Sadly, another Sony Warranty Issue

Sadly, yesterday I tried to shoot some macro with my A77.  To my dismay I could not get it to disengage the auto-focus drive from my Tamron 90mm 2.8.  The front auto-focus mode dial did absolutely nothing.  I tried 4 lenses, and a firmware reboot and the dial continued to be unresponsive.  Fortunately I did figure out a work-around since the AF/MF toggle on the back of the body continued to work. For those of you following my epic string of Sony fail, here’s the tally.

A77 – (~5 months old)

1- Sync port pulled out of body, warranty

2- Unresponsive AF mode dial

3-No audio

4-Damaged by repair dept at Sony – LCD screen, AF, etc…

A900

1- New body when issues with WB and underexposure (~2 weeks old)

2- Sync port and USB port failure, repaired (~2 years old)

3- Mirror/Shutter assembly failed, New body (~3 years old)

CZ 24-70 2.8

1- Lens barrel loosened, repaired (~2 years old)

2- AF toggle switch fell out, still away for repair (~ 3.5 years old)

Now the CZ has had ~ 100,000 shots through it and I work my equipment everyday.  I still think my equipment has performed well, when it’s working.  But seriously reconsidering the A77/A65 with the number of issues I’ve had with it.  Am I unusually blessed with bad luck with this thing? We’ll see.  If someone knows a magical switch I turned to deactivate it, please let me know!

Here’s one of the macros:

UPDATE! 07/17/12

So here I am back from Romania and once again my A77 is being sent in for Warranty issues.  The audio on the A77 went while shooting an interview in a car between Ghioroc and Arad Romania.  Fortunately I had my A65 there as a backup and could finish shooting for the week, but I lost audio for a pretty sweet interview from Stelu.  There is a slight audio signal if you crank the volume in post, but it is accompanied by a hiss and beeping from the camera cranking its autogain to try and pick up a signal.  What a bummer, tried a hardware reset in a few different ways as recommended online but no cigar.  So this is warranty repair #3 since November.  Shame really, I hope this is just a screwy body and not indicative of the rest of the A77’s out there.

Another UPDATE August 2, 2012

So I got a call to pick up my A77 from repair.  Before leaving the store, I always put a battery in and a memory card to test it, to save time in case there’s a problem.  Well what do you know, the LCD screen doesn’t work and the autofocus isn’t working.  So I send in a camera with one problem, and get the camera back with more problems?  What is up Sony?  Do you even test the camera before sending it back “fixed”?  Needless to say, it is on its way back to Sony AGAIN.