The sun came out after an evening thunderstorm. I still love the telephoto macro mode (despite the limitations - pic #2 with the tiny blue flowers looks like a Monet painting if you zoom in! But I still really like the image).
The 1 VIII rumors are circling a telephoto upgrade, which is welcome.
Update: in both modes, I shot a video where I individually covered the microphones with my finger, isolating the issue to the rear facing mic port (built into the camera island and between the ultra wide and main lenses on the 1 VII). VERY carefully I gently air-dusted out the microphone hole. I have sound! There's still a loud popping noise every 10 seconds or so (is that normal? It strikes me as the software toggling the rear mic sensitivity). Dust/grime in the mic port may have been messing up the software algorithm.
I took a short video this morning and noticed that the microphones didn't pick up any sound. I don't shoot video often, so I looked back through my albums and found the last video I took with working sound (April 11th).
I have isolated the problem: when "Voice Priority (rear)" is enabled, there is no sound except for a loud pop when the video starts. But "All directions (stereo) works without issue. That implies a software bug in the Sony Camera app. Has anyone else encountered this and have a fix?
The most recent System update is not the culprit (which I installed on April 27th), as there is a third video from April 25th with the no-sound issue as well (and the second most recent update was installed March 30th).