Trouble switching between shooting and playback modes

I shoot pictures all right and can switch to Playback to view them, but when I try to switch back to shooting mode it stays on playback. I fool around trying different things and all of a sudden it will switch back, and the zoom lens pops out but I can never duplicate what I did to make this happen. The manual only mentions using the little switch to change it. Am I missing something, or is the camera not working right?

Reset the camera and download and install any available firmware updates. The firmware may have gotten a tad corrupted. It can happen. But I'd also give your camera a good cleaning, particularly around the shuttle wheel. Use some canned air and blow out around it. You may have some gunk in there which is effecting the connections to change the program mode. Outside of that, if you dropped it, that may be the issue. But regardless, if resetting and installing new firmware wn't cut it, then Id' send it in for a repair estimate.

But understand that if a repair is requried, the average cost of a camera repair is around $180. As such, it may cost more to repair than it is really worth. The rule of thumb is that if the estimate for repair is north of 50% what you paid for it, you're

I don't think you're missing anything, it just sounds like a freak problem. Maybe your little switch isn't working right. As James said, you can try cleaning it out, or maybe even resetting the camera. My other thought is that maybe the lens is sticking somehow, which causes it not to want to pop back out to Shooting mode? Does the lens make any weird noises when it does finally go out?