saga of the lens
So, my 50mm (this one) broke the other night with little warning. middle of a shoot, and it stops focusing. My spare 50 was at home in pieces, and my other lenses were also at home. This is the reality of getting ambushed with shoots in the middle of a road trip. Welcome to my life.
Anyway, thinking that someone had spilled beer on my lens, I (somewhat desperately) ran it under the faucet in the bathroom, and that seemed to restore some limited movement to it, so I went with it. Of course, that wasn’t what the real problem was, and no water actually got in the lens because it’s weather sealed. More on that in a minute.
Fast forward to the blue note tuesday night, and the lens had given up completely, and another rinse did nothing. Now, I’d already sent this lens to nikon once for this same problem, I told them to clean it, and when it came back it seemed all right. But here it was again, and so I was having visions of buying a new lens that wouldn’t have this recurring problem. Probably this one. So, that decision made, I figured I had nothing to lose by taking the lens apart last night and seeing if I could at least figure out what was causing the problem.
This isn’t as odd as it sounds. I’m pretty adept at fixing things in a general way. Cars, bikes, appliances, laptops, whatever. They’re machines, not magic boxes. So I got out my trusty phillips head and started unscrewing (protip: modern lenses usually disassemble from the flange). What I discovered, once I was inside, was, well, odd.
The inside of the lens was more like a laptop than any of the other lenses I’ve worked on. That actually made it easier, thank god. Lenses are usually a bitch to work with, which is why I wait till I’ve got nothing left to lose to try anything. Anyway, one of the layers in my lens, the one marked in the photo above, was off, like it’d been knocked out of place. My suspicion is that it’s just held in place by spring tension, and a combination of bad knocks and bad luck threw it off. But, more to the point, it shouldn’t be loose like that. This is a top-line relatively new lens, supposedly professional grade. It certainly cost me enough.
Anyway, now it’s back together and mostly working… the autofocus isn’t, but I can at least manually focus, and that’s enough for now. Maybe when I get that replacement lens I’ll tear it down again and see if I can fix it completely.
COMING SOON… Photos! Pretty Girls! Fun, Adventure, Really Wild Things!
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