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Sometimes, beating your camera is a good idea

I ignored the blinking battery icon in my camera until it shut down yesterday, and that was probably not a brilliant idea. It died, and when I put a freshly charged battery in it, all it could muster was the dreaded E18 error message. What that means is, the lens either won’t fully retract or fully open. In my case, the lens was peering at me through a not-quite-closed shutter, as if it were sleepy, or hungover.

Lisa, probably looking to stave off full-blown hysterics on my part (though I was being good) helpfully googled for answers. She came up with this
“firm knock” idea. Apparently whacking the camera on the usb port side a few times can knock some sense back into it.

I interpreted “firm knock” to mean “slam it again the coffee table like it is a ‘whack and unwrap’ chocolate orange.” I only had to whack it a few times, and suddenly the lens fully extended, retracted, and extended again. No more E18 error, and I could finally download (and uploaded) my Rockport shots:

Can’t that solution be applied to almost all problems?

If only!

You are much braver than I am. I probably would have whacked it, but it would have taken me days to work up the courage to do it!