A 620 canon camera iris does not open, photos seem

Your sensor (the device that absorbs light and transmits that data into a picture) has gone bad. Thats why all the photos seem to appear blank, but they are just black. It can be repaired and its usually the cheapest at a Canon center,but depending on the camera the fee is as much as getting a new camera. Sorry about your camera.

And here you go, this should help. A stuck shutter is another common failure mode for digital cameras. The symptoms of a stuck or "sticky" shutter are very similar to CCD image sensor failure. The camera may take black pictures (for shutter stuck closed), or the pictures may be very bright and overexposed, sometimes with lines, especially when taken outdoors (for shutter stuck open). To confirm a stuck shutter, put the camera in any mode other than "Auto", and turn the flash OFF (you don't want to blind yourself for the next step). Next look down the lens and take a picture. You should see a tiny flicker in the center of the lens as the shutter opens and closes. If no movement is seen, then you likely have a stuck shutter. If so, please see this link for further info and a simple fix that may help.

Does this camera have a shutter? Maybe it is stuck?

Found what I needed on http://camerarepair.blogspot.com/2007/11/canon-digital-cameras-showing-black.html, thanks. Am now in contact with Canon for what I hope will be a free repair (although in Australia they require the customer to be freight when sending the camera to Sydney).

May sound silly but, make sure the lens cap is off. If so, then look to see if the automatic iris is opening when you power on the camera, you will know it is open when you can see the glass of the lens. Fresh/fully charged battery/batteries would be something else to try.

Try to see If you can see a photo in Playback mode from your memory card (Transfer a good photo to the card first) Do all the menus display correctly? If so it would seem the camera sensor (ccd) is bad. Canon had a recall on these models with bad sensors and will repair them free of charge.

Had the same problem. It nearly drove me mad, however, the fix seems quite simple. The screen in playback mode seemed to be fine but if I swithed to record or photo mode I just got a black screen. I could see some pixel movement so I figured the screen was okay and that the iris was the problem.

Anyway, to fix it I simply gave a few sharp taps on the camera body near the lens. This unstuck the iris and I was greeted with a clear image in the LCD viewfinder. The camera now works fine.

By the way, this seems to be a fairly common problem with a lot of the different models and not just limited to this one.

Hope this helps.

I fixed this issue with my Sony Cybershot by gently (carefully) hitting the camera 3 times against a carpeted bench with the lens retracted and the camera turned off. It seems the lens gears were stuck. Now the camera works fine again.

To keep the video and images, transferr images to the computer:

1. If you have a Compact Flash media card connected to your machine, plug the card in the reader and follow the instructions of the software program to transfer to your favourite photo software.

Another method is connecting your camera to the computer using the supplied USB cable:

1. Install the camera software on the CD following the guides that came with the camera.
   
2. Connect the camera to the computer using the USB cable connecting to the camera in the Digital Terminal under the Terminal Cover on the right of the computer (looking at the lens).
3. Transfer using your favourite photo software, or the software installed from the CD.

Next question, yes, you can get regular pictures from this, use the dial to select one of the modes to shoot photos. This information can be found in your manual too...

• Auto - use this setting almost all the time. All settings, including flash will be automatically decided for you.
• P - Program mode, ISO and shutter speed will be selected, all other settings you can override if you wish to set them.
  
• Tv - Shutter priority, requires you to indicate how fast the lens iris will open. The Apperature (size of the iris) will be decided by the camera. all other settings you can override if you wish to set them.
• Av - Apperature priority, requires you to indicate the size of the lens iris. The Apperature (size of the iris) will be decided by the camera. all other settings you can override if you wish to set them.
• M - Manual priority, requires you to set both the Shutter (iris speed), and shutter (iris size). All other settings you can override if you wish to set them.
  

The other dial settings are:

• Portrait - automatic settings for still family/portrait photos
• Landscape - automatic settings for landscape mountain or outside scenes
• Night - automatic settings for low-light conditions
• Sports - automatic settings for high-speed events (sports, plays, movement)
• Slow speed - for making things look blurry like they are in action. Advanced setting.
• Stitch - allows you to take multiple pictures of a wide scene and later stitch them together in to a panoramic scene
• Movie - create movies (AVI)

a penlight shined into zoomed back lens - shows if iris is open ( ccd looks like a small xmas tree scene , deep in center ) : if iris is stuck closed , a thorough lens cleaning should restore camera video - if iris is open , the ccd may be or already has failed ;