Lenses

My beloved Sigma 18-125 has developed a problem. The focus ring/mechanism has become sticky. Very sticky. So sticky in fact, that I’m able to attach and remove the lens by holding the lens by the focussing ring, and the ring doesn’t budge.

That’s with the lens set to manual focus. Not good.

It was first noticed when I was doing photos under the pier. The lens would sometimes crawl into focus. Back then I put this down to some ‘feature’ of the 350D, as I already know of its “I’ll not focus whilst there’s a bright source of light in the frame” ‘feature’.

Some days later, I noticed the lens (or camera, at the time) would refuse to attempt to focus. Yep, press the shutter to get the camera to focus, the lens would give two whirrs, the viewfinder image stayed exactly how it was, the camera would report “Nope, can’t focus on that”. Putting the lens into manual focus, there’d be no problem, I’d be able to focus and the camera would then give its usual “Focus achieved” beeps.

A couple of days afterwards, the lens became noticeably worse. This time, along with “Can’t focus, won’t focus”, the lens would sometimes crawl into focus (yep, alarm bells rang on this one). There was even one instance of the lens trying to get into focus and “overshooting” the focussing point… repeat… “overshooting” the focus point… repeat… “over”… etc. And now, the lens will only focus if a good amount of physical exertion is applied at first.

And the odd thing is, there’s no liquid spillage marks on the lens barrel at all!

So I have a dilema. Do I return the lens to Sigma, hoping they’ll fix the fault under some sort of “Lenses don’t become sticky through general wear and tear” warranty? Is this a common fault with these lenses? I think I can rule out the damp sea air, as the fault *was* present (just about) whilst I was doing the photos under the pier. I think, anyway. It certainly wasn’t evident as much then, anyway.

In the meantime, I’m left with the delightful Canon 18-55 ‘kit’ lens. That’s the Canon 18-55 ‘kit’ lens… the NON-IS version that was dished out with every 350D ‘kit’. Soft images when used at f/5.6 and wider, lacking the focal range the Sigma had… and it’s plastic!! Joy of joys.

Which brings me to a gripe. Sat in front of me are three mechanical cameras. Two Leicas, one FED-NKVD. The youngest lens on these cameras has to be the Jupiter-8, made in 1974. Does it have a problem? Nope… none at all! Do any of the older lenses have a fault? Nope… none at all! 30-plus years of usage, and the lenses are functioning as they were meant to when they were assembled! Why can’t modern equipment match that!? Does the phrase “Built to last” now include “until it dies” on the end? If so… why??