Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsSerious Shutter Issue
Reviewed in Canada on November 17, 2020
The photos that come out of the A73 are absolutely stunning! Just close your eyes, point and shoot… most likely the shot will look beautiful. I am coming from the micro four thirds world, specifically Panasonic’s wonderful line up of cameras, the GH3, GH4 and G9. I sold all my Panasonic gear to make the switch over to Sony, and wow was I happy at first, BUT, oh boy it’s a big BUT!
I bought my first A73 in March of 2020 and my second A73 body in September of 2020. During a client shoot in October of this year, one of my A73’s shutter got stuck, it froze in place, in the closed position, covering the sensor. I got an error message telling me to shut down and restart the camera. I followed the instructions but noting changed, the shutter was still stuck. The camera was 7 months old at this point and did not really have much usage because of the pandemic, so it was almost a new camera. After doing quite a bit of research, I can certainly say that there is a serious shutter issue with the A73 bodies. I am disappointed. Here is why. It is clearly a well-known issue but Vistek, the camera store I bought the cameras from, told me nothing about it. Why are camera stores still selling this defective camera body? Why hasn’t Sony issued a recall? I spent over $5000 on these two bodies, that is a lot of money for me and most people.
I sent my camera in for service, it was still under warranty. That was about 3 weeks ago. Still no camera.
I shot over 100 thousand photos with my Panasonic G9 camera, never any issues. Actually, I never had any issues with any of my Panasonic cameras, and they were much cheaper than Sony bodies.
I just wish Sony and retailers would do the right thing. For example:
- make customers aware before they spend hard earned money
- take these bodies off the shelves
- offer HASSLE free service or replacements, and free loaners for working professional photographers.
The shutter is kind of an important component, Sony should be on top of this. I cannot recommend this camera.
Yay for me, I am stuck with two of them.