Sony IBIS construction problem

[padam]

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2020/06/the-great-flange-to-sensor-distance-article-part-ii-photo-cameras/

https://www.dpreview.com/news/0261142298/lensrental-discovers-cracked-sensor-mounts-inside-some-of-its-sony-a7-series-rental-fleet

It will be interesting to see if Sony is going to give any kind of response to this.
Since under light use, the cameras may not develop problems and it won't immediately affect the function of the camera (or the user might not detect anything), but the way it has been constructed is still worrying (and also weird, that the YT community hasn't picked it up yet)

Edited June 14, 2020 by padam

[Benz3ne]

It'd be interesting to know what exactly has caused these fractures. If it's a case of a sudden shock, that will trigger people (such as myself*) to have their cameras checked out if they've dropped it at all...

If it's stress over time, that's more concerning and wouldn't surprise me if there was push for a recall/repair scenario for affected cameras.

*I managed to snag my camera strap on the drawer handle of a table which sent camera + lens to the ground. Damaged only the lens on the lens cap and outer rim at the front. Is an old Takumar 35mm to which a slight dent is the only obvious damage and the camera came away (very fortunately) unscathed. It's the first time I've ever put a strap on the camera, which I did 3 days prior to the tumble. Not fun.

[padam]

If it is caused by "improper usage", then I don't think Sony will respond to it at all. But if it just fails after a while, it is more difficult to prove that it actually does. Unlike the D600 oil issue, it is not something that is apparent right away.
I give them the benefit of the doubt, unlike some, I don't think they deliberately under-engineered their cameras to get more profit, more like underestimated the effects of heavier use.

They certainly don't have to design their cameras to fully withstand a fall, since they aren't exactly made for that.
A few years ago, I did manage to drop my A7S with a Leica lens to concrete ground (fell out of my coat pocket, when I needed to help someone and quickly put it somewhere) and luckily the plastic lens hood took most of the hit, the camera got damaged a bit at the corner and displayed an error message, but after that, turning it off and on again, it continued to work absolutely perfectly.
I needed a few months until I found a replacement Leica hood for a reasonable price, and with that I got another good deal on something else as well, so I really got lucky with that one there, with IBIS I may not have.

Even if they do give a response, it won't be a recall, as it is a costly fix (not in terms of parts cost, but in terms of repair time with re-adjustments) and they also don't want to generate mass fear, it won't do too good for general perception.

But not talking about it at all is also misleading.

Edit: one other thing worth noting is that the strong metal (magnesium alloy) shell is great, but with plastic breaking underneath, that's not so great and it sort of negates that a little bit.
And it is also bad, that without disassembling the camera, one has no idea if the resulting sensor misalignment is not up to a noticeable degree (but the IBIS might start to malfunction in some cases)
So, they may not care as it won't be noticeable in most cases.

Edited June 16, 2020 by padam

[Benz3ne]

49 minutes ago, padam said:

They certainly don't have to design their cameras to fully withstand a fall, since they aren't exactly made for that.

Even if they do give a response, it won't be a recall, as it is a costly fix (not in terms of parts cost, but in terms of repair time with re-adjustments) and they also don't want to generate mass fear, it won't do too good for general perception.

But not talking about it at all is also misleading.

Agreed, they shouldn't have to. A camera isn't made to be thrown around. Fortunately, I've not seen/heard/smelled (lol) anything out of place since the tumble. The lens definitely took the impact and it is built like a brick sh*thouse so that was, relatively, fortunate. No error messages, no issues with AF, no issues with any buttons whatsoever, nor mount, nor registering lenses mounted, etc. etc.

Again, agreed, it'd be costly but ultimately the lack of foresight/testing has the potential to result in issues like this. If, e.g., someone was to make a product, put it on the market and not consider that with repeated use a battery could explode (a la Samsung phones) it would be a costly recall/repair, but it'd be necessary. Yes, there's obviously a differential between people's health at stake and someone's toy at stake, but the financial burden is still there for the recipient in both cases.

I think they need to issue some sort of response. Even if it's a "we'll check and if it's out of [insert specified] tolerance, we'll investigate further".

[padam]

They are continuously pushing out newer (better sealed, more durable) models, so I think they will certainly take this into consideration for the future (as apart from this, the chassis is probably very rigid, so there aren't many weak parts as-is)

But I am less enthusiastic about support for the 'vintage' models. And the A7SIII (or A9s what ever it's called) is probably already full production-ready.