only death and taxes are certain. :think: if your first shot is always black and the camera hangs requiring a power off/on with "ERR" in your viewfinder then its the same problem. it was only recently - a month ago? - that sony isolated the problem and issued a replacement notice although only in US and Japan websites. i called sony here and a Ms Sabrina from the service centre confirmed there was a staff notice to that effect. my only unhappiness with the ssc is they never contacted the local km folks or issued any such notice - act blur? :dunno:
Actually my camera has never issued a ERR warning... it just gave me consecutive black frames until I switch off and removed the batteries before starting all over again... that happened about a few times... then I knew what the black frame problem was...