bridge camera viewfinder/photo problem

balletshoes

Hi,

My DD has a digital bridge camera, its a GE make, model HZ1500. So far, so good. However, she's done something to it and now it has black bands above and below the view on both the viewfinder and the photographs. I've looked through all the menus on the camera, and checked the manual CD too, and I can't find how to turn this off so that the whole viewfinder is used, instead of this "wide-screen" black band look.

Any ideas?

Also, I've just downloaded the photos onto the laptop, and for every photo theres a THM file? whats that and how do I turn that off so it doesn't download with the photos in future?

Figment

THM files are usually thumbnails for video files (not photos)

Guess: Check the camera isn't switched to video mode?

balletshoes

no, its not on video mode as far as I can tell (but I'm just looking at the dial). Strangely though, when I move the dial to movie mode, the black bands disappear! Then when I switch back to Auto mode on the dial, the black bands are back.

Figment

Does it have a separate Camera mode?

balletshoes

Figment wrote: »

Does it have a separate Camera mode?

on the dial? yes, it does. - no, sorry, thats the auto mode.

Malaga0034_2

Is there an option in the menu to reset back to factory settings ?

balletshoes

Malaga0034 wrote: »

Is there an option in the menu to reset back to factory settings ?

yes, there is. Is that the best thing to do?

bleepandbooster

Maybe she has changed the lens Ratio/Aspect to letterbox you may also have a TV or widescreen choice. Not owning the camera I am not sure how to change it back. Maybe a switch on the lens or it will be somewhere in Menus/Settings etc. Google may be your friend ?
Cofion
David

Billy-no-Money

Have a look in the Settings menu for something like 'picture size' - where you can for example change the number of megapixels.

Different combinations of picture height and width give a different 'Aspect Ratio'; e.g this might be expressed as '4:3' (like a traditional TV) or '16:9' (widescreen TV)

If your viewfinder and monitor are 4 units wide and 3 units high they have a 4:3 aspect ratio. If you've set your picture size to a Widescreen format (16:9) then you'll see black bars top and bottom of the monitor and viewfinder.

If this is what's happened, the pictures themselves won't contain black bars, they will simply be 16:9 and if displayed on a widescreen TV will fill the whole screen.

Hope that helps

balletshoes

yes success - thank you so much billy-no-money, thats what it was! I've changed it back now.