First off, apologies for not being around much lately. I guess I've lost my mojo or my muse or something and I have to confess I've hardly picked up my camera of late.
The one time I set about entering a challenge a while back, I spent ages getting set up and I was about to get started when I noticed my 50mm prime lens wouldn't work with my camera. It kept making a repeated short whirring motion about every second ad infinitum, until I gave up and switched the camera off. This would only occur with the one lens, my kit lenses are working fine and dandy.
I checked the contacts were nice and clean, and there was nothing obviously physically wrong with it.
It was in warranty, so I sent it to Sony's UK repair centre, got an SMS yesterday to say it had been repaired and was on it's way back to me, and it arrived today. Only when I opened the box, it was accompanied by a note, saying they couldn't find anything wrong with it. The note went on:
"The reported fault maybe a problem with your camera [sic]. Other lenses may work on the camera because they use the in-body focus motor, rather than having an AF motor in the lens, Please check another lens with built-in AF motor (SAM, SSM type). We have taken numerous test pictures with your lens, under different lighting conditions and using various settings, all with good results"
I just don't get this and I'd like to know if this sounds plausible to people. They think my camera is at fault, when the in-body camera motor is working fine, whereas the one lens that uses its own motor doesn't seem to work. I'm no engineer, but that defies logic to me.
I don't have any other lenses (aside from my kit ones) or another camera body to test with so I am expected to blithely accept their word, when my camera works fine in every other respect. (oh and it almost goes without saying that the camera is out of warranty, so if I want that repaired I would have to fork out another three-figure sum, on top of the £195 it cost me to repair last year when something else went wrong.)
What's annoying is the SMS I got from them, "your Sony SAL50F18 has been repaired and returned by Royal Mail", when they could have put that a whole lot more meaningfully and truthfully in the space you have in an SMS, or at least phoned me or emailed me first.
SC, feel free to move this into rant if you like, as that's kind of how I feel typing this out. :-( |
