I hate to say it, but might save a whole lot of grief if you just buy a new camera.

Last year we spent quite a lot of a week's holiday going round Portuguese markets trying to find a watchmaker's screwdriver, because the sliding thingy which covered the lens of a friend's wife's digital compact had come off its tracks. It was a waste of time of course - even with the screwdriver we could see that the tracks were just plastic and kn*ckered.

Gone are the days when you could drop a Nikon F off the bridge of a ferry onto the deck and still use it for the next 25 years (yes folks, same friend as above). Around the same time I tripped up with a 20 yr old Pentax S1a round my neck, the camera hit a brick wall and carried on working! Still got it somewhere but the pentaprism has a huge dent in the top.

Anyway, why do hardly any camera manufacturers make cameras with OPTICAL viewfinders any more? The Canon Ixus has one, but there aren't many others. I HATE holding the damn thing out at arms length, looks so unprofessional and leads to camera shake.