can use with confidence. We hope that these efforts will earn your continued patronage.

I’m glad to say now, that I finally found out what’s wrong with my camera. My 3 years old IXUS V3 was exhibiting the distorted images anomaly a few months ago when I switched it on one day, and I was puzzled by it and wondering why did it break down on me suddenly under normal usage circumstances. I only dropped it once but that’s about it, even then it was in my leather pouch too. Will be taking it down to Canon’s service centre one day to let them check it out and repair it, since it will be free of charge.

And on a side note, 2 more days to the big day. And I think I’m still unprepared for it. Die lah. _|￣|O