Don't be ridiculous. Sony "fixed" it and failed. I am not giving them another cent for anything related to an A700.

Sony replaced a whole bunch of parts. List is in another long thread. As my long thread on dpreview shows though lots of people have this problem. There were also threads about it elsewhere (dyxum, etc.).

Mostly the Sony 18-250mm, but also Sony 11-18mm. Occasionally a Minolta 50mm f1.7 and Sigma 24mm f2.8 also. I think I have seen it happen with all the lenses. I never change lenses without turning the camera off first.

By the way, I am at the Seoul airport in Korea right now. Soon I will be on my flight to Honolulu.

Glad yours is fine. I have seen report(s) of this problem with the A900 and A550, but not nearly as common as the A700.

I still think Sony QC sucks. I have had so many cameras over the last 40 years and all of them had zero problems with the exception of all my Sony cameras and the KM 7Ds.

I nearly always leave my cameras turned on when I change lenses, the action of pressing the lens release button relays that info to the camera, that the lens is being uncoupled. Why not try it? change lenses a few times with the camera on and see if it makes any difference, can't hurt anything they're designed too do it.
Greg

ps. I've still got this feeling that there might be some inteference from a sticky button somewhere....like the preview button or similar.

My lenses don't cause any problems with the A100. Also, the popular "fixes" that people recommend and I have tried provided relief for a few hours up to a few days -- I think that eliminates the possibility that the lens is the problem. This whole issue is sort of old news. I have detailed ad nauseum all the things I have tried and the history of this on this forum in various places and on dpreview. I am tired of the whole thing.



Yeah, probably some design defect or bad parts.

I got back home a few days ago with 41gb of A700 cRAW files. I am slowly going through them all and when I am done will update my website. It is sort of fun to go through all the photos to see what I got.

OT #1: About an hour ago I was walking through a Waikiki food court and saw a funny sight. A little girl, maybe 2 years old, was sound asleep in a chair in a very funny position with her mother and (probably) grandmother sitting next to her in animated conversation. I had my digicam in my pocket, but both hands were occupied. I had a drink in one hand and the big Sunday newspaper in the other. I saw a wonderful photo, but by the time I got to a place where I could put the stuff down and return the scene had changed completely. The mother had the awake little girl in her arms and the grandmother was eating. You usually only have seconds. I don't even know if I could have gotten the shot if my hands had been free without them noticing me 10 feet away, but I am pretty sure I could have gotten one shot off. Oh well.

OT #2: When I was flying from Japan to Egypt last year I had a layover in Doha, Qatar. I saw a man, maybe Indian, in his 40s asleep. The row of chairs in the airport all had armrests and he was stretched out on his side on top of 3 or 4 of the armrests. It looked very uncomfortable and precarious and yet he was asleep. I took a photo with the digicam. Until today I had forgotten about that photo, but today I have been searching for it. It seems to be gone. I have checked all my hard disks and it is not there. I have no clue what happened to it. Darn. I try to be very careful about my photos, but somehow this one seems to be gone.

Okey doke Henry, you're not going too bother trying anything so I won't bother either.
Greg

I have tried every single thing ever suggested. Most multiple times. Sorry to have offended you, it wasn't my intention. This problem has existed for the last 2 years and 2/3 of the time I have owned the camera. Sony also can't fix it. It is a lemon.

Nah it's cool Henry, I was just feeling sorry for you and was trying to figure out some stuff to try, no problemo.
Greg

I feel your pain about the broken camera. It just sucks if you paid big bucks for a camera and you rely on it and it fails you. I'd be tempted to smash it on the floor and crush it under my feet

On the other hand, the example you give from Qatar, isn't this an experience worth more than any photo? It would be nice to share it with us, but you have it in your mind, a moment you never forget, and that's the important thing. I sometimes enjoy to go out without camera and just enjoy what I see. How often see I crowds of tourists that spend more time behind their cameras rather than enjoying the moment! As long as we remember special moments, we're alive, even if the camera is belly up

I've also been at the other end of this spectrum, Thomas. After 2 years in Brazil in the 80's, conserving my precious film, I wanted to take all kinds of pics towards the end of my time there. The problem was, everything that had been so unusual at first that I thought "I'll take a shot of that later, if I have film left" had now become so common I thought it not worth photographing!

It wasn't until I got home and describe some of these things to others who said "Do you have any pictures of that?" that I realized my mistake!

Dusty

Didn't they fix it beyond the warrant period for you once already, and for free? seems they were very accomodating for you before, I see no reason to beleive that they wouldn't have made it right for you.

I reported it before the end of the warranty, but they let me send it in later after the warranty. You can see the details in the link I posted. For stay at home people it is so easy to say just "send it in" but it is often very hard for me to do. Even last time it meant waiting until I was going to be somewhere for a period of time and also wasn't on a trip and using the camera. Then it meant sending it in and arranging for it to be shipped back to me without even having a place or address for it to be shipped back to. Anyway, they made a good effort the first time to fix it and failed. The camera is old now. Too bad that this is the only thing that doesn't work. I am not going to spend another cent on anything related to the A700 though. I fully realize that if it was your 3 year old A700 you would pay hundreds of dollars to try and get it fixed again even though a 3 year old A700 is probably worth less than that. We just don't see it the same way.

After I get around to getting a new camera I may contact Sony again to see if they will do anything. It has been a 1.5 years since they "fixed" it the last time though so I doubt if they will do anything. Otherwise, it is a nice camera. This depends on how much longer we will be staying in one place and when I get a new camera though.

I don't think you really care one way or the other. You just want to be argumentative so let's just drop it.

really.. well Maybe i'm trying to make sense of your situation. You complained for what you say is a year and a half about this cameras problems and then seemed to act surprised that it didn't fix itself on your most recent trip? then you act rude to anyone else who tried to help?