Sand in the Focusing Ring

[jenseay]

Hey Everyone,

 

I went to the beach today to take some pictures of my nephew, and the wind was

blowing. I now have a piece of sand inside the focusing ring of my 50 mm f/1.4

Canon lens. It's keeping the lens from focusing closer than .6 m (it should go

to .45 m) but only makes a scratching sound when I get to that .6 m mark.

 

Any advice? I tried using some canned air but it's not quite getting there. I

am afraid I'm going to need to send it away for repair. Any recommendations

for that?

 

Jen Seay

[Ed_Ingold]

Sand becomes entrapped in the grease and canned air won't touch it. The only way out is with a thorough CLA.

[neil_parker]

You can try taking a business card or similar and gently slide it under the focus ring and

'floss' it out. This will work sometimes on some lenses, depending on their construction,

not sure about the canon lens. You don't want to apply enough force to tear off any of the

card and make it worse.

[jenseay]

Thanks guys. I'll try it out and see if it works!

 

Jen

[Jerry_]

...or try a bit of 3M Magic Mending tape. If you can work the tape to the area of the grit, it may 'snag' the sand without doing much harm to the lens itself. (Next beach outing, find a old junker lens to take along....it won't matter if it gets abused.)

[ron c sunshine coast,qld,a]

Sand can nearly allways be 'pushed aside' by rapidly turning the focus ring back and forth several times.What happenes is that it get's pushed into the loose grease beside the helicals,where it is then harmless.If it doesn't clear after ten or twenty turns then stop and take it to a canon repair center.