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Sony DSC-P93 Lens Cap Malfunction

Several months ago, my girlfriend passed along to me a Sony DSC-P93 which she had earlier received as a gift, and loyal to film, deemed useless for her purposes.

Recently, the lens cap mechanism became unreliable about opening on power-up or closing on power-down, most often getting stuck halfway. I took it to the local camera shop where the repairman gave it repeated doses of canned air until it appeared to behave correctly. He handed it back to me and said, "these are very susceptible to dust." I replied that maybe Sony should have provided a lens cap for the lens cap.

Within the week, it was again failing regularly. It's kept in a case when not in use, I've made various attempts at cleaning it, but the problem persists.

Frequently having to manually nudge open the lens cap, and considering the effort spared next time if it doesn't close on power down, I wonder if it would be better if the lens cap mechanism were removed to be permanently open.

Is this a reasonable solution? If so, how do I go about it?

SPR
Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:37:11 -0700

That's not a bad idea. My DSC-P92 also have a varient of this problem sometimes . . . it doesn't always closes the covers all the way. Might as well do without it.

It's easy to take apart the camera, just a couple of screws and detaching ribbon cables. Once you get to the inside of the camera, you'll have to remove the circuit board and the internal chassis (see the picture on the HDC back cover). Then you'll get to the lens mechanism.

I haven't taken about the lens mechanism yet, but show us pictures when you get there, maybe we can help you out.

Chieh Cheng
Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:57:33 -0700

I repaired it with presurized air.

Gazpa
Wed, 15 Feb 2006 14:56:12 -0800

My Sony Cybershot DSC-P72 and DSC-P93 were both susceptible to sensor dust. Pictures taken in bright conditions became very splotchy. Cleaning the lens did no good. Mailing the camera to Sony for repair did no good either. The TX repair center quality control employs chimps who don't even bother to double check the results. I disassembled the P93 camera to clean the sensor, but then the lens turret acquired another problem and the pictures became blurry.

To avoid losing my investment in costly Memory Sticks, I bought a DSC-H1 zoom model. Despite a "steady shot" image stabilization, low light pictures are still blurry and the pictures taken in "auto" mode look red if taken in incandescent light. In video mode, the auto focus is unreliable and it provides worse sound quality than either of my two earlier Sonys. The H1 has a dinky 1 / 2.5 sensor, but is priced in the league of higher quality 1 / 1.8 size sensors. The dynamic range is inferior. Pictures taken on a sunny day are a bothersome mix of over and under exposure. The power button is over sensitive to moisture and tends to start and stop all by itself.

Now I read that the H1 can have a dust problem too. SLR photographers listen: cleaning a point and shoot sensor is NOT as easy as an SLR because few point and shoot models come with instructions for this purpose, and they are not designed for easy maintenance of this sort.

Too few camera reviews are written by people who have lived with (or suffered with) their cameras for an extensive time.

Sony is a good make for people who like to pay higher prices, don't need a camera very often, and don't mind about marginal image or sound quality.

JKoch
Sun, 21 May 2006 19:31:42 -0700

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