SONY EX1: Complete loss of focus in automatic and manual.

[Michael V. Moore]

Sony PMW EX1

Problem alternating between:
1: Complete loss of focus in all modes.
or
2: Loss of zooming out (using servo) and jerky optical image stabilization.

When I power on the camera, it has either of these issues, but never both at the same time. I managed to find out that when I turn off the camera at full zoom, then when I power it back on, the first thing I do is to zoom in with servo, then I can’t zoom out anymore using the servo, but the focus works fine, although the automatic focus seems slow. At least I can get the focus to work, so my camera isn’t completely useless.

I just bought this camera used about 6 weeks ago, and it worked fine until now. It started at home, the camera was resting on my desk and I was setting up picture profile settings, then the focus just stopped. The camera wasn’t even moving as it was resting neatly on my desk. I’m not exactly sure what was the last thing I fiddled with before the problem started, but a few on this forum suspected turning the macro on or off might be the culprit, and I recall wanting to switch the iris, but inadvertently put it on macro, then turned it off not long before I noticed the issue, but I’m not sure.

There are a few threads on this issue as some others experienced it, but the threads are old and there are no clear resolutions of this.

Suggestions from other threads; resetting the camera and adjusting back focus, I did both, and no change. And I am running on V1.25, which is the latest version for North America as far as I know.

Does anyone that have experienced this problem know what causes it, or a fix? I’m planning on bringing it to the shop, but I’d like to have a better idea of it, and know if this random problem can be avoided as it would be quite unfortunate experiencing this again once I get it fixed.

Thanks!