Photographers Find a Spider Weaving Webs in Their Sony a7 IV’s EVF
Dutch visual storytellers and travelers Krista and Ties, known as Bluehill_Stories on Instagram and YouTube, are currently on an adventure in New Zealand and have run into an unusual problem with their Sony camera — a spider decided to move in.
Somehow, Krista and Ties are not the first Sony shooters to find themselves in this sticky predicament. In March 2022, PetaPixel spoke with Canadian photographer Joel Robison who also had an arachnid move into his camera’s EVF. In Robison’s case, it was a Sony a7R III, while Krista and Ties shoot on an a7 IV.
Robison never determined precisely how the spider got into his EVF, although his theory is similar to what Krista and Ties believe may have happened in their case, and it has to do with lenses.
“From what I can guess, the spider may have been hiding inside one of my lenses and when I switched and connected the new lens to the camera body, it crawled out and into the camera maybe towards a bit of light?” Robison theorized in 2022.
Paying homage to Dr. Doofenshmirtz in Phineas and Ferb, PetaPixel‘s editor-in-chief Jaron Schneider pointed out this classic and topical clip.
It is weird that two Sony shooters have had spiders move into their viewfinders. Of course, insects and arachnids do not need much space to make ingress, as Lensrentals showed with a dead fly inside a weather-sealed Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II lens in 2019.
Krista and Ties first spoke to Sony Alpha Rumors about their problem, seeking a potential solution from fellow photographers.
“Anyone know how to get the spider out of the viewfinder? Tried to open up the front part but it appears to be connected to the whole body… Probably the spider got there during a lens swap or something? Would be awesome to get some help here because we’re on a thruhike in New Zealand right now. Thanks!”
Krista and Ties arrived “back in civilization” last night and tell PetaPixel, “The spider was in there for about four days and disappeared this morning. Probably went somewhere inside the camera… the web is still in the viewfinder.”
They took their infested camera to a local electronics store in New Zealand, but unfortunately, the store couldn’t take the a7 IV apart.
“The camera has been working fine so far. Just a bit afraid it will cause more damage or affect image quality at some point,” the pair explains.
“The electronics store here is not able to open/inspect or send in the camera… so we’re basically screwed. We’re in mail contact now with Sony Europe, but they asked us to send in the camera to Europe.”
Unfortunately, given that Krista and Ties are in New Zealand, this isn’t particularly helpful advice, even if it is understandable. Sony has a single professional service center in New Zealand, located in Ponsonby, but camera repairs are not part of the center’s listed offerings.
Hopefully, if the critter is still inside the a7 IV, it will safely leave soon; there is something sad about an animal having eight legs but nowhere to go. If the spider is meandering around inside the camera, weaving webs but having nothing to eat, there may soon be an altogether different problem inside the a7 IV.
