Worst case of lens 'distortion' I've ever had (Tamron content).

Naboo32

Naboo32

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Andy
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Don't worry Tamron fans, this isn't a pop at our favourite third party lens manufacturer :D, this is a sad case of 'user error' :crying:.

I'm off to Venice on Friday, for a week's landscape/cityscape photography. As part of my preparations, I have been cleaning and testing all of the lenses that I intend to take and making some test shots with them. When it came to the turn of the (frankly, excellent) Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, I hooked it up to the D700, clamped the D700's 'L' bracket to the tripod (set up to 1m high) and took my hands off it.

Whuummpppp !!!!

2kgs of Nikon and lens land on my hardwood floor :shake:. I pick up the camera to survey the damage. Luckily, the camera switches on and appears to have all of the vital signs of life. I compose for a test shot and press the shutter release to trigger the auto-focus.

"wwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrr....rrrrrrrr....rrrrrrr.......pppttt"!, goes the ultra-sonic motor in the Tamron, but nothing happens with the blurry image in the screen. I try moving the focus ring manually and it graunches around, without really ever seeming to give me sharp focus. I then take it off and try the D700 with another AF lens, which works just fine - the camera, at least, is OK :).

It's only then that I decide to inspect the Tamron for physical damage. I take it off the camera and twist it around in my hand, as I look at each side in turn. Something doesn't feel right with the lens, although I can't quite put my finger on it :thinking:.

Oh wait .....

.... I think I've found the problem :LOL: .......



Tamron_28-75mm_bent.jpg



Needless to say, I won't be taking this lens to Venice with me (except maybe to hurl into a canal).

In fairness though, I knew when I bought it that (in a strange way) having a 'cheap' plastic lens on the D700 was always going to be a kind of 'insurance policy' against damaging the camera if I was ever stupid enough to drop it. This has certainly proven to be the case :|. Had I had the 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikon 'Beast' on there, I may well have damaged the lens mount (not to mention my landlord's wooden floor :D) into the bargain.

So, I have no mid-range zoom now and am going to have to make do with a 50mm prime to cover me from 35mm to 85mm, not to mention having effectively lost all of the money that I paid for the Tamron (I'll try offering it for sale as, "one careless owner", but I don't think I'll get much back on it). Still, nobody died :|!

Anyway, I'm not looking for sympathy (as I obviously don't deserve much), but I thought it good to share this experience with you all, for two reasons;

Firstly, secure as they are when properly attached, Arca-style clamps are also fairly easy to misuse if you can't see what you're doing. Instead of the bracket being pushed down flat against the baseplate, I had accidentally let the groove on mine slip up above the jaws of the clamp and the resistance that I felt as I turned the screw was the clamp itself coming to the end of its travel :bang:. Consequently, when I took my hand off it and gravity took over, the camera just fell forward and off the tripod.

Secondly, you now know just how (relatively) little force it takes to destroy one of these mild steel/plastic zoom lenses - one small step for a Nikon D700; one giant leap too far for a Tamron 28-75 :LOL:!

When I get back from holiday, I have to have a re-think. Do I buy another one of these lenses and risk having the same thing happen again, or do I shell out for the Nikon 24-70mm and hope that it (and the camera) can withstand similar punishment if it happens again :shrug:.

Decisions, decisions ...
 
devastating :( just before going away must be a bummer too! i know there isn't much chance of getting it sorted before you go away but how about insurance? they do they cover accidental damage? just an idea!
 
andy1868 said:
devastating :( just before going away must be a bummer too! i know there isn't much chance of getting it sorted before you go away but how about insurance? they do they cover accidental damage? just an idea!
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ukglyn said:
Nightmare at anytime, but just before your holiday:shake:

Perhaps your post holiday decision could be met in the middle somewhere, why not put the sigma 24-70 f2.8 into the pot, lots cheaper than the Nikon.

Hope your holiday goes well, & is uneventful in the gear mishap stakes(y)
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Thanks very much for the comforting words guys, I really appreciate it (y)!

You know, the 'Buddhist' in me :D says that before my holiday is the best time for this to happen, as at least now I can pack some other (more robust) primes to cover for its absence :). Of course, the pessimist in me counters that after the holiday, when I'd finished using the zoom and had time to decide how to replace it, would have been the optimum time for this to happen and so there really is no justice in this world :razz:.

Happily though, I tend to favour the sunny approach of the Buddhist :D.

Sorry, where were we. Oh yes, what to do about the Tamron!?

Insurance may be an option, Andy - I will have to ask them. From memory though (when I took out the policy), such things were not covered.

Glyn, thanks - I will try to enjoy my holiday and not let this annoying little mishap have any impact on it ;).

The Sigma!? I don't know. I've just sold the only Sigma lens that I ever owned (the 50mm f/1.4 EX DG), as I didn't really like it (for several reasons). I've loved every 'professional' Nikon lens that I've ever owned though and don't regret paying what I've paid for them, but I'm not really sure if the optical performance of the 24-70mm is good enough to warrant the high price :shrug:. It gets some mixed reviews and I was happy enough with the Tamron's performance (it makes great sun stars, amongst other things).

So, I will have a look at my options after my trip. Most of what I plan to photograph there will have to be done with the 17-35mm, 50mm, 85mm and longer primes now. Still, that should be good enough :).
 
My home contents insurance covered my 7D when it had an arguement with the patio and lost. Perhaps give them a ring and ask, it can't do any harm! As for the lens, why not hire something for the trip?
 
Bad luck, but these things happen. I hope you get it sorted out satisfactorily. Just not sure if I agree with the idea of a 'sacrifice' lens taking the impact to protect the lens mount and so on. Maybe, but I think there are just too many variables in these situations. A more robust lens, like the 24-70mm, might have survived without any collateral damage. I don't know.
 
menthel said:
My home contents insurance covered my 7D when it had an arguement with the patio and lost. Perhaps give them a ring and ask, it can't do any harm! As for the lens, why not hire something for the trip?
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Oh I'll certainly enquire, but being a German insurance company ... who knows :shrug:!?

MartynK said:
Bad luck, but these things happen. I hope you get it sorted out satisfactorily. Just not sure if I agree with the idea of a 'sacrifice' lens taking the impact to protect the lens mount and so on. Maybe, but I think there are just too many variables in these situations. A more robust lens, like the 24-70mm, might have survived without any collateral damage. I don't know.
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Indeed, stuff happens!

I take your point, Martyn, a better built lens may well have survived the impact without any damage to itself or to the camera - we'll never know ;)!

I'll see how I get on without a mid-range zoom during my trip. It may well be that I don't really need one after all (as Ken Rockwell is always fond of pointing out :D).

Now I'm thinking about just taking the 17-35mm f/2.8, a nifty fifty and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II instead. That's a lot of weight and a lot of value though, so I'm really not sure :thinking:.

I have a 1.4x TC, which I was going to use on the Tamron if things got tough and I really needed some extra reach to get me up over 100mm, as the next lens up that I planned to take was a 135mm prime. I suppose that now, I could still put the TC onto the 50mm f/1.8 and take my 105mm and 180mm primes instead of the 135mm, leaving the 70-200mm at home :shrug:!?

Bugger! I had it all worked out in my head and now I have to start all over again :LOL:.
 
So, never having been the kind of chap to let sleeping dogs lie, I decided to have the lens apart and get a feel for how much damage there was and to see how feasible a repair might be.

Answer ... not very :LOL:!

The damage was much greater than I expected. Essentially, the mechanism which governs the auto-focusing is made up entirely of (very brittle) plastic, with what looked like a high amount of graphite in it :shrug:. One side of this mechanism had been completely shattered and cogs were sticking out everywhere (hence the lopsidedness).

This is what I found ....

AJH_3592.jpg


AJH_3596.jpg


Certainly nothing that a bit of Araldite was going to fix :LOL:.

Realising that it's auto-focusing days were over, I decided to simply rip out the damaged plastic and re-assemble the lens, being careful not to disconnect any of the electrical contacts.

This plan seemed to 'have legs' and within an hour or so I had the lens assembled, looking straight :eek: and with the focus ring turning quite smoothly. Things were looking up - time for the acid test :) .... I connected the lens to the camera and the display showed f/2.8 ... and kept on showing f/2.8 wherever I moved the aperture dial on the camera (the lens doesn't have an aperture ring). I took a shot. The camera fired, lightening fast and the shot came out black :crying:.

Something was clearly wrong with the 'daisy clip' (as I believe it's called) which carries those little electrical contacts around the rear element. I released the locking button on the camera and twisted the lens off. Well, half way off. The lens stuck at the mid position and no amount of persuasion would get it to unscrew completely :bang:.

I figured that one of the little screws in side the lens mount (at 90 degrees to the base plate) had either not been put in correctly, or had worked its way out. I knew that the lens was effectively 'scrap' now and that it had to come off, in 78 pieces if necessary.

The lens itself had lost all of its structural strength, since I removed some of the innards, as part of what broke formed the mounting for the metal lens mount. A simple downward tug (with depressingly little brute force) had the lens dangling down off the front of the camera and a couple of twists later, I was left with a D700 sporting a rather ugly 'collar' and a sofa covered in little bits of black plastic.

Tamron_28-75mm_broken_01.jpg


The next step was to remove the remainder. Well, there is only tool for a job like this ... a pair of pipe pliers :naughty:! No, I'm not kidding. I set about using the jaws of the pliers to crack off the remaining fragments of black plastic which were still housing screws. By squeezing them between the jaws of the pliers, but without twisting the pliers or pulling on the plastic at all, I was able to free all of the screws without exerting any force whatsoever on the D700's lens mount.

Once I'd freed the offending screw and wiggled it around until it dropped neatly through the hole in the lens mount and stopped obstructing its movement, the remains of the lens unscrewed easily from the camera body.

Naturally, I had a lot of crud inside the D700 and the mirror looked a bit sorry for itself when I shone an LED torch on it. But, after a minute with the rocket blower and another minute with Arctic Butterfly (on the sensor, not the mirror), things were all back to normal and the D700 was producing dust-free images once again :) (I did the usual, shoot a white surface at minimum aperture and OOF, then chimp the results on the LCD. Only two tiny dust spots showed in the far corners).


And the morale of this story :naughty:!?

If you use a Tamron 28-75mm, look after it and don't drop from a height of more than about six inches (I would guess :D) and secondly, if you do drop it and it shatters like ice and if you ever want to make an insurance claim or try to get it repaired ... then don't follow my example and wade in with plumbers tools :p.

Oh well, another day older; another day wiser (and one lens down into the bargain)!

Thanks for reading.
 
OOOPs :eek:

I'm guessing there was much cursing to be heard once you realised the "repaired" lens didn't want to come apart from your D700 !

Glad to see you managed to get it off in the end with minimal crap ending up inside the body .

Good excuse to have a look round Duty Free at the airport for a replacement tho :)
 
loafer27 said:
OOOPs :eek:

I'm guessing there was much cursing to be heard once you realised the "repaired" lens didn't want to come apart from your D700 !

Glad to see you managed to get it off in the end with minimal crap ending up inside the body .

Good excuse to have a look round Duty Free at the airport for a replacement tho :)
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Not so much 'cursing', more of a big stupid grin (artist's impression of said 'grin' ... :D), once I'd realised that I had gambled and lost (as I nearly always do).

I tend to reserve cursing for those occasions when something bad happens and it's not my fault. I don't need to get angry with myself and tell me what an idiot I am ... I've known that for years :bonk:!

As for the Duty Free idea, I don't know about that. Luckily, neither airport that I'm going through has much in the way of (electrical) shops, so I think that I will have to wait until I get back and have a re-think then.

I could, believe it or not, repair this Tamron by taking one with front end damage and making a 'cut 'n' shut' job out of the two, but only if I could get the donor lens for peanuts. My lens is still optically OK, I reckon :shrug:. It's just all of the plastic parts that govern the AF, which have been binned.

At this stage, my favoured option is to simply forget about it and move on :). I can use a 50mm prime to partially cover for the loss of this zoom and if I really need to do stuff in that exact focal length range, I still have a working D90 and the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 :naughty:. Note to self: Don't drop that one :LOL:!
 
Charlatan said:
Andy while your loss is undoubtedly sad, you have gave us a detailed account in such a humorous manner than I have chuckled along as I have read. Not at your misfortune but for the tone of the thread. I hope you get something sorted for the holiday, and thanks for sharing.
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Why thank you, Charlatan :). It's comments like this that make it all worthwhile.

My mum always said, "No use crying over spilt milk" and I tend to agree with her. At least by making light of this situation, some good might come of it. Potential purchasers of this lens can see how resistant (or not) to abuse it is and new users of Arca Swiss clamps might think twice to check that their camera is actually secure before letting go of it ;).

As for my holiday, I have simply decided that I am going to take 50mm prime instead of this zoom, as well as a 1.4x TC to use on the 17-35mm zoom and the 50mm prime, if it is absolutely necessary to have these 'in between' focal lengths. I don't plan to use shallow DOF at these relatively wide focal lengths anyway, so being limited to f/4 is no big deal in this instance :shrug:. Who knows, I may even come home having decided that I don't need another mid-range zoom and then I haven't really incurred any additional expense (just lost whatever the Tamron was worth)!?

By the way, I very much enjoyed your Venice photos in your Flickr account (y). Doesn't everything look so colourful in August? I think that most of my shots from next week will be taken with a view to converting them all to b&w, as this suits the misty, muted tones a lot better (IMO).

All the best,

Andy
 
Hi all!

I was just sitting here wondering what the best thing to do with the remains of this lens would be and wanted to ask you folks for advice, please :naughty:.

Essentially, all of the plastic parts and the AF mechanism at the lens mount end are gone, but the entire central core (containing all of the lens elements) is seemingly undamaged. I'm certain that if I could get hold of a 'donor' lens which had a cracked/scratched front element, then I cold easily transplant the AF parts and lens mount onto this lens and have a perfectly serviceable copy again. The problem is, how likely is that I will find a 'donor' lens (and cheap enough too, in case my repair goes wrong :().

One alternative is to simply throw it into the bin, but it seems like such a waste when all of the expensive and hard to manufacture parts are (as far as I know) totally undamaged :shrug:.

It then occurred to me that there are probably a handful of people out there on TP who have sheds brimming with old camera and lens parts and might be able to do something with this lens. So, are there!? I didn't want to go to the bother of writing a For Sale ad, as I wouldn't know what to charge anyway, so I'm just asking for a show of interest now, if that's OK ;)!?
 
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