Horizontal blur occurring on photographs

[wiwoodg]

Hello,

I have owned a Sony A350 since January 2009 and found it a great camera. But recently I have had problems with a white horizontal blurred band that is occurring across quite a lot of my pictures. I'm using the kit 18-70 lens that came with the camera an a Sigma 70-300 I purchased last year for the camera.

This problem first started when I was away on holiday in April of this year. When I got back home, I cleaned all the lenses and did a factory reset of the camera (this was suggested in another forum). Both actions seemed to work fine and the problem appeared to be fixed.

However this past week, the problem has returned again. This time it is visible in many more pictures I'm shooting and the band (although it is in the same place as before) is much more prominent. Yesterday I shot 850 pictures at a sailing event, and well over 250 of the pictures have this horrible horizontal banding. Here are some examples:

If you look closely, about ¼ way up from the bottom is a band that runs from left to right of the picture. The contents of the band is ghosted (blured) and lighter than other parts of the picture. I was shooting a lot of these pictures in sports mode (continuous shooting) on a tripod with a cable release and some of the pictures have this banding artefact, whereas others a frame or two later don't. Obvilously when you're printing the pictures or viewing them fullscreen on a computer in slideshow mode, the banding effect is very evident and ruins and otherwise perfect picture.

This is my first post here. Does anyone have ideas of what might be causing this issue? Could it be hardware failure or a fault with the camera settings / firmware? Unfortunately the camera is outside of warranty now, so I doubt it is something Sony would want to look at without charging me. I got the camera new from the London Camera exchange, so I may go in and ask if they have any ideas as well - I've found them very helpful in the past.

The camera most certainly has not been dropped or abbused in any shape or form. Like I said, I've had a lot of success with this camera, and I'm hoping it is something simple, rather than a terminal hardware failure.

I am going out again today and I'm going to try shooting in both JPG + RAW formats, to see if the same artifact occurs in both pairs of pictures.

[Watashiwateshdes]

Hi, welcome to the Sony forum.

What you seem to have possibly could be a shutter curtain failure. There is a set of flaps/curtain infront of the sensor which opens and closes to allow light to enter and record the image which is all behind the mechanical mirror.

Since they are mechanical, over time this does happen and can cause issues like what you are experiencing. Sadly a reset or a clean will not resolve this and would be something that would need to be repaired. You might be able to see it if you try using the manual cleaning mode on your camera which exposes the sensor, one of the curtains may be jammed.

As you mentioned, go out today and shoot JPEG+RAW but more likely that not, it should be present on both. If not, I am stumped.

This is one of the characteristics that happens with DSLR's and no way to prevent it. Some people say that you should take less pictures but it still does not prevent it from happening. I have had it happen to my 2 year old Canon DSLR and a Nikon so nothing major to worry about, just needs maintenence.

If you find that it still occurs, have it inspected via an engineer which you can get info from http://Sony.co.uk/support

Hope that gives you some insight

[wiwoodg]

Thanks for your reply.

Looking in iPhoto now and filtering images by those taken on this camera, I have shot 4,386 photographs since I purchased this camera. That is perhaps a slight underestimate, as I have deleted a couple of hundred out-of-focus / banded pictures in the meantime. But I've certainly not shot more that 5000 pictures in 2.5 years. Is that about the limit one of these camera's can shoot or would they normally be able to shoot more? I understand that mechanical failure is something that will eventually effect all cameras, but I had hoped to get several years use from this one before upgrading again. These past few days I have shot a lot more images than I normally would. Typically from a photo expedition I may shoot 25 - 50 pictures in a single session. I mainly do landscapes and this was the first time I had properly tried action photography.

I've just had the lens off and cleaned inside with a blower brush. I couldn't really see any shutter curtains inside, while the camera was in cleaning mode. There were a few specks of dust on the sensor, but nothing else out of the ordinary from what I could see.

I'm out again this afternoon photographing, so if I start seeing these horizontal bands occurring again in live view, I'll call into the camera shop on my way home and see if they have any advice. I've printed off a few examples of problematic images. I'm guessing that sending it away to be serviced and repaired could be very costly and may not permanently solve the issue?

[Watashiwateshdes · Accepted solution]

If bought from new and formatted the card properly, the file name/number should give you an approximation on how many shots taken eg IMG_6900 would  be 6900 photos unless you went over the 9999 mark which may have another DCM folder on your memory card. In theory, you should not be able to see this in live view but I have never had a live view camera so I could not tell you. I can assume though that this happens no matter what the shutter speed is.

Some people do report x amount of actuations before the shutter/curtain is likely to fail but no ideas where these figures come from unless a manufacturer actually state this on their website or in the manual. I know my shortest was 3,000 actuations before the shutter needed replacing which cost me about £100 (Canon DSLR).

Generally, it is not that costly when comparing it to buying a lens or a camera and if done properly, should give you plenty of time to enjoy your product again. Upgrading to another body can lead to you gettin more shots before this happen but never garanteed.

Best thing, see what the camera shot say. See how you get on.

[wiwoodg]

Went out and shot another 116 pictures yesterday afternoon. I tried different shooting modes, both lenses and tried shooting in JPG + RAW format, with the same results on both formats. Of the 116 pictures, 45 have got visible streaks across the lower quarter, and some of them were worse than I've previosuly seen before.

I went into the shop where I bought the camera from and showed them printed examples of the pictures and a list of everything I'd tried. They were very helpful (as ever) but were unsure that this problem is the result of physical failure of the shutter, because the camera is relatively new and it's not been subjected to any damage or rough treatment. It was also suggested that problems with jammed shutters tend to manifest themselves permanently, rather than at random. Instead they think it is more than likely the sensor itself which is failing.

The bad news is that I would have to pay a basic service charge of £120 for Sony to look at the camera, plus any parts or labour and VAT on top for the actual repair. Apparently these sensors Sony uses now have a habit of "going gamy" and previously when this shop has had customers send Alpha camera's back for repair, the final bill has come to about £300! Of course, no guarantee that the camera would last any longer and might break down a week later with another fault…

So for now it looks like Sony has lost a customer. I'm going to start by making a written complaint to Sony, because I am bitterly disappointed that this expensive camera has lasted less than 3 years, despite relatively light use and great care. If you spend £450 on a camera (plus accessories) you'd expect to get many years use. The fact that it's become faulty after only two years takes away any enjoyment of using the product.