I damaged my camera on a hike in the mountains last week. The damage is relatively trivial and will be easy to fix... IF I do it properly.

My best guess is that a drop of Gatorade dripped from my Camelback onto the combination shutter-release/zoom control button, and now the zoom control tab is stiff enough that the spring does not return it to the neutral position. (The zoom control is a tab that wraps around the shutter release button, you rotate it left or right to zoom out or in.)

No doubt if I just hold the camera under the hot water faucet for a while the sticky zoom tab will free up, but I suspect that such treatment might prove detrimental to future functionality.

How should I approach this problem?

tanstaafl.

In the past, I have freed sodapop-stuck buttons on remote controls by putting some isopropyl alcohol on the button (letting it run into the nooks and crannies) and then pressing and releasing the button a bunch of times as it dried. (With the device turned off and/or its batteries removed).

Obviously for a camera, you'd want to make sure that the stuff doesn't get into any optical components.

Sometimes I had to do the procedure more than once, as the button got sticky again after it dried. But eventually it freed up after enough repeats.

I like Tony's idea of isopropyl alcohol, and definitely pull out the battery before this. You might attempt disassembly of the camera to get under the button directly, but there's always a very real chance you'll never get it all back together again.

Ideally, the alcohol will seep into the same places the Gatorade did, so unless you were really serious about cleaning, you shouldn't try to disassemble. I've disassembled compact cameras before, to replace LCDs; a Canon ixus and a Panasonic Lumix. I've been successful at the latter and failed at the former. So you do run a risk.

If you just put a small amount of alcohol in the same place the Gatorade went, it should get in there I think. At first it will just liquefy the dried sugars and salts, which will then dry in place again and it will get sticky again. But if you do it enough times, I think it will break down those contaminants enough to make things function.

That worked perfectly, only one application required.

Thank you.

tanstaafl.

I suspect you're not breaking anything down, just moving stuff out of the way. Works regardless, though.

-jk

Probably right!