EX3: MF failout
 

Yesterday I had the oportunity to film during a couple of hours. And two times I wasn't able to focus manually - no reaction when moving the lens' wheel. I doublechecked all bottons but nothing strange. Push AF still worked. I turned the cam off and on and: MF worked again. any ideas?

Markus

You did push the foocus ring fully back into the manual position presumably? Just trying to rule things out!
Steve

Yes I also checked the ring in MF / AF but it neither worked in AF nor MF, just the Push AF button.

Markus

That does sound strange as when it's in MF mode as far as I know there are no elelctronics involved, it's a purely mechanical focus mechanism.
Steve

I had similar problem with my EX-1 1st week of ownership.
No Manual Focus. It then started alternating between Focus not working and the Zoom (not manual) not working (must be some electronics involved somewhere). They replaced it.

Very strange problem and never found out a reason why.

Good luck.

Doesn't appear to be a mechanical mechanism. With the lens removed from the camera, adjusting the focus ring (in the manual positiion) does not affect the elements in the lens - everything stays in place. It "feels" mechanical, but it seems that it is really electronic.

It is electronic. There is no actual mechanical connection. If you turn the manual focus ring fast enough it is possible to see some lag.

Nope - the EX1/EX3 Fujinon lens is a servo controlled varifocal, with the focus always under electronic control (zoom and iris is mechanical). When in Full MF mode, the lens reports the absolute position of the focus scale and the electronics focus accordingly - the only reason that push AF and shot transition are disabled is that the camera has no way of moving the range scale. The Auto Flange Back procedure recalibrates the focus lookup table for each end of the zoom range, and affects back focus even on Full MF.

This (and electronic chromatic aberration correction) is why the EX1 and EX3 are available for much less than the price of a comparable broadcast zoom for an F335 or F355. It also means there is nothing special about Full MF; it is nice to have end stops but the lens works the same in MF with the ring forward.

Nick

Had the exact same problem--turned off camera, turned on, able to focus in MF, went to AF, able to focus, back to MF, not able to focus. Ring just turned and turned. Thought it was having AF assist on, so turned it off, no difference. Unseated lens, re-did flange flocus adjust, now no problem, but I have no explanation why problem the arose and very scary if it will rear its ugly head in the middle of a shoot.

Amazing to learn this only now. Was I the only one who thought it was at least mostly mechanical?

I knew it couldn't be entirely mechanical due to the flangeback procedure, but I still thought there was a mechanical connection.

It is a surprise. But what's more surprising to me is how well it works and feels, it's really nice, that's why I assumed it wa mechanical. But sounds like it's a bit prone to problems.
Steve

Given that removing and replacing the lens seemed to cure the problem, is it due to an iffy contact between the lens and body? If it happens again, it would be worth checking whether the lens is passing any data (eg, focus for the DOF scale, zoom and aperture settings) back to the camera.

Nick

My EX1 lost the ability to focus to infinity in MF. They replaced the lens. This was my second lens with the first one being replaced because of foreign matter inside.

I've had one instance of something like this happening. as I zoomed the focus moved as well. Powering the camera off and on cleared the condition. I'll see how it goes once I get it back from Sony, 9 days so far, maybe they've found something major.

My EX3 will go back to Sony this week, next week I will tell you what they made....

That might be the culprit. After it stopped focusing, I noticed that the lens release button was slightly off its complete down position and the lens may have gotten unseated while loading it in the bag. But it took several attempts of re-seating and re-flange testing before it came back. Don't know if checking whether it was sending signals would tell anything, as it did find focus in two modes before losing it.

I've had the same problem on my new EX3 twice this week. When going from MF to AF ring (to use the Shot Transition feature) and then back to MF, the MF ring doesn't move the glass at all. No feedback. Has anyone got to the bottom of this? Off and on resets the lens and solves the problem, but it's hardly a long-term solution!

My problem was resolved by a new cam. Sony Support wasn't able to reproduce the problem but the behaved quite well and believed me. With the new EX3 no problems at all.

Markus

Same issue on a demo unit
 

I dont have my EX3 yet but in August I have visited a Sony retailer in Vienna to try the cam.

Since the cam was new for me it took some time to realize there was something wrong. The manual focus didnt work, I told the technician there who became nervous and had no idea what to do.

Finally I have switched the unit off and back on then it worked. I believed back then that it was the demo unit and somehow people used it rough or inappropriate.

But now it seems to be another of Sony's usual launch gift glitches... I wonder how this going to be solved. Does replacement fix this or the replacement units also carry a time bomb to be activated any time?

Unfortunately it's not only Sony. I ordered different electronic stuff (storage system, mini video camera) and all this stuff had bugs. Concerning the MF problem on the EX3 I am quite sure that if you don't realize the error in the first two hours of filming it won't occur. But despite the small problem I am really happy with the EX3.

Markus

I've had this happen to me a couple of times on a course last week. Tunring it off and then back on seemed to clear it. Was there an actual reason for this happening e.g. mechanical or electronic?

I sent the cam in for a firmware upgrade and this solved my problem. Have not had it happen since. Your firmware for ex3 needs to be at least 1.3.

There is a bug in the older EX3 firmware that cause the focus system to stop working when you are using focus ring forward manual focus with macro turned on and the lens zoomed in. When you try to focus and go into the macro region the focus locks up. Restarting the camera will get things going again. Two ways to stop it happening: Turn macro off or get the firmware updated.

Mine's at 1.02...looks like I'll need to take it in.

Just sent it back to the vendor for return to Sony. Will report back anything useful.

Finally got my EX3 back after 3 weeks. The firmware version is now 1.04.0084. The MxR cards still work so that's a bonus...I haven't had a chance to check but I'm assuming that this fixed my loss of focus problem also...I will only know when I get to start using it again.