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I set my Canon Powershot A460 to automatic mode and took photographs outdoors. When I see the to-be-photographed area on the LCD, it appears normal; but when I take a picture, the photo turns out extremely white. The more the outdoor light brightness, the whiter the picture. Because of the white, you can't see any of the objects that were photographed.

The camera is 3 years old, and I've tried taking pictures in manual mode with maximum and minimum exposure settings (+2 to -2). Same thing happens. Could anyone help out with this? I have already restored all the camera's settings to default factory settings, but the problem persists.

Philip Kendall
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Nav
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  • What about pictures which were taken in low light? Are they properly exposed? – fahad.hasan Aug 09 '11 at 13:49
  • Yes. Photos taken indoors in low light and photos taken indoors with flash are properly exposed. – Nav Aug 09 '11 at 17:31
  • I really like the white effect! Do you know if there's any way I can set up my camera to take photos like this when I want? –  Dec 01 '11 at 00:18
  • @ellie: See What does it mean for a photograph to be “high key”? and What lighting and pre- or post-processing is required for a high key image? for likely answers to your question. – mattdm Dec 01 '11 at 02:59
  • This has just happened to me quite spontaneously---the camera is only 18 months old from Sony DSC-WX350------it is ok on non zoom and on video zoom but still zoom creates just a white screen – sheila wood Jan 08 '17 at 13:10
  • I took several pictures of my son and his prom date before noticing my flash was up. Upon noticing the flash was open, I closed it, then continued taking pictures. I always used the Live View screen to view my subjects when taking pictures. All the pictures I took yesterday, even the pictures with the flash open, appeared normal on the screen. However, the pictures are large and white. The subjects are unnoticeable in nearly all pictures taken with the flash open. @Nav, could this have been the same issue you faced? – Ginger Breazeale Apr 14 '19 at 18:49
  • @Ginger: As I remember, my camera's photos were fine when clicked indoors with flash. It was only too much outdoor light that caused a problem. Try altering the photo contrast, gamma values etc. with software like Gimp. There's a slight chance it may help, but I'm not sure. I didn't try those techniques at that time and now I just prefer my smartphone camera. – Nav Apr 15 '19 at 00:21

2 Answers2

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It sounds as if the internal light-lowering mechanism in the camera has failed. In a larger camera, this is the aperture, but in many point and shoots, using an aperture to reduce the amount of light will only increase diffraction in the extremely short focal lengths of these cameras. So it's instead a series of neutral-density (ND) filters.

The fact that this is occurring outdoors points to this as a cause - the shutter isn't fast enough to cut down the light. I'm assuming pictures taking in lower light are properly exposed?

gerikson
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  • Yes. Photos taken indoors in low light and photos taken indoors with flash are properly exposed. So is this light lowering mechanism a part of the hardware or the software? Will I be able to get it rectified/serviced or is this a permanent problem? – Nav Aug 09 '11 at 17:33
  • @Nav unfortunately I don't know. To be honest I don't know how ND filters in compacts work (if that is the mechanism) but it's hardware. Might be a couple of polarisers that are activated in need... – gerikson Aug 09 '11 at 20:12
  • I've submitted a question about how this works: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/14747/how-are-neutral-density-filters-in-compact-cameras-implemented – gerikson Aug 09 '11 at 20:19
  • Thanks for helping. As per the answers, if the filters slide in and out, I'm guessing the camera took some internal damage if the person who borrowed it from me had dropped it. There's no external damage, but half of their trip's photos were fine, and the rest of the trip pics were washed in white. Looks like I'll have to take it in for repair. Knowing what went wrong helped immensely. Thanks guys! :-) – Nav Aug 10 '11 at 08:31
  • @Nav sorry to hear that you lost pics! Hope you can get it repaired in an economical manner. Please let us know if that was the problem! – gerikson Aug 10 '11 at 09:42
  • I didn't lose pics. The guy who (probably) dropped it lost it. I was not part of that trip :-) The Canon service center listened to my explanation of the problem (on phone) and they say it's an "aperture problem". It'll cost 1/4th the cost of the camera to fix it! If there's any new info to share, I'll surely post it here. – Nav Aug 12 '11 at 14:18
  • The person at Canon service centre said that because of a problem with the optical zoom, the light coming to the aperture is getting affected. She said they'd have to replace the optical system & since the camera is being phased out, they'll give a 1/3rd discount on the cost of the optical system and won't charge us service charge. Sounded fishy to me coz you said 'ND filter' and they say 'zoom'. How can zoom cause overexposure? Besides, when taking videos with the camera there's no overexposure. Have requested for more info from them, but what do you think? Are they telling us the truth? – Nav Sep 15 '11 at 11:32
  • @Nav, did you ever figure this out? My camera (PowerShot A2200) is doing the exact same thing as yours. – Jon49 Sep 14 '14 at 17:19
  • @Jon: No. My brother felt the person at Canon was bluffing and just trying to make money for the company by sending it in for an expensive servicing. The camera is just lying unused now. We're happier using our phone cameras. Do post (as an answer) if you find the reason and/or solution to the problem. – Nav Sep 16 '14 at 06:43
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You need to format the memory card.

Use the camera to format the memory card, and use the LOW format option if available.

I think the problem will be resolved.

Caleb
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Shahzad
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    How formatting the card might help ? As answered by Gerikson, it's probably an internal problem causing over exposition. – Olivier Sep 17 '16 at 08:07