Hopeful that my Sony A1 is finally fixed?

[Gayle]

I got my Sony A1 back from the second repair in the 8 months I've had it. So far, so good, but I have trust issues. I've owned either SLRs or dSLRs for over 40 years, and have only had to have 1 repaired, and that was a simple shutter jam. I really want to like this camera, but I feel that I just wasted a lot of money.

After owning and using it for 2 months, a series of problems culminating with the camera shutting the menu and going into shooting mode whenever I tried to change a setting or a page. PrecisionCamera ended up replacing the main electrical board.

After a month, I got it back. It had a serious vibration and an audible hum. I took to to Brazil for 3 weeks, the vibration and hum got worse. After another in-warranty repair, it doesn't vibrate and is silent.

Sony won't replace the camera, but they did extend my warranty for a second year at no cost. Still, I have to wonder how often I'll be sending it in for repair.

 

[Maljo]

Hopefully fixed for good. I would suggest having a backup body.

 

[arbitrage]

Sounds like a bit of a lemon. Hopefully it will be fully resolved now.

Knock on wood, but I haven't had any issue with any of my Sony bodies (A9, A9II, A7RIV and A1) despite running them in the rain a fair amount.
Had to have a 5DIV rebuilt and had a glitchy D850 but so far the Sony bodies have been rock solid.

 

[Steve]

That's really unfortunate and the first a1 I have personally heard of with issues (not that I'm privy to every camera failure). Hopefully they have it sorted out now.

 

[Warren D]

Precision as the Sony authorized repair center has been a big factor in my decision not to switch to Sony.

 

[Gayle]

Sounds like a bit of a lemon. Hopefully it will be fully resolved now.

Knock on wood, but I haven't had any issue with any of my Sony bodies (A9, A9II, A7RIV and A1) despite running them in the rain a fair amount.
Had to have a 5DIV rebuilt and had a glitchy D850 but so far the Sony bodies have been rock solid.

A lemon is exactly my concern.

 

[abc123brian]

I had a similar issue as your first problem with a Fujifilm X-100T but changing the board resolved the issue. I can relate to your concern though because I worried when I’d have a problem with it again and I only had the one issue. Hopefully they resolved the issue and it will be good from now forward.

 

[Gayle]

That's really unfortunate and the first a1 I have personally heard of with issues (not that I'm privy to every camera failure). Hopefully they have it sorted out now.

I had a similar issue as your first problem with a Fujifilm X-100T but changing the board resolved the issue. I can relate to your concern though because I worried when I’d have a problem with it again and I only had the one issue. Hopefully they resolved the issue and it will be good from now forward.

That's good to know, thank you!

 

[Gayle]

I got my Sony A1 back from the second repair in the 8 months I've had it. So far, so good, but I have trust issues. I've owned either SLRs or dSLRs for over 40 years, and have only had to have 1 repaired, and that was a simple shutter jam. I really want to like this camera, but I feel that I just wasted a lot of money.

After owning and using it for 2 months, a series of problems culminating with the camera shutting the menu and going into shooting mode whenever I tried to change a setting or a page. PrecisionCamera ended up replacing the main electrical board.

After a month, I got it back. It had a serious vibration and an audible hum. I took to to Brazil for 3 weeks, the vibration and hum got worse. After another in-warranty repair, it doesn't vibrate and is silent.

Sony won't replace the camera, but they did extend my warranty for a second year at no cost. Still, I have to wonder how often I'll be sending it in for repair.

Time for an update - I just sent my A1 back in for repair for the 3rd time in 2 years. Every time I use the camera for an extended length of time, like on a trip, it breaks. Weekend or occasional use it's fine. This time I had a list of 5 things things that happened uring a 3 week trip to Borneo, including not writing correctly to the CF-A cards (more than one of them so it wasn't a card issue). Complete viewfinder blackout in a short burst, monitor doesn't work when shooting but it does when I'm in the menu, overheating and shutting the camera down when shooting 4K video for about a minute. The camera was too hot to hold. Fortunately for me, Sony has extended the warrranty twice for no cost, so this is still an under-warranty repair. And for the first time, the customer care agent mentioned replacing the camera. Here's hoping.