I used my Minolta Dimage 7 for around two years, including a year working for a newspaper. The camera served me well over that period, but towards the end it started to shut off at inconvenient moments. I remember several occasions where I composed up to a few dozen people for group shots to find that my camera turned off when I was supposed to snap a shot.

The problem grew and I finally retired the Dimage 7. While the image quality was good, it was no longer reliable. It was replaced with a Canon 10D.

Lately I have been teaching photography to my family. We have several cameras, but I wanted yet another for my daughter. I decided to pull out the Dimage and dust it off.

I found that its power issue was worse than when I last used it. But I did have an idea sparked by a problem I encountered on my Canon 10D last year: solving the Err 99 dilemma required me to scrub the electrical contacts of the lens and camera with a pencil eraser. I became suspicious of a related problem on the Dimage.

I took a pencil and vigorously scrubbed the battery contacts in the camera, along with all the batteries. After doing this, I turned on the camera and took a couple hundred shots; the camera remained on. In fact, it did not turn off at all until I had exhausted the batteries.

While this may not be a widespread problem, it indicates that digital cameras are much more susceptible to electrical problems due to unclean contacts than other electronic equipment I have used.

So if your Minolta Dimage 7 turns off randomly, try scrubbing the battery contacts with a pencil eraser. It worked for me, bringing back a camera that I had given up for dead a long time ago.