I have an Olympus E-420, and a few weeks ago I noticed occasional frames were coming up black. I shrugged this off as shooting too quick, or the flash not firing or just a hiccup in the firmware or something, but they started becoming more frequent.

This weekend I tried to take some pics in the garden and every shot I took was black. I can still see through the eye-piece, but if I switch to view on the screen, all that is displayed is black. This happens with both my lenses, and Ihaven't actually been able to capture anything for three days now, despite a reset of the camera, activating the cleaning process, changing and charging the battery.

Is my chip just broken?

Any thoughts as to what this is, what may have caused it, or what I can do about it?

Any help gratefully aprpeciated.

Cheers