By Ron Eggers

October 11, 2005 — Sony Corp. recently issued a notice that a limited number of the CCD imaging sensors it manufactured between October 2002 and March 2004 may have problems. The problems, says the company, occur "when the product is used in camera mode. The LCD panel and/or electronic viewfinder exhibits either a distorted image or no image. We have determined that this condition only occurs to a limited number of units, but may be accelerated if the units are exposed to high temperature and humidity environment."

Sony went on to say that the company will "offer free out of warranty repair to the owners of applicable products exhibiting the above-mentioned condition caused by the image sensor device." Both digital still and video cameras are affected.

Sony provides CCD sensors for other digital camera manufacturers because it is one of the few large companies that can afford to run the specialized production facilities that are needed to make imaging sensors. Sony's CCDs account for a sizable portion of the total CCD production and its sensors find their way into the imaging products of other manufacturers. Consequently, Canon, Fujifilm and Konica Minolta have also recently posted similar notices for their cameras that use the affected Sony CCD image sensors.

Affected digital still cameras include:

Sony:

Cyber-shot DSC-F717, DSC-P10, DSC-P12, DSC-P2, DSC-P31, DSC-P32, DSC-P51, DSC-P52, DSC-P7, DSC-P71, DSC-P72, DSC-P8, DSC-P92, DSC-U10, DSC-U20, DSC-U30, DSC-U60, DSC-V1; CD Mavica MVC-CD250, MVC-CD400, MVC-CD500, MVC-FD100, MVC-FD200.

Canon:

PowerShot A60, A70, A75, A300, A310, S230 Digital ELPH / Digital IXUS V3 / IXY D320, SD100 Digital ELPH / Digital IXUS II / IXY Digital 30, SD110 Digital ELPH / Digital IXUS IIs / IXY Digital 30a.

Fujifilm:

FinePix A303, F410 Zoom, F700, S2 Pro.

Konica Minolta:

DiMAGE A1, 7i, 7Hi, Xi, Xt, X20, S414, S300

(Contact Ron Eggers at Newswatch@earthlink.net)