A friend of mine asked me if his Panasonic TZ2 could be fixed.
If has a fault where the image about to be taken turns purple and
bleeds vertically (smears) starting with the brightest pixels.
The first two panels in my triptych shows the bad out of camera images (no photoshop here!)
The third panel shows the sensor removed from the back of the camera ready
for a replacement which is on order. Apparently this camera develops this fault
after 2 to 4 years. It is a common fault and the new sensor is only $20 to $25 on ebay.
The fix is relatively easy to do. If you can change a digital watch battery you can do this fix.
The Panasonic Lumix large zoom can also suffer from dust (based on Internet comments). Taking
the back off and lifting the sensor for a clean is possible. Search for the many you tube videos for help on this.