C5060 Mode Dial Problem, do I have one?

[rcolman]

My C-5060 is less than a month old. I use it primarily underwater in the
PT-020 enclosure, and today I had the following symptoms:

a) the camera seemed to "freeze" up with little or no lettering on the
monitor display, and jerky movement on the displayed scene

b) went in MF mode and I could not get back to any other focusing mode

c) when I change shooting mode from A to S to M etc. the lense sometimes
moves to the extreme telephoto position by itself. I have to manually move
it back to extreme wide angle, my usual setup

d) I use the FL-20 flash in the pfl-01 housing, usually in TTL mode, and it
will not flash when I zoom the lense towards telephoto. in fact, in some
instances the camera will not shoot at all.

e) flash would not fire, camera would not shoot, with both orange and red
lamps coming on in the viewfinder.

f) sometimes, when these symptoms occur in A mode, I can get it to work in S
or P modes. However, A will not work

These symptoms usually go away when I turn off the camera for a while, and
start all over.

This is the not first time these sorts of things have happened. These
symptoms are intermittent, but will happen after a dive or two on the same
day.

I have not noticed these symptoms with normal land photography, but, then I
don't take that many pictures out of the water, and the FL-20 flash is not
attached on land, etc. etc.

I would very much appreciate some feedback as to whether the camera might be
defective and should be sent back to Olympus, or whether I am doing
something wrong.

Thank you for any comments.

 

[ReyeR]

It sounds like you may have damaged the camera's Mode Dial with the PT-20's Mode Dial wheel:

http://www.digitaldiver.net/yabbse/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=7388

 

[rcolman]

TNX for the comment. I am aware of this problem, and have been careful to pull the knob up. However, looking at various threads on myolympus.org, this kind of thing can happen to 5060s that never go into a housing.

I just hate to send it away for three weeks if this is not the problem.

Rick.

 

[AndyT]

In a "typical" mode dial problem absolutely nothing will function on the camera - ie none of the buttons or menus will work . I consider myself a veteran of mode dial failure , being on my fifth 5060 , only three of which ever made it into the housing .

Yours sounds like something else - damn !!!! Hopefully not another issue .

Pleeeeeze let us know the nature / cause of the problem when you get it resolved .

Safe Diving

Andrew

 

[rcolman]

Here is a follow-up on this problem from Kevin:

"at times, my camera acted very goofey uw... the thing wud zoom all the way out, w/o my knowledge, buttons wudn't function well (varied with depth, the deeper the worse the condition), and the flash wudn't fire or wud fire at the wrong time (this was probably user ignorance, since I didn't have the strobe set properly to allow for pre-focus lights, etc.)... I bought an extra battery back then too to make sure I always had a freshly, completely charged one for diving... anyway, all the headaches compelled me to invest, as u know, in the Light & Motion housing, afterwhich, I've not experienced any of those problems... some Oly users have shared with me that the OLY housing does seem to flex enough under water pressure to alter the button functions... dunno if that's what ails you, but suspect it's contributing... am not saying u run out and buy a new housing, but maybe u want to begin thinking about it"