Canon 200mm f1.8L, does anyone know of a service center that can repair it?

Hello all,

 

I have a bit of a dilemma. My 200mm f1.8L has lost its ability to focus,

automatically or manually.

 

I sent it to the Canon service center in NJ but it was returned to me unrepaired

because "the service life has expired and parts may no longer be available".

They were kind enough to provide me with a list of telephone numbers to US Canon

Authorized service centers that may still have parts, but it looks like most of

them source their parts from, you guessed it, the Canon service centers that I

had originally sent the lens to.

 

I'd hate for my sharpest lens to be reduced to a mere paperweight.

 

Does anyone know of a service center with parts for this model?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

-Carlos

You may need to find someone with the lens that has something else broken to act as a parts donor. Unfortunately, AF/USM failure is about the commonest problem with this lens, and it has been a good while since spare motors were available. It might be worth exploring whether someone with some ingenuity might be able to fix it without the aid of new parts, or by using some bits purloined from elsewhere (depending on the actual problem detail). Ken Phillips' disassembly of the 70-200 f/2.8 IS unit springs to mind (something that no normal Canon repair centre would ever attempt, I suspect - although I think that the disassembly finally provoked Canon into upgrading the IS unit with a fix after the real problem was identified by Ken).

 

http://home.fuse.net/pets/EOS/70-200/70-200.htm

As Mark says, USM motor failure is pretty catastropic for the older fast Canon Telephoto lenses because they use the motor even in manual focus mode. Canon no longer stock spare motors and it's possible that none exist other than the ones in working lenses :-(

 

What would be great would be if someone could engineer a manual focus mechanism for the lens, so at least you could manually focus it. I don't know if anyone was ever done this. It's probably not easy, but it must be possible. Whether it would cost more than a new lens I don't know.

 

The only use I can think of for a dead lens would be if you somehow set the focus to infinity and used it for astrophotography. I know that the 200/1.8 is used quite a bit for that purpose. You might also be able to mount a focusing eyepiece on it and use it as a telescope.

 

I'm not sure how much it would bring on eBay, but I'm sure someone would buy it, even in it's present condition. Hell, I'll bid $50 myself...

 

Not that it's much use, but here's a parts list for the lens: http://f20c.com/stuff/canon/partslist/EF%20200%201.8%20L%20USM.PDF

 

If you can find an authorized service center to look at it, it's probably worth it. The focus failure could be due to all sorts of things other than an actual USM motor failure. It could be a cracked trace on a PC board or a broken connection. USM motors don't have a lot of moving parts. The trick is finding a repair tech these days who knows how to do more than swap parts until it works. Someone who actually understands what's going on may be hard to find.

 

If you do find someone, let us know because you're not the only one in your position. The same applies to the non-IS versions of all Canon's long telephoto lenses. Very hard to find anyone with spare parts.

 

You might try the sportsshooter.com forums. Those guys use a lot of the old Canon telephoto lenses and I know they have discussed the repair problems they have.

WASP arrays:

 

http://www.scitech.ac.uk/PMC/PRel/STFC/wasp.aspx

Thanks for all the information, Mark and Bob!

 

I've emailed a number of Canon repair centers with a description the lens' symptoms and am hoping to hear back from one that can be of assistance.

 

This is so frustrating! I can live with a dying AF motor making my lens MF only, but to have a lens in good condition rendered completely useless is just such a waste. I can't believe that Canon would stop making updates to these ultra-rare and ultra-expensive lenses. Several forumners at SportsShooter have made references to photographers with pristine MK1 300/2.8's and 400/2.8's "sitting in the closet" because their USM motor wore out.

 

It seems unbelievable that a company as large as Canon does not have the resources or is unwilling to maintain production of parts for their flagship EF lenses, a big part of their heritage, in effect leaving their clients out in the dark. I can understand parts not being available for easily replaceable EF lenses or FD lenses and film cameras, but EF is the dominant digital camera lens mount. It is relevant today and will be for a while until Canon kills it like they did with FD. I'd even forgive them for not having a replacement element for one of the old super telephotos. But to discontinue production of a wear and tear item that can leave the lens inoperative without warning and cannot be substituted by third party suppliers is something else.

 

I love Canon and have enthusiastically recommended their equipment to everyone who asks me for advice. But I just lost a lot of goodwill, and have been reduced from a blindly-loyal customer to one that buys their equipment only when there is no other choice.

 

Anyway, I should begin receiving responses from repair centers next week, after the long weekend. I will pass on any information I receive about this issue.

 

Thanks again for the very useful information and for hosting and moderating this great forum!

that sucks carlos. let me know how that turns out, i feel like selling mine now while it still works :/

If you are still monitoring this thread, you will be interested to look at this one:

 

http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00QHjI

Hello,

 

Just wanted to post a follow-up: I was able to get the lens repaired and it is now back in perfect working order.

 

The repair shop who was able to do the magic trick was: Midwest Camera Repair. They were, literally, the only shop that replied with good news out of the hundred or so that I emailed asking for assistance.

 

 

Thanks to all who gave suggestions on how to get the lens back to working condition!

Did they tell you exactly what they did? Did they have a part in stock or did they actually repair something that was broken?