Canon Ixus 500 produces purple bar

My second (pocket) camera is a Canon Digital IXUS 500 (in the US also known as Canon PowerShot S500). I generally liked the camera very much since it is quite small, more likely to be taken with you on a trip where you don't like to carry a lot of luggage and still makes great pictures.

Unfortunately for some weeks now many of the photos contain a purple looking bar at the top of the picture (please see the attached jpg for an example).

It's not on all of the photos, especially not, when the top shows a blue sky or white clouds. But if it would be a partially probleme for example of the green pixels, why are white clouds not affected, since they should contain all three colors (RGB) at the same time?

Any idea what could be the cause for the problem? Any better solution than buying a new camera? I guess sending the defect one in for repair would probably cost more than purchasing a new one.

cheers,
PhotoWebber

Attached Images

IMG_6740.JPG (95.9 KB, 4 views)

Hi,

This is really a weird problem. My first thought was purple fringe. But normally purple fringe only occurs around the edges in high contrast objects, e.g. trees against bright sky. Probably this is some kind of sensor problem. You stated that mostly the purple bar appears whenever green is involved. Well although everything contains RGB information, but the intensity is different. The percentage of green in a forest is certainly higher than the one in the clouds. So it´s still possible that a part of your sensor is oversensitiv/malfunctioned when there´s too much green information.
If I was in your case, I would send the camera to Canon service or contact them directly asking for a cost estimate before deciding whether to buy a new one or not.

I would very interested to know what causes this. So if you have got more information from Canon, please just share with us.

Thanks