How I fixed the E:61:00 on my Sony DSC-P71 digital camera

How I fixed the E:61:00 on my Sony DSC-P71 digital camera.

Symptoms :

· After pressing the power button in capture mode, the lens would extend and a slight humming from what appeared to be the auto focus motor could be heard for about 5 seconds. When the motor stopped humming, the camera would beep and display E:61:00 in the LCD Screen.

· Camera would extend the lens but not be able to focus on anything past 8 inches or so.

· Zoom in and zoom out would not work.

· Playback mode and the Setup mode was not affected.

A Picture of the E:61:00 Error Message

Solution :

This may sound crazy and this has not happened since I did this but here is what I did to get rid of that error message. I have not had that problem since but here was my steps:

· Turn the camera off

· Hold the camera face down over a hard surface (Like you are going to take of your desk) with only about half an inch above the surface.

OR reference the video files below for an alternate method.

· Turn the camera on

· Let the lens extend into the hard surface, don’t let it extend all the way. Mine retracted slightly and then tried to extend again (let it extend the second time).

· Lift the camera away from the hard surface and notice that the error message is gone.

· Take pictures of your favorite things.

NEW

Here is a video of the normal power up sequence of the camera.

Here is the first alternate method

Here is the second alternate method

Discussion :

I am not sure if this applies to this camera series but I found that the E:61:00 means "Difficult to adjust focus Inspect the lens block focus reset sensor"

I have read others being able to fix an error message of E:61:10. The simple solution to fix that error message was to the let the lens fully extend and give the lens a good whack. Possibly this error message for this means, that the auto focus motor was past the maximum set point.

Hope this helps someone out there, any questions just e-mail me at sony@fewin.com