Canon Powershot sx50 (1 Viewer)

[Irvo52]

I have noticed that my trusty SX50 has started to take longer to lock in to focus. Is this a sign that the mechanisms are getting old? Can it be fixed economically? It would be a shame to lose the camera as it's a great bit of kit for walking-about birding.

 

[Owen Krout]

Yeah, I agree about it being a handy walk-about kit. I currently have an SX-70 that I use for days I don't expect to really need the bigger 7D kit. Just to address the obvious, are you sure your battery is up to snuff? The Powershot line does tend to use up batteries quickly and I have seen mine start displaying problems with not wanting to lock on focus when the battery gets down to 25% or so. I had to give up on one non-Canon brand battery after only about a year of occasional use. The focus gearing on those is probably all plastic, so even the slightest amount of contamination sneaking in could easily trash the drive train. I had it happen on a point and shoot that had many years ago. Being an engineer, I took it apart and cleaned it and got another year or so out of it before it happened again and I changed over to a Canon Rebel. My guess is that the repair would be too high to justify for a low cost camera like that and Canon might not even offer repair service for it. Wouldn't hurt to check it out though. I had Canon do an inspect and clean on my 7D once and it was well worth the cost, in my opinion.