[Scythels]

Well now that it's broken in two you can see the amazing build quality of sony products.  Metal on the outside, just enough to get commentary for how solid the build quality is... a step inside and it's plastic the whole way down. 

 

Sony repair will be able to replace the lens, they should be unable to service it, or at least that is the story in the US.  So you'll be playing the same roulette as samyang to get back a "good copy," as sony's suppliers have very loose quality control.

[stoppingdown]

Metal outside? The SEL70200G is clearly plastic outside. I don't have experience of any other lens zoom in that range, it was my first one. Honestly, for what concern the shorter lenses (including zoom wides), it's not that my Nikkor were much stronger (they were the 12-24mm AF-S, the 18-70mm AF-S, the 35mm f/1.8 AF-S. The 180mm f/2.8 is a totally different story, but it is a rather old model.

 

I'm not a lot concerned for robustness of the lenses I have so far, because that kind of accident should be rare. For a longer zoom, well, I'd be worried, because in my experience I expose it a lot. My Nikkor 300mm f/4 never fell and it's perfectly in order, but a number of small bumps show that it took some shock. 

[stoppingdown]

Anyway... sent on Friday 11, the repair was done by Wednesday 16. Too bad the courier did some mess with my address, so instead of having the lens back for the past weekend (I spent some time on the Alps) I got it only today. In any case, I'm definitely pleased with the time of the repair service. My previous repair was with Nikon (a number of years ago to be honest, so perhaps it's not directly comparable) and they took months.

 

I'll run some tests in this week. I'm going to take some reproducible shots (weather apart) that I used to compare it with some Nikkor lenses a few months ago, so it should be a good comparison. I'll also have some random shooting of course. Any other suggestion for other quick tests? 

 

Thanks,

[stoppingdown]

First quick test passed: landscape shots at 200mm and 135mm, Æ’/8, were not distinguishable from those I made just after buying the lens, and they are fine. Some fun stuff is happening at 70mm, where I detected that the lens showed some slight decentering affecting one side: now, after the repair, the affected side is the opposite one! But it looks like the defect has been reduced in intensity.

 

I think I'll have everything tested after the weekend; but so far so good for the italian official repair shop.

[stoppingdown]

Just to say that I was able to run my mandatory three (*) sessions of tests from the tripod, and the repair seems ok.

 

(*) Almost, because it's a period of bad weather - at least in the weekends! - and my standard test requires full sun.

[stoppingdown]

Final post on this thread! I've been out for three days and my SEL70200G performed fine, including the stabiliser. I think I can say the incident is over.

[Brightcolours]

Happy you are happy with the repair. Enjoy the combination!