16-35 half broken?

So somehow the focus ring of my 16-35 has gotten stuck - it now only

turns about 2-3 centimeters. The AF still works perfectly.

 

Question: has this ever happened to any of y'all and how often am I

going to have to keep sending it for repairs? Isn't the 16-35 supposed

to be rugged?

This or a similar thing happened to my 28-135 IS at Schiphol Airport, on the way to Madagascar, after I dropped the lens. Some brute force solved this. Needless to say I felt uncomfortable with this and I even thought of buying a new one at the airport. After I "fixed" the problem the lens has worked well ever since. These things happen, even with L lenses. Have it repaired if you need MF.

<p>I can't speak from personal experience, but from the perspective of someone who has been reading this forum for many years, I can't say I recall a lot of problems like yours having been posted. And I think most of the similar-sounding problems I've seen posted about have been due either to old age or accident damage.</p>

 

<p>Sure, it's rugged, but that doesn't mean foolproof, indestructible, or free of manufacturing defects. It's still possible to break a well-constructed lens, and just as some lenses leave the factory with elements misaligned or similar (see the reputation of the 70-200/4 for being very sharp, then ask Puppy Face about his), I'd imagine some lenses leave the factory with hidden defects which end up breaking sooner than one might hope.</p>

Since AF still works fine, the issue is really with the focusing ring itself, not the focusing mechanism. It's likely that it can be repaired for good and that you won't have any more problems with it.

Surely the optimistic view is that it's half not broken?

Isaac,

 

I wanted to say the same thing - the lense must really be half OK :)

This is not related to the 16-35L, but the 100-400L has focus ring problems, which are really push-pull zoom related problems, whereby one of about a zillion tiny ball bearings between the two tubes can jump their track and jam up the works. Eventually, both push-pull and manual focus become virtually impossible (AF unaffected). I briefly had a copy of this lens (2nd hand) that exhibited this behavior, and subsequently discovered that it's a "known flaw" of the 100-400L push-pull design that occurs if the lens is racked out too hard when zooming (there's no dampner to soften the blow). I can tell you that it turned me right off ever buying another one; I figure that Canon are bound to update the lens eventually with a better design, and will perhaps re-look at it then.

It's "fixed" now. I just twisted the ring back and forth a few times and it eventually started turning freely.

 

Of course, I'm wondering wether I've be as lucky next time.

I've just noticed that I can hear something rolling around in the 16-35... Probably a ball bearing that's come loose?

 

Great.