edwardkaraa
New member
What a disappointment !!!! Sorry to hear about that Dave.
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FYI: A900 total failure.
- Thread starter fotografz
- Start date
Dave_Anderson
Member
Oh well. Thanks Ed. I'll talk to Sony Monday and see what can be done. It seems to be perfectly fine otherwise. After this upcoming SoCal tip, I may be going out to the east coast for work, the last week of the month. If there is any doubt about getting it back by the 13th I'll probably send it in first week of November.
Dave_Anderson
Member
An update -- I figured out the real reason I didn't notice it earlier(and probably why QA missed it), it's intermittent. I went out to set up for a full moon shot that never materialized due to cloud cover, and while I was fooling around everything was working fine. Brought it inside to try with the lens where I first saw the problem, it was fine. Switched back to the 500, problem reappears. Switch lenses again, problem is still there. It seems to have nothing to do with the lens or how the body is carrying weight on the tripod, it's acting like a loose internal connection .
Looking in the repair manual I'm pretty certain it's the IF-161 flexible circuit, which comes as an assembly with the finder LCD. If it's not a correctable issue with the connection to the motherboard it will probably have to be replaced. It appears to be having issues with different segments at different times as well. Since it's intermittent I took a pic with the P&S that I will send in with the camera to illustrate the problem.
Looking in the repair manual I'm pretty certain it's the IF-161 flexible circuit, which comes as an assembly with the finder LCD. If it's not a correctable issue with the connection to the motherboard it will probably have to be replaced. It appears to be having issues with different segments at different times as well. Since it's intermittent I took a pic with the P&S that I will send in with the camera to illustrate the problem.
Dave_Anderson
Member
Just got off the horn with Laredo, they are going to email me an overnight label and they think they may have it back to me by Friday. I asked and the VF LCD is currently in stock.
Dave_Anderson
Member
K
Karen E
Guest
Re: A900 total failure... NOT!
Thanks!
I don't know what web search I was doing that brought me to this forum - but after reading this thread and seeing the true "community" of Sony owners here - I signed up!
Thanks!
edwardkaraa
New member
Welcome to the club, Karen 
Dave_Anderson
Member
Jono, I resemble that remark!
Welcome, Karen!
An update: my camera is in the hands of a "specialist" rather than the usual techs. I take this to mean they have at least two tiers of repair tech and they saw fit to bump this repair to the higher tier, either because of the intermittent nature of the problem, because they want to make doubly sure they don't ship it back with another problem, or a combination of the two. And no, it hasn't shipped back to me yet. I told them I need to leave town Wednesday with camera in hand, but of course they won't promise anything.
Welcome, Karen!
An update: my camera is in the hands of a "specialist" rather than the usual techs. I take this to mean they have at least two tiers of repair tech and they saw fit to bump this repair to the higher tier, either because of the intermittent nature of the problem, because they want to make doubly sure they don't ship it back with another problem, or a combination of the two. And no, it hasn't shipped back to me yet.
I told them I need to leave town Wednesday with camera in hand, but of course they won't promise anything.Dave_Anderson
Member
Another update. My camera arrived about an hour ago. This time there appeared to be no replacement parts related to the problem, so my speculation that it was a loose connection seems to have been spot-on. I put a note asking that they see if they could polish out a scratch in the LCD, and they replaced the LCD window(the outer cover over the LCD). They also seem to have discovered a problem with the eye piece frame(contains eyepiece shutter & diopter adj.) that I was unaware of, and replaced that. I have a Giottos LCD protector that is getting installed first thing tonight.
I only had time to reset some of the menu items back the way I wanted and take a few test shots, but all appears to be well at this point. Through the course of these repairs apparently they did not do anything to affect the AF micro adjust, it's still spot on with the two lenses I had time to try -- though both times they turned micro adjust off. I'll run it through some more paces tonight.
To satisfy any morbid curiosity, here is the parts list -- I was able to find all but one P/N in the repair manual.
First repair:
A-1556-577-A AP APERTURE UNIT (including M904 (aperture motor) and AP-032 flexible board)
4-109-317-01 AP IRIS JOINT GEAR
A1731314A RING ROLLER D(SE DI222-C) <- (Could not find in repair manual)
Latest repair:
4-110-966-01 CV LCD WINDOW
4-110-971-01 CV ADHESIVE SHEET (LCD)
X-2319-495-1 VM EYE PIECE FRAME ASSY
I only had time to reset some of the menu items back the way I wanted and take a few test shots, but all appears to be well at this point. Through the course of these repairs apparently they did not do anything to affect the AF micro adjust, it's still spot on with the two lenses I had time to try -- though both times they turned micro adjust off. I'll run it through some more paces tonight.
To satisfy any morbid curiosity, here is the parts list -- I was able to find all but one P/N in the repair manual.
First repair:
A-1556-577-A AP APERTURE UNIT (including M904 (aperture motor) and AP-032 flexible board)
4-109-317-01 AP IRIS JOINT GEAR
A1731314A RING ROLLER D(SE DI222-C) <- (Could not find in repair manual)
Latest repair:
4-110-966-01 CV LCD WINDOW
4-110-971-01 CV ADHESIVE SHEET (LCD)
X-2319-495-1 VM EYE PIECE FRAME ASSY
T
Theresa
Guest
What a piggish thing to say! :cussing: Very patriarchal. :lecture: Women are not to be lent?! As the old t-shirt says: A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. I'm sorry about the Sony failure. I'm glad I'm not a professional photographer. I read about shooting weddings and I think "I'm glad I don't have to do that." The only wedding I've been at for about forty years was my own, and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. It has always been the fine art aspect of photography that interested me. Aperture monographs and such are very inspiring to me. Minor White was the best in my opinion.I guess the morale of this story is, cameras don't like to change hands. As far as I'm concerned, women and cameras (and especially lenses) are never to be lent
Dave_Anderson
Member
Dave_Anderson
Member
More to the story...
When I returned home I looked at the sensor using cleaning mode, it looked fine except for some dust on the sensor. No surprise, since I had not cleaned the sensor since the camera was returned from repair last October. I took a shot indoors of a blank wall, and the issue did not show up at 1/4 sec. shutter speed. I felt that ruled out the sensor since a problem there ought to manifest at any reasonable shutter speed. I used MLU to get a look at the shutter, and I found a big fat clue as to why this is happening.
I can't explain how this causes the artifact in the image, but the arc on the front of the shutter leaf looks like the same sort of arc that appears in the image. Strange that the artifact goes all the way across the image, but I don't see how this defect on the edge of the shutter leaf could affect the whole frame top to bottom.
Doesn't matter, it's still on warranty so it's going back.
Started having the exact same problem today, on about pic 245 of 317 I took today. I was using 5 FPS a lot today, shutter speeds ranging from 1/800 to 1/4000, mostly around 1/1000 to 1/2000... other than that no unusual treatment. I started off with my 80-200, shot most of the day with the 500, though I put the 28-135 on for a few shots later in the day. The 28-135 shots show the exact same artifact. Camera has never been dropped or banged. Suddenly my pictures started looking like this:lencover23 said:
When I returned home I looked at the sensor using cleaning mode, it looked fine except for some dust on the sensor. No surprise, since I had not cleaned the sensor since the camera was returned from repair last October. I took a shot indoors of a blank wall, and the issue did not show up at 1/4 sec. shutter speed. I felt that ruled out the sensor since a problem there ought to manifest at any reasonable shutter speed. I used MLU to get a look at the shutter, and I found a big fat clue as to why this is happening.
I can't explain how this causes the artifact in the image, but the arc on the front of the shutter leaf looks like the same sort of arc that appears in the image. Strange that the artifact goes all the way across the image, but I don't see how this defect on the edge of the shutter leaf could affect the whole frame top to bottom.
Doesn't matter, it's still on warranty so it's going back.
edwardkaraa
New member
Well, Dave, sorry to hear about this trouble again. That looks like a broken shutter to me. Luckily it didn't scratch the sensor cover. How many frames did you shoot so far with it. I guess the A900 shutter has been tested for 100,000 actuations if I'm not mistaken (or was it 150,000?)
T
Theresa
Guest
Re: A900 total failure... NOT!
Glad to see another woman. There are very few of us in the online Sony communities and I think if there were more of us there would be less negativity.
I guess the Sony specialist did not either...I mean really how could they have missed THIS?
Bob
Dave_Anderson
Member
Ed, to my mind, the shutter is essentially new. I just passed the 3,000 mark this weekend, though I guess it's probably a couple hundred more due to use of Intelligent Preview. I have used the camera very lightly, most of my captures were slow,deliberate setups. I have not been shooting much due to demands on my free time for photography alternating with stretches of horrible weather. This is the most I have ever shot in one session.
Bob, my best guess is that this happened(some small defect introduced which became worse until finally causing a visible issue this weekend) on one of the camera's previous trips through repair. I am embarrassed to say I have only managed about 1200 captures since the last repair. I have cleaned the sensor twice since I bought the camera, both times with a gentle blower; I never touched anything behind the mirror.
There was one point during shooting when the shutter inexplicably failed to release; I cycled power and everything seemed fine. That was late in the day so that may have been the moment when something hung up and broke; I'm guessing there is a light leak that would be visible if I could look from behind as with a film cam.
Bob, my best guess is that this happened(some small defect introduced which became worse until finally causing a visible issue this weekend) on one of the camera's previous trips through repair. I am embarrassed to say I have only managed about 1200 captures since the last repair. I have cleaned the sensor twice since I bought the camera, both times with a gentle blower; I never touched anything behind the mirror.
There was one point during shooting when the shutter inexplicably failed to release; I cycled power and everything seemed fine. That was late in the day so that may have been the moment when something hung up and broke; I'm guessing there is a light leak that would be visible if I could look from behind as with a film cam.