Thread: Sony DCR-PC330e Problem

Hello

I hope somebody may be able to help me with this!

I have an out-of-warranty Sony DCR-PC330e which has given me excellent service until it started having a rather irritating problem.

As I hold the still photo capture button down to get it to focus, and just prior to taking the photo, the camera acts as if I have accidentally pressed the manual focus or backlight buttons - and goes into manual focus mode or sets up for backlight conditions - or both. The appropriate manual focus and backlight icons appear on the bottom left of the screeen. I can correct the problem by pressing the focus and backlight buttons until the icons disappear again.

This happened occasionally to start with, but has got more and more frequent as time has gone on. So I have some questions:

- Has anybody else experienced this?
- Have you found a fix?
- Has anybody else had experience of getting Sony to repair a camera? Is it very very expensive? Or do they provide good customer service for this sort of thing?

Any responses welcomed.

Thanks!

Ben

In 10 minutes of Googling I was unable to get any useful hits for you.

It sounds like an unfortunate fault to me - have you tried disconnecting the battery completely for a few minutes? - It's a long shot, I know....

I dread to think how much a service centre may charge you for a repair, even if one is possible. If you do go down the repair route, I wouldn't take any chances with an 'independent' - instead, I'd use an authorised Sony Service Centre and get a clear idea of price up front.

Good luck.

But for what it's worth, no camcorder is as good at being a stills camera as the real thing. I think the popular view is that stills features on camcorders are gimicky, to say the least. If it were me, I'd use the fault on your camcorder as a good excuse to go and buy a good digital SLR. No wonder I'm always broke....