I have a lens error..restart camera on my CanonG9 do not know how to restart camera...tried shutting on and off ...not doing it..tried resetting but the lens is out and nothing works..cannot find a reset button...what do I do besides crying and drinking a bottle of wine by myself...???

Make sure there is no dust or foreign material that could be jamming the lens and lens shutter. Have you tried removing battery or battery pack or try to reset camera? Just a suggestion.

You may have gotten dirt or dust into the lens mechanism. Sometimes an air cleaner can help the situation.

There's really no way to restart it if there's a physical problem with the lens. Try to power it on again but if that doesn't reset it, the camera needs to be serviced. A great site for help with these is: camerasandparts.com They just specialize in service for the Canon Powershots and nothing else, they are fantastic if you need help with one of these problems. Try them, your exact SD780 lens error restart camera problem is right on the site for the SD780. Good luck, that's the place for help with a powershot, it just sucks that it happened while you are on vacation.

Hi,

Since the camera is locked after lens error, you will restart camera removing batteries.

If this does not help, then you are in one of the following conditions:

Lens error and lens does not retract.
Try helping lens gently back in while you turn off the camera holding the button at same time.

Lens error and lens do not extend.
Restart the camera , and try gently tapping the camera back with the palm of your hand whilst restarting camera at same time.

If that does not help, then one part on the camera lens assembly is broken or out of place, or dirt inside lens mechanism caused the fault.

The lens must be disassembled by a technician to fix the problem.

If the problem is not fixed swapping batteries and resetting, then the camera must be taken apart and tested by a technician.

Here you can get a quote on repair: Repair

Sir,
The problem seems that miniscule dust/sand particles jam the gears which moves the lens.
It is possible to turn the lens motor by hand bit by bit and remove particles stuck in the gear.
Also try restoring the factory settings and resetting the camera and seeing if that makes the error to go away. To do that, hold down the Menu button for five seconds. This should reset everything and (hopefully) make the error stop. If it doesn't, then you've got a separate problem-- come back and let us know if the error is still there. Also, if you have photos stored on the camera's internal memory, resetting the camera will delete those so make sure to download them first.
Thanks
Good luck!

Press the "MENU" button and navigate to the reset command and reset the camera. That may get the camera to function properly.

I have a 3 year old Canon PowerShot SX100 IS. While testing an external battery power supply I built, the external power connector pulled out while the lens barrel was extending just after I turned on the camera. Power to the camera was lost before the lens barrel fully extended and wouldn't reset when I repowered the camera. The dreaded error message "Lens error, restart camera" appeared and the camera shut down. I restarted the camera over and over and over again but the lens wouldn't reset. I was extremely lucky to find the information here and read various fixes. I didn't want to take the camera apart so I tried various fixes others have successfully used. I first tried smacking the bottom of the camera hard with the palm of my hand just after pushing the on/off button but that didn't work. The one which worked was smacking the camera on the side immediately after I pushed the on/off button. I smacked it quite hard twice with the palm of my hand then, suddenly, the lens barrel began to move and the lens reset itself back to its starting position. Thanks to everyone who has posted here!

Lens errors are fairly common. Usually it's sand or grit interfering with the lens extension mechanism. Or the camera's been dropped with the lens extended. Or the camera has been powered on, but the lens had been blocked preventing its extension. Or the battery ran down with the lens extended ...

Here's some things that you can do to try to correct it. They only seem to work for less than 50% of the lens errors, but if the camera is out of warranty, they're worth a try:

http://camerarepair.blogspot.com/2007/12/fixing-lens-error-on-digital-camera.html

Lens errors are fairly common. Usually it's sand or grit interfering with the lens extension mechanism. Or the camera's been dropped with the lens extended. Or the camera has been powered on, but the lens had been blocked preventing its extension. Or the battery ran down with the lens extended ...

Here's some things that you can do to try to correct it. They only seem to work for less than 50% of the lens errors, but if the camera is out of warranty, they're worth a try:

http://camerarepair.blogspot.com/2007/12/fixing-lens-error-on-digital-camera.html

WE WENT TO THA BEACH AND TOOK SOME PIC AND LATER THAT DAY WHEN WE WENT TO TAKE MORE PIC IT SAID LENS ERROR RESTART CAMERA BUT WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO RESTART THE CAM