Need Help with some quality/focus issues

[MJI]

Ever since June my camera has been doing a really weird thing where it makes a buzzing sound and vibrates so bad that it blurs the image... I would upload an example, but photobucket seems to be down.

Anyways I thought I fixed it temporarily by shaking the camera right after starting up... It seems to stop the vibration, but lately I've been having quality issues. Something looks off with the focus. Anyone else have these problems?

The background should be blurry, but not the butterfly
(that's even after an unsharp mask filter)

(without unsharp mask filter)

Note how the focus goes in and out throughout parts of the picture.

What it does to landscapes: (linked because I don't want the 800 x 600 size file to possibly stretch the screen on some computers.)
http://www.thephotoforum.com/photos/data/500/DSC08200.jpg

Any help is appreciated. I’m feeling pretty depressed over it. I thought I had a good shoot, only to look at my photos and find them blurry like that.

 

[LarryD]

If your camera is buzzing and vibrating, there is only a few things that would do that.. Auto Focus and Vibration Damping being most likely..

Turn them off and see if you can isolate the issue.... Shaking the camera until it goes away is probably not the preferred trouble-shooting/tech repair procedure.....

I can't really tell much from the photos and the compression they go through to get on the web.. Are you using the camera auto-focus, or manually focusing and which focus points are you using ??

 

[MJI]

Thanks for the reply. These were done with the auto focus on "group focus", but the manual focus doesn't seem to make the fuzziness or the vibration go away.

Usually when it vibrates, it does so immediatly after turning the camera on or after I'm done reviewing my pictures and then switch back to shooting mode (for some reason, it pulls in the lens when reviewing, then brings it back out when in camera mode.)

I haven't been able to figure out exactly what it is, other than it gets much worse in video mode than it does in auto mode. I have turned off the image stablization and tried an all manual mode. It helps but doesn't always get rid of the vibration completely. I think something is loose because I notice the lens sort of rattles when I am walking. I think something may be loose. I hope to upload a full size picture without compression later.

 

[Samanax]

Which camera do you have?

 

[KmH]

Your camera should not be buzzing and vibrating. It needs to go in for diagnosis and repair before the condition worsens. You could well be just driving up the repair bill by continuing to use the camera in its current state.

 

[Dao]

From the Exif

Camera Make: SONY
Camera Model: DSC-H7

 

[Samanax]

Your camera should not be buzzing and vibrating. It needs to go in for diagnosis and repair before the condition worsens. You could well be just driving up the repair bill by continuing to use the camera in its current state.

I agree...take you camera in for service. That vibration isn't something you can fix yourself. Sounds like the image stabilization motors or gyros are going out.

From the Exif

Camera Make: SONY
Camera Model: DSC-H7

Thanks, my work computer doesn't have an exif viewer.

 

[MJI]

Alright, thanks for the warning about it potentially getting worse. I was kind of wondering if continuing using would make it worse or not. What kind of place would I go to have it repaired?

Here's a video I recorded on it in June.
MOV08231.flv video by Butterflyhornet - Photobucket

How long does such a repair usually take and what price range would I be expecting?

 

[Samanax]

Alright, thanks for the warning about it potentially getting worse. I was kind of wondering if continuing using would make it worse or not. What kind of place would I go to have it repaired?

How long does such a repair usually take and what price range would I be expecting?

Contact a SONY Service Center near you. They can answer your questions better than we can.

SONY eService