Broken Lens?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Last night I was asked to take some pictures fo a special music event at Seven22. Right before everything started I was setting up my equipment and the glass completely fell out of my Nikkor 18-135mm lens! I needed this lens to shoot with tonight, and everything was starting in about 5 minutes, so my quick fix was to just screw on my UV filter on top of the glass to hold it in place. That seemed to work fine as a temporary solution and the pictures turned out alright, but clearly this isn't a permanent solution!
I decided to inspect things closer, and it turns out that this glass is actually threaded inside the lens casing. Somehow from all kinds of screwing and unscrewing of lens filters and hoods, this must have loosened the threading on the glass. I carefully put everything back together and screwed it back in using a microfiber cloth. Everything seems to be back to normal. What a relief!
Comments
So it’s a common thing to happen. The same happened to me last night, and I was scared shitless. It was lucky I was able to catch the glass with my thighs before it fell to the ground (and it was the only lens I have with me).
So the solution is to just screw it back on? I think I unscrewed mine when I was cleaning the lens and noticed that the ring was rotating. I’ve fixed it up temporarily by pressing on the sides to push down the lens. Will do that screwing thing later.
It’s such a relief to know this isn’t totally uncommon.