Blurry images on Sony 70-350

[Standby67]

Hello, I was travelling last week and took a few pictures of ships with my Sony 70-350mm, which I love and appreciate very much.

This is the second model of this lens I have owned and I have always been very happy with it. I have been using the lens for several years (my second model only for a month).

Recently, however, I've noticed that it tends to produce a whole series of blurred images. I can't say whether it's user error or whether it's the lens. I would like to hear your opinions on this. As you can see in the example picture, the right edge in particular is clearly blurred. Okay, of course I know this from lenses that they become blurrier towards the edge, but not necessarily from this lens and especially not to this extent. I'm not really used to this with this lens, as it normally delivers perfect results from corner to corner.

Please view the image here:
https://i.postimg.cc/zDrg0wm1/BBC09960-20250503.jpg

This is not the only image that looks like this. The next 3 pictures before and after look similar. I think 1/500 sec is actually appropriate in this situation, as the image stabiliser works really well. The picture was taken at 310mm with aperture 8 and ISO 100.

I checked where the focus of this picture was, approximately to the right of the bridge near the stack. 

I am using AF-C with one focus area and metering method Multi.

Thank you very much.

 

[Pieter]

Was this shot handheld or on a tripod? Image stabilization doesn't work well with tripods.

[Standby67]

2 hours ago, Pieter said:

Was this shot handheld or on a tripod? Image stabilization doesn't work well with tripods.

Hi, no tripod. Handheld shot