Hi guys,

Yeah, I'm bummed....

I've had this camera for over 3 years. I got error 99 on the Tamron 75 - 300mm lens that came with it a long time ago. Erasers didn't fix it. But the little lens worked, and I was only taking snappies at the time on auto. I thought it was the lens.

So last October, I got a new long lens for my birthday, problem solved. I could now take the wildlife shots I wanted... This new lens always had a bit of a problem on autofocus, not crispy clear the way I like, but I could manually focus them OK, so I was happy.

Here we are, 6 months later, and what shows up? That dreaded Error 99 again. The lens won't work. The little lens does - go figure.

I've done some research and this problem seems to be across the whole range of Canon cameras. No one has a pat answer, because Error 99 is the catch all for any unknown error. Could be this or that, try.... The next step would be to replace the guts of the camera - I don't think so, not on this old thing.

My husband refuses to invest in anything Canon again, but I prefer the photos taken on Canon. We cannot afford the higher priced Nikon, and that leaves me with the lessor known brands.

I'd really like to stick with Canon, but if this is a problem that is talked about once a month on this forum alone, (not to mention all over the web all the time) it seems Canon needs to deal with a design flaw or at least add a few more error codes so that we would at least be able to diagnose the problem a bit easier. I feel like if I invest more in Canon, it's a real gamble, and I don't have money to just burn.

So my question to you all is - how much of a gamble is it to buy Canon? How many of you Canon users have experienced this problem, and was it an easy fix with an eraser, or more complicated than that?

I'm not a gambler, and I don't like a company who has a known problem, yet does nothing to fix it year after year after year. Yet I like the images it produces.

What are your thought?

Thanks!

Janice