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Did I get a problem camera????

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Stephen Mcgowan

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I have a f717 purchased in February that was manufactured in Nov.2002. I checked and the serial number is not in the range of recalled numbers. I have read several posts here and in dpreview where some of them might be bad. I guess the situation has to be low light, hologram on, and some degree of zoom. I have taken about 5 pictures where there is no reason for them to be blurry but they were and was now having this feeling that maybe mine has the problem. Outdoor pics and macro is outstanding. But the few out of focus low light shots are worrysome. Any thoughts or opinions are appreciated!!

I will try and post the photos or a link to them on pbase tommorrow if anyone would take the time to see them I would be grateful.
 
If not, the conditions you describe will almost surely result in blurry shots from camera motion.
Steve McGowan said:
I have a f717 purchased in February that was manufactured in
Nov.2002. I checked and the serial number is not in the range of
recalled numbers. I have read several posts here and in dpreview
where some of them might be bad. I guess the situation has to be
low light, hologram on, and some degree of zoom. I have taken
about 5 pictures where there is no reason for them to be blurry but
they were and was now having this feeling that maybe mine has the
problem. Outdoor pics and macro is outstanding. But the few out
of focus low light shots are worrysome. Any thoughts or opinions
are appreciated!!

I will try and post the photos or a link to them on pbase tommorrow
if anyone would take the time to see them I would be grateful.
Click to expand...
--
Daniel
Sony 717, Oly 2100, Nikon 6006, Pentax ME Super Program
http://www.pbase.com/dvogel11
 
If you are in doubt, call Sony and arrange for the upgrade. As much as I hated doing it, it only took 4 days. I sent it out on Tuesday and had it back on Friday and the camera is fine.
Steve McGowan said:
I have a f717 purchased in February that was manufactured in
Nov.2002. I checked and the serial number is not in the range of
recalled numbers. I have read several posts here and in dpreview
where some of them might be bad. I guess the situation has to be
low light, hologram on, and some degree of zoom. I have taken
about 5 pictures where there is no reason for them to be blurry but
they were and was now having this feeling that maybe mine has the
problem. Outdoor pics and macro is outstanding. But the few out
of focus low light shots are worrysome. Any thoughts or opinions
are appreciated!!

I will try and post the photos or a link to them on pbase tommorrow
if anyone would take the time to see them I would be grateful.
Click to expand...
 
Yes, all the shots were using flash, my son still has the red eye to prove it. The thing that bothers me most is I took three pics in a row and they were all out of fucus. I havent figured out how to attach a photo to a post yet, but I could email you one if you like. Thanks for the reply and I will get back to ya.
DannyV said:
--
Daniel
Sony 717, Oly 2100, Nikon 6006, Pentax ME Super Program
http://www.pbase.com/dvogel11
Click to expand...
 
Eric you just made up my mind. If I am in doubt, I am gonna send it in, otherwise I will be chewing on it forever. Then I can stop trying to figure out if its me or the camera, it is the "1-D-10-T" behind it!
Eric Gale said:
Steve McGowan said:
I have a f717 purchased in February that was manufactured in
Nov.2002. I checked and the serial number is not in the range of
recalled numbers. I have read several posts here and in dpreview
where some of them might be bad. I guess the situation has to be
low light, hologram on, and some degree of zoom. I have taken
about 5 pictures where there is no reason for them to be blurry but
they were and was now having this feeling that maybe mine has the
problem. Outdoor pics and macro is outstanding. But the few out
of focus low light shots are worrysome. Any thoughts or opinions
are appreciated!!

I will try and post the photos or a link to them on pbase tommorrow
if anyone would take the time to see them I would be grateful.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Steve,

I haven't sent mine back in yet, but have already been on the phone to Sony and was impressed with the response.

I was going to take mine back and try for serial number out of the 'problem' range, but then I came across one or two posts about problems in later builds. All were fixed by the firmware upgrade.
I figured if I wasn't careful, I go nuts playing camera roulett!

I'm going to play with mine for a couple of weeks just to see if anything else comes up and then ship it off.
BTW- Sony pays for express overnight shipping (at least here in the States).
Jim
Steve McGowan said:
Eric Gale said:
Steve McGowan said:
I have a f717 purchased in February that was manufactured in
Nov.2002. I checked and the serial number is not in the range of
recalled numbers. I have read several posts here and in dpreview
where some of them might be bad. I guess the situation has to be
low light, hologram on, and some degree of zoom. I have taken
about 5 pictures where there is no reason for them to be blurry but
they were and was now having this feeling that maybe mine has the
problem. Outdoor pics and macro is outstanding. But the few out
of focus low light shots are worrysome. Any thoughts or opinions
are appreciated!!

I will try and post the photos or a link to them on pbase tommorrow
if anyone would take the time to see them I would be grateful.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Eric Gale said:
If you are in doubt, call Sony and arrange for the upgrade. As much
as I hated doing it, it only took 4 days. I sent it out on Tuesday
and had it back on Friday and the camera is fine.
Click to expand...
Eric,

Did you notice any improvement in the performance once
you got it back? I've got a November camera too and have
noticed some "out of focus" problems. Its serial # isn't on the
recall list, though.

Thanks -

Steve
 
You can get blurred pictures from camera motion even with flash if you are using Aperture Priority mode or Shutter Priority mode and too low a shutter speed is set. I had several blurred pictures happen this way and was puzzled until I noticed that it was motion blur, not focus blur. Then it all made sense.

I generally check that the camera will make the exposure between 1/30 and 1/60 second as a minimum when I'm shooting flash. If you're shooting in Program or Auto mode, the slowest the shutter speed will go is 1/30 second so the likelihood of getting motion blur in a flash picture is greatly reduced but not zero.

Godfrey
Steve McGowan said:
Yes, all the shots were using flash, my son still has the red eye
to prove it. The thing that bothers me most is I took three pics
in a row and they were all out of fucus. I havent figured out how
to attach a photo to a post yet, but I could email you one if you
like. Thanks for the reply and I will get back to ya.
Click to expand...
 
I would also like to know. I have been mostly using my other camera and just began getting back to the 717. I have a lot of out of focus shots and the cam is not on the list either.

I felt it was just me--getting to learn the camera again and I was attributing it to hand shake...my original 717 was among the first in the problem serial numbers and it was returned quite a while ago.

I had been assuming it was 'safe'.
Steven W. Bennett said:
Eric Gale said:
If you are in doubt, call Sony and arrange for the upgrade. As much
as I hated doing it, it only took 4 days. I sent it out on Tuesday
and had it back on Friday and the camera is fine.
Click to expand...
Eric,

Did you notice any improvement in the performance once
you got it back? I've got a November camera too and have
noticed some "out of focus" problems. Its serial # isn't on the
recall list, though.

Thanks -

Steve
Click to expand...
 
I'd give Sony a call. They may have done more tweaking to the firmware since your upgrade.
Or you might do some more tests to see if it is just hand shake.
Jim
lharris said:
I felt it was just me--getting to learn the camera again and I was
attributing it to hand shake...my original 717 was among the first
in the problem serial numbers and it was returned quite a while ago.

I had been assuming it was 'safe'.
Steven W. Bennett said:
Eric Gale said:
If you are in doubt, call Sony and arrange for the upgrade. As much
as I hated doing it, it only took 4 days. I sent it out on Tuesday
and had it back on Friday and the camera is fine.
Click to expand...
Eric,

Did you notice any improvement in the performance once
you got it back? I've got a November camera too and have
noticed some "out of focus" problems. Its serial # isn't on the
recall list, though.

Thanks -

Steve
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks all for your replies. First I tried playing camera roullette with Sears, no luck. The had a floor model that was beat, and a October that I think was on the list. So I kept mine and left. I posted the three blurry images at http://www.pbase.com/gravely1 . The two of my son I think the camera was fooled by the lamp in the right hand corner of the screen. The third was shot during the day, with the flash on, redeye was removed with psp 7. Thanks again for taking the time too look. And if I get any more weird shots, I will call Sony. The bride says to get over it, I am not a pro photographer and your gonna get a bad shot every now and then.
Hmmm...
 
Steve,

I had a similar problem with the F717 @ Sears, I exchanged my camera 6 times (HAF problem serial # to good serial #'s 4x then back to HAF problem serial #) then I called Sony to service the HAF problem fixed, at first they told me to exchange it at Sears as they don't service Sears customers(Sears buys the cameras without warranties for a lower cost per unit I guess). I told Sony my exchange story and they finally decided to fix it for me(PUSH THEM, ASK FOR MANAGEMENT!!!), 4 days round trip and now my cam is great with super sharp focus. I did get a problem camera 2,3,4..... or Sears has alot of problem cameras with good serial #'s (acceptable soft focus with HAF) Get what you paid for!!

tsimboli
Steve McGowan said:
Thanks all for your replies. First I tried playing camera
roullette with Sears, no luck. The had a floor model that was
beat, and a October that I think was on the list. So I kept mine
and left. I posted the three blurry images at
http://www.pbase.com/gravely1 . The two of my son I think the camera was
fooled by the lamp in the right hand corner of the screen. The
third was shot during the day, with the flash on, redeye was
removed with psp 7. Thanks again for taking the time too look.
And if I get any more weird shots, I will call Sony. The bride
says to get over it, I am not a pro photographer and your gonna get
a bad shot every now and then.
Hmmm...
Click to expand...
 
Tsimboli,

I checked with Sony, and they said for other problems with this camera, it should go back to Sears under warrenty. But they said that with a known issue like this one (more or less a factory recall), it should have gone directly to Sony (without the hassle you got).
Sounds like you got some bad advice from Sony.

Good to know you got a good fix when you did get to send it in (mine goes back in a couple of weeks).
Jim
TSimboli said:
I had a similar problem with the F717 @ Sears, I exchanged my
camera 6 times (HAF problem serial # to good serial #'s 4x then
back to HAF problem serial #) then I called Sony to service the HAF
problem fixed, at first they told me to exchange it at Sears as
they don't service Sears customers(Sears buys the cameras without
warranties for a lower cost per unit I guess). I told Sony my
exchange story and they finally decided to fix it for me(PUSH THEM,
ASK FOR MANAGEMENT!!!), 4 days round trip and now my cam is great
with super sharp focus. I did get a problem camera 2,3,4..... or
Sears has alot of problem cameras with good serial #'s (acceptable
soft focus with HAF) Get what you paid for!!

tsimboli
Steve McGowan said:
Thanks all for your replies. First I tried playing camera
roullette with Sears, no luck. The had a floor model that was
beat, and a October that I think was on the list. So I kept mine
and left. I posted the three blurry images at
http://www.pbase.com/gravely1 . The two of my son I think the camera was
fooled by the lamp in the right hand corner of the screen. The
third was shot during the day, with the flash on, redeye was
removed with psp 7. Thanks again for taking the time too look.
And if I get any more weird shots, I will call Sony. The bride
says to get over it, I am not a pro photographer and your gonna get
a bad shot every now and then.
Hmmm...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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