Canon A540 problem

Has anyone come across the problem where their point and shoot camera becomes a lot slower than when it was first bought? The Canon A540 that my friend bought last year was functioning well last year, now, after pressing the shutter to take a picture, it takes up to 3-5 seconds before the camera is ready for another shot. We have changed to new batteries, but no help. Also, this is the case even when the flash is not used. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

MJ

wow, never heard of that. I would take it to a Canon dealer for a check up.

Keep us posted

yes, I have the A540 and have the same problems. At first I thought it was batteries so I changed from Eneloops to Powerex 2700s - no difference. I thought about whether it was because I changed some settings like the image size but I didn't change anything. I only use the camera underwater on the AV setting. I change just the EV and f-stop.

It seems to work fine for the first few pictures of a dive but then after the fourth or fifth picture, it takes 4-5 seconds after the last image disappears. It's a pain.

....answering my own question, sort of.....

I sent off an e-mail to Canon Singapore this morning. They called back in about 2 hours. Not bad.

The tech asked some questions and we ruled out battery issues, wrong/changed settings and "it's normal".

They suggested something that occurred to me as I was writing the original e-mail to them. I'll try taking photos tonight without the flash to see if the problem is still there. If so, at least I have localised the issue. If it is not that, she suggested I format the SD card and repeat the photos. If it was the flash or something other than the SD card, she suggested I bring it in for a check-up. I'll see later tonight. I guess now I am just posting in case anyone else runs into this same problem.

Just for the record....

I finally took the camera to Canon Singapore today. As Murphy would predict, when I tried to show them the problem, it took several minutes and 20 shots before it would start to act up. That's life. Eventually, the guy at the counter took it to a technician who pronounced it as "working normally".

I explained that it didn't work that way when I got it, it is a recent phenomonon. Also, it usually starts going wrong about the 5th shot within a few minutes when the with flash is on. In never goes bad as soon as I turn on a cold camera or if the flash is turned off.

Unfortunately, he swore that "it just takes longer to write certain picture files to the memory card". He said that several other people have thought it was a problem with their Powershot too but even when they replaced or "repaired" the cameras under warranty, the new/fixed camera will have the same "function".

He says it normal for that series of cameras. I only agreed that it may happen to all of them but it's not normal - it's just an defect that they can't or won't fix.

I'll keep using the A540 underwater for now because of the housing and also I don't often need to take 2 shots within 10 seconds of each other but I'll definitely stop reccomending the Canon Powershot series to students or forumers. This is a bad defect that Canon says is typical of the range.