repairing a Canon A530.

[Anbesol]

My son likes to go on photo shoots with me, he also likes to shoot with me - so he uses my Canon A530... He is also only 3 years old - translation - he broke the lens a few days ago... I work on computers all the time, I can dismantle and reassemble a laptop easily. I have however, never touched the inside of a camera. What have I got to lose? It either stays broken, or it gets fixed. I've been thinking about getting a broken A530 and just switching out the lens - which brings me to my main question - the A530 uses the same lens that the A540, A520, and A510 all use - are all those lenss interchangable? Or am I going to have to deal with something silly like proprietary firmware or some stupid thing like that? If anybody knows it would be very helpful, thank you!

[byjamesderuvoDHQ]

Well, chances are you can get an A530 parts camera on eBay. However, using the product comparison utility on CanonUSA.com, it looks like you may be correct and that it uses a similar lens on the other A5xx models as well. So it may be worth a shot. As for so-called proprietary firmware ... that's a SONY obsession.

[Anbesol]

lol - I think Microsoft and Dell are the kings of making what should be user-replaceable parts very unfriendly.