D90 Kit Lens - Broken after Dropped (WAS: Any Chance of Defective Mount?)

[tsuacctnt]

Today I got a call from a very upset girlfriend. She went on a trip to visit a friend and brought her brand new Nikon

D90 with 18-105mm VR kit lens along for the ride. When she went to take it out of the camera bag the lens was no

longer attached to the camera. At first she accused me of running off and dropping her camera...I've been officially

forbidden from playing with her D90 because she doesn't think I play nice enough with my cameras, but after

discussing it for a little bit we couldn't think of any time the camera would have been dropped or even violently jarred.

She described the problem to me over the phone as, "there's three little plastic tabs and two of them are snapped

clean off, so the lens won't stay attached to the camera. I'm really bummed." I've never paid much attention to the

mount on the back of my Nikkor lenses so I dug out the cheap-o kit lens that came with my D200 an 18-70mm DX

expecting it to be constructed the same as her newer better faster VR DX lens to see what she was talking about.

Well, there's no plastic on the mount of that lens which surprised me since I thought it would be about the same as

the D90 kit lens. It seems really strange to me that the lens mount would break so easily. I personally have a very

unlucky Tamron 24-135 zoom that has been dropped twice, once onto a hardwood floor, the lens busted in half but

the metal mount stayed securely attached (I sent it in, had it repaired, and got it back good as new), and once onto

concrete, shattering the B&W UV filter but otherwise leaving the lens unphased...well, except for the glass dust that

somehow got under the front element. So, knowing that the camera hasn't seen any abuse is there any chance

Nikon will service the lens under warrenty or will my girlfriend have to send it in and pay for a new mount? Has

anyone else had problems with the plastic lens mount flanges?

[shuo_zhao]

I think the new 18-105 VR DX lens have a plastic mount. If the camera is dropped along with the lens, and it lands on the lens, the relatively brittle and weak plastics "tabs" would certainly be the weak spots. If something has to break, they probably will.

 

Nikon probably wouldn't provide free warrenty repairs on physically damaged items...<div></div>

[tsuacctnt]

I guess I can rule out a defective lens mount, my girlfriend suddenly remembered that her backpack that had the camera in it took a nasty four foot fall from the hook on the back of an airport bathroom stall. Any opinions on whether I should send the lens to Nikon for service vs a local shop?

[shuo_zhao]

Nikon's almost certainly not going to provide free service, and they will probably cost more than the local shop. But they can definitely do the job and do it well (though it may not be cost effective). I've never used a local shop, and am not sure how good they are. You can ship it back to Nikon and get a estimate. If it'll cost too much to get it fixed, you can always get a new lens, perhaps a different lens.

[ronald_moravec1]

The plastic mount lens will not take a side hit. Basically poor construction.

 

The good new is the mount is cheap. Had it not failed, the impact would be transfered to lens doing worse damage.

[shuo_zhao]

Check and make sure the camera is fine. A bent mount on the camera is much more problematic and costly to fix than

repairing or replacing a damaged plastic mount lens.

 

If you want a new lens to replace the damaged 18-105 (chances are repairs would cost too much), the 18-55 VR could be a

good low cost choice.

[tommyinca]

Here is your chance to score some brownie point. It is not that hard to change the plastic mount yourselves.

 

Contact Nikon Parts Department

Phone: 1 310 414 8107

Fax: 1 310 322 6979

7am – 3pm PST Mon – Fri

[edward_levert]

I have a 70-300 G with what is probably a fairly similar plastic lens mount. I sent it in this past July to see what the warranty dept would say about a cracked and sightly bent flange (one of the three). They claimed the damage was a result of improper handling, and would be glad to fix it for ~$140 US. I thought to myself, good joke, as a new lens cost less than that.

 

My guess is that the price to fix that mount will be similar to the price they quoted me, which included insured return shipping.

 

Best of luck.

[ShunCheung]

While it may not be difficult to change the mount yourself, a 4-foot drop could have damaged other parts of the lens

and/or the mount on the body. A slight mis-alignment may mean that you'll get all sorts of soft images with one side

of the frame out of focus, etc. That was exactly what happened to my 17-55mm/f2.8 DX after that was dropped inside

a padded camera bag.

 

If you have other lenses, I would check that D90 body thoroughly to make sure that its mount is still perfectly

aligned. It doesn't take much to knock it out of alignment.

 

It is best to have Nikon repair the 18-105 to make sure that it still meets quality standards afterwards.

It is like a $300 lens and can justify a modest repair cost.

[ronald_smith2]

This shows the down side of plastic-mounted lenses. Maybe you should spring for the 16-85mm VR, just a thought.

[elliot1]

No, this shows the down side of dropping your camera. And not using a proper camera bag.

 

This plastic mount likely saved you money - think of it kind of like an airbag for your camera. Be thankful that the lens mount broke and not the camera mount and/or other parts of the camera, which could be a very expensive repair. You can replace the lens for a brand new one for about $250.

 

And count your blessings that you did not break it!

 

Invest in a 'real' camera bag/backpack that offers the proper protection a fine camera needs.

 

"any chance Nikon will service the lens under warranty" - No!

[ShunCheung]

Elliot, I am surprised that you still haven't figured out that a plastic mount is not a good idea.

Nikon only uses a plastic mount in their lowest grade lenses.

 

Worst yet, Nikon has used adhistive tape to hold the elements in place in some of those plastic mount lenes. I don't know whether that is the case in the 18-105. It is very easy for any impact to knock the internal elements out of alignment. That is why even though the apparent damage is in the mount, I would get the entire lens, and perhaps the body also, checked out by Nikon.

[lex_jenkins]

Ditto, Shun's advice to have both the lens *and* body checked out. It's possible the lens mount on the body was bent just enough to affect alignment and other problems. Some of those parts are just sheet metal and very thin springs. The mirror and other parts should be checked as well. An impact hard enough to break the lens mount is hard enough to have affected the mirror, which pivots on a very delicately balanced mechanism.

 

Frankly, I wouldn't bother spending more than $100 to repair a kit lens for the same reasons Shun already gave. Optical alignment is likely to be affected by an impact hard enough to break the mount. If the repair estimate exceeds $100, just put the money toward a better lens.

[tsuacctnt]

I like the idea of just ordering the part and making the replacement myself. I'll have to wait until my girlfriend get's back to see what the overall damage is. The camera was actually in a LowePro Slingshot Camera Bag that was then inside another backpack but that's probably besides the point, it fell long enough and hard enough to break the lens off the camera like a twig. I kind of wonder if the VR mechamism might be loused up too, it seems like that would be a pretty sensitive component. I personally have a D200 I need to send in to Nikon for some work....because of a drop. The two of us must be the worst butterfungers on the planet. My D200 seems to work just fine after dropping it with two irritating exceptions, the display in the viewfinder moved into a funky angle that makes it hard to read, and the switch that tells the camera when the built in flash is deployed has gotten really finicky. Maybe I'll send my girlfriend's D90 along for the ride if anything looks even remotely out of place.

 

Maybe how I'll convince my girlfriend to proceed is to buy the part and make that quick fix and then have her put the savings towards a nice fast zoom or prime...but as long as it works she probably won't care. I think she's really happy with her little kit as it is and isn't a camera dork like me who is constantly lusting after faster glass.

 

I'm hoping that Elliot is right that the plastic mount acted as a fail-safe, breaking off instead of doing a lot more damage to the actual camera.

[jamie_koehler]

This is Chris's girlfriend. Just so you all know :) The camera honestly is very well taken care of. I am uber embarrassed that the camera, in two backpacks including one camera bag, fell 2 feet off the airport bathroom door onto my foot-not directly to the floor (I tried to catch it before it hit the ground). I am sooooo anal retentively careful with my stuff. I could not believe that the camera broke. Ugh. It just doesn't make sense that the lens should not have broken in such a situationI have looked at the camera and it appears that 2 of the tabs are broken, not all three which suggests to me that it was more of a sideways hit. Oh well, we will see what we do to fix it. Thanks to everyone for their advice. Hun, you are a way worse butter finger. I could provide pics of broken components to prove it. Love you!!

[ShunCheung]

Back in September 2005, my wife and I were standing inside an inexpensive restaurant in Paris trying to get lunch. Suddenly my LowePro Top Loader bag's strap came off the hook and the whole thing fell straight down onto the ground from about waist high. Too bad that we weren't in a fancier place as the floor was just concrete there.

 

The LowePro bag was well padded and everything looked fine when I took the camera (a D2X) and lens (17-55mm/f2.8 DX) out. However, in fact the lens mount was just slightly bent from the impact. You can see from the full version of this image captured a few hours later that the buildings in the background are sharp on the left side of the image, but they are out of focus on the right side. Even the fountain is soft on the right side:

http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00E/00EFGV-26574684.jpg

 

I sent the lens back to Nikon in Los Angeles. They identified the impact damage and charged me $135 or so to replace the mount.

 

My point is that this type of damage can be very subtle. If you decide to repair the lens yourself, make sure that you test it thoroughly. Enlarge the image all the way up and check at the pixel level.

 

Good luck, Jamie.

[carl_becker2]

IMHO you are much better off sending both the body and lens for check up and repair. For me there is nothing worse then trying to save time or money only to have to repeat the repair because it was not done right the first time. I like my stuff to work right when I want to use it. The lens mount breaking may have saved the body from damage. I believe every drop is different and the results are also different. I do prefer the metal mounts and for that matter the older manual focus lenses because of thier feel and construction. Lets hope you are lucky and the lens took the hit and is not to $$$ for repair.

[lex_jenkins]

I've lost track of the camera stuff I've had damaged over the years. Amazingly, most of it continued to function.

 

Several years ago a relative who'd gone digital sent me his Nikon N6006 with a 28-85/3.5-4.5 AF Nikkor, the film equivalent to the D70 and 18-70/3.5-4.5 DX. The camera was carefully packed in a Lowepro Off Trail waist bag, which itself was inside a larger padded camera bag, which was all packed carefully inside a sturdy shipping carton full of padding. The plastic film door latch on the N6006 (the Achilles Heel of that model) arrived broken. No problem. I just tape the door shut to use it. Works fine.

 

My most spectacular accident was fumbling an Olympus XA3. Slippery li'l sucker popped right out of my mitts and I put on my best Buster Keaton routine, chasing it around, bouncing it off my fingertips, almost grabbing it, overcorrecting and squirting it out again, 'til after around 20 minutes of juggling it up and down the block it finally landed smack on the sidewalk. (If only I'd remember to doff my big floppy clown shoes and red rubber nose I might have saved the thing). Barely a nick in the paint, no visible dents or damage but the film door was bent just enough that it's still tricky to shut. But the darned thing still works more than 10 years later and no light leaks despite the slightly warped door.