Dropped camera and having focusing/quality issues.

[thecuriousbirder]

I have a Sony A7R4. At time of incident, I had attached a 1.4 teleconverter, Sony 200-600, and vertical grip.

I dropped the entire setup. I tried to lessen the impact using my leg. I do not see any impact damage. The camera gave a message notifying me that I needed to turn if off and back on. The off/on switch didn’t work and I had to physically remove the batteries. I shoot raw + jpeg and noticed that some of the jepg files were coming out larger. They are normally around 30 mb, but some now go up to 50mb in size. Raw files remain fairly consistent.  

I shoot mainly birds and the autofocus doesn't seem right. Blurry or doesn’t seem to focus on right area of bird. It is hit and miss with stationary birds and mostly miss with birds in motion.

My friend tried my lens and teleconverter on his A7R4 and pictures seemed ok. I tried his 200-600 on my A7R4 and had some focusing issues. I also tried my 200 -600 on my A7III, and pictures seemed slightly off too me. I have tried different lenses, and A7R4 quality and focusing seems off.

I have accidental insurance through Sony, but don’t want to send in parts if they aren’t broken.

Any suggestions on how to narrow down the problem(s)?

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Edited November 7, 2022 by thecuriousbirder
off may be confusing word

[tadwil]

It's hard to make any judgement looking at this low-res image but to me I think it's more psychological than any actual physical damage to the camera.

[thecuriousbirder]

@tadwil My lens and A7III work fine. See below example. Also works fine with teleconverter. There was focusing issues with A7R4. Sent in for estimate and will update when I know more. With my R4, I could easily zoom in to such an extent that I could see my reflection in the eyes of hummingbirds. After the crash, images were blurry or simply failed to find the subject.

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[tadwil]

I am sure the R4 is a great camera but the 2nd image of the hummingbird proves nothing.  The birds are dissimilar in size, acting differently, different lighting conditions - too many differences to draw any sort of conclusions.  I would like to see images taken before and after the drop of similar subjects doing same things under similar lighting conditions in much higher resolutions than the forum allows.

At least you seem to have determined the camera is indeed faulty and taking action to send it in for an inspection - if you have the coverage for accidents, you should send the camera in at the first sign of trouble.

[VTC]

Are the photos taken before the drop equally flat and muddy? Those are quite dismal and resemble ones taken back when cameras took floppies. Actually they have a VHS-esque appearance to them.

Edited November 15, 2022 by VTC

[thecuriousbirder]

@VTCThe first picture was taken about a day after the accident. Nothing on the bird seemed like it was in focus. The other picture of hummingbird was just testing the lens on an A7III. I was at minimum focus distance with 200-600 and 1.4x teleconverter so eye area is focused by rest a bit blurry.

[betterthanlife]

Try Taking moving images with this lens at least 5 or 6 times focal length. 840mm times 5 = 4200 so should be over 4200th (in other words 5000th of sec) of second. Will be better with this, harder if light is not so good unfortunately. Still images at same length 3000th of sec. and try to use mech shutter if possible.

[thecuriousbirder]

On 1/26/2023 at 6:33 AM, betterthanlife said:

Try Taking moving images with this lens at least 5 or 6 times focal length. 840mm times 5 = 4200 so should be over 4200th (in other words 5000th of sec) of second. Will be better with this, harder if light is not so good unfortunately. Still images at same length 3000th of sec. and try to use mech shutter if possible.

Thank you for the suggestion. I just got my camera and lens back from being repaired. Lens seems almost better than before. Not sure what was wrong with it, but something they did seemed to resolve the issue.