Sony rx10 goes out of focus

[Dave Blackhurst]

Might be worth it to put the two batteries next to each other sitting on the bottom end and see if one is "short" by a tiny amount (it's not much, 1/64 - 1/32 in inches, probably under a mm in metric). That's an easy "tell" that it's a knockoff. Still possible you've got a bunk battery either way since there seems to be some correlation (or it could be the camera soft resets when the battery is popped out).

I've done electronic repairs for "a while", so I've seen a few things... intermittent issues are the worst to troubleshoot, but with patience... you can usually figure them out!

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

Not completely related but our one Nikons locked up on Sunday ..mirror went up and stayed up until I put a fresh set of batteries in the camera grip and I discovered that one of the two grip batteries is a aftermarket one and it had failed miserably and was locking up the camera.. the battery actually had an individual cell that had short circuited and what gave it away was a tiny bulge in the casing where the cell had expanded when it failed

I would definitely drop a genuine Sony battery into the camera and see if the problem goes away. My EA-50's used to have the same issue as all my video light batteries are also Sony (but aftermarket) and they would work one day in the camera and then cause havoc the next.

Dave is probably onto something here!!! It could also be the decoding circuitry in the after market battery is just not up to scratch too.

[Dave Blackhurst]

I've seen firsthand that Sony changes the "coding" from time to time when refreshing models - Sony genuine batteries seem to ALWAYS work if the camera was designed to take them (won't get into the "FP/FH/FV" variants... physically nearly identical, backward compatible, but older ones didn't work in newer cams!).

Since the fake/counterfeit/knockoffs may not have proper "coding", they can work on one, and not another model... and "work" could well vary in many ways...

You also really don't KNOW what cells are in a fake, one big reason I've avoided them, the possibility of explosive failure is probably remote, but "not on my watch"!!

Counterfeiting is a HUGE business, and they know that things like batteries and Memory cards tend to be very expensive for the REAL ones, they aren't hard to copy physically, and so it's easy to sell to unsuspecting victims looking for a "deal". There is of course no "accountability" by counterfeiters if something goes horribly wrong...

I'm not joking when I say that up to 90% (+!) of the "product" in some categories on one popular site is FAKE. It's nearly impossible for the manufacturers to stop it, and with "online e-commerce", there are MANY ways counterfeit stuff can get through. Of course when there's a malfunction, the manufacturer or seller of the GENUINE expensive piece of electronic equipment becomes the first suspect... sometimes a deal isn't such a deal... I know it took me a while to collect enough GENUINE FW50's for my RX's, and I had a bunch of fakes around from NEX cams I experimented with...

I'm intrigued by whether Noa has a fake one (post a pic of the front and back if the measuring trick doesn't work - labels are one place the counterfeiters usually goof up, right along with minor molding errors). I'm guessing that a substandard battery might cause a voltage/current "drift" to the focus circuitry, but I'm spitballin' just a bit!

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

Might be worth it to put the two batteries next to each other

I compared them both and can't find any difference in shape, size or with markings on the battery, if one would be a fake then they sure did a good job :)

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

I would definitely drop a genuine Sony battery into the camera and see if the problem goes away.

The second battery I got was a original one, at least it was sold and priced as a original battery.

[Dave Blackhurst]

The fakes often sell for almost as much as the real deal, and typically they are "good". Since I buy most of my stuff used, I see all sorts of things, so I've learned to look for the "tells", but of course the crooks get better over time!

[Noa Put]

I might have narrowed the camera problem down to the battery, used the camera on a shoot yesterday and it was a hot day, quite quickly the camera became slow in response and gradually got worse, then I switched batteries and the camera responded well again. Now I will mark this supposed good battery and start using that one for my next shoot untill it's empty to see if there is any strange behaviour and a week after that I"ll use the battery that gave me the problems in the same way. That should give an indication if it's a fake battery.