is my camera broken?

[mungk]

I noticed today that when i point my camera at a light source all the surrounding lighted areas seem to be blown out white, and i see weird scanning diagonal lines only in those white areas.

When I record though and playback in vcr the picture is fine.

any ideas?

 

[Chris Stearns]

That's the zebra pattern. There's a button to set it or turn it off. It helps to warn you when your image is over-exposed. Read the manual and Barry's book, all is revealed within.

 

[mungk]

aaah ok. whew. thanks for the quick heads up.

never used the zebra pattern function before and never seen what it looks like till now.

 

[Noel Evans]

Incidently you should check the manual but the zebra patterns can be set at different ranges. I found that the zebras were a little insufficient for checking exposure. Check out the marker function which tells you your video level in a simple to understand range.