Ever wear out a 70-300IS lens?

[Just Be]

Anyone ever wear out a 70-300 IS lens?

A recent post claims that he wore out the zoom and focusing cams in 2 months of use and had to send it back to Canon to have the cams replaced.

[Mark_Cohran]

Now that would be something. I might believe a manufacturing defect, but not wear.

Mark

[Just Be]

Now that would be something. I might believe a manufacturing defect, but not wear.

Mark

That's what I thought. My Canon 70-300IS appears to be built very well and I assume this guy just had a very rare bad lens.

[sebr]

That's what I thought. My Canon 70-300IS appears to be built very well and I assume this guy just had a very rare bad lens.

Same here. I have used it a lot and it still works.
Details about how the lens was "worn out" may explain what actually happened.

[condyk]

It is pretty average in build IMO, based on having owned one. Nice IQ tho'.

[pwm2]

Maybe use of a taped 1.4x or 2x TC and huge amounts of hunting?

[oldsquawk]

Yes, that was me. :) I used it for photographing dragonflies. I made several thousand images and it just didn't hold up to that use. The internal zooming cams and focusing cams are made of engineering plastic just like the exterior of the lens. I guess I just ran them too much. No, no teleconverters were used and I hardly used autofocus. I used extension tubes to focus closer and mostly attained focus by moving my body back and forth if the dragonflies were very close.

[sebr]

Yes, that was me. :) I used it for photographing dragonflies. I made several thousand images and it just didn't hold up to that use. The internal zooming cams and focusing cams are made of engineering plastic just like the exterior of the lens. I guess I just ran them too much. No, no teleconverters were used and I hardly used autofocus. I used extension tubes to focus closer and mostly attained focus by moving my body back and forth if the dragonflies were very close.

I have also taken several thousand images with that lens using autofocus for most of them and the lens is still working. Since you focused mostly by moving back and forth, this should not have been a problem.
I am still guessing you had a bad copy. What do you think?

[Bill Roberts]

I must admit I've never heard of anyone actually wearing a lens out through using it. My guess is a faulty lens. I hope Canon repaired it free of charge?

[oldsquawk]

It was repaired free. I guess it could have been faulty. The images I got were fine, though. It got to where I couldn't zoom the lens without really having to force the zoom ring. Sometimes autofocus wouldn't even budge. I have since replaced that lens with a 300mm f 4L lens and have made thousands of images...birds and dragonflies...without a whimper. I dunno. I just felt it shouldn't have worn out that quickly, either, and didn't want to take another chance on that lens.

[macroimage]

I think my EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM is wearing out. After only about 5000 images, it is getting really inconsistent, the barrel feels kind of loose, and moving around knocks it out of focus. Sometimes it makes a sharp picture, but often it is soft or even blurred. I've seen the IS oscillate too which really blurs the image. It used to work so well. Also if I watch the iris in Av mode with the DOF preview button, the iris doesn't open and close quite right like my other lenses. It sometimes gets the wrong value as I roll the wheel. Repressing the DOF button corrects it but it doesn't follow right sometimes if just changing aperture with the DOF button in.

I'm sending it in to Canon. It was my favourite lens. I hope it is not too expensive to fix since it is two years old and out of warranty now.

[Perry Ge]

I sold mine today, owned it for a month. Dunno about wearing out, but its AF was simply awful and without FTM, frustrating to use. IS was nice, it was sharp too, but when it decided that it would hunt through it's whole focusing range...which it did a lot...well let's just say that wasn't fun.

[runninmann]

Yes, that was me. :) I used it for photographing dragonflies. I made several thousand images and it just didn't hold up to that use. The internal zooming cams and focusing cams are made of engineering plastic just like the exterior of the lens. I guess I just ran them too much. No, no teleconverters were used and I hardly used autofocus. I used extension tubes to focus closer and mostly attained focus by moving my body back and forth if the dragonflies were very close.The switch was in the MF position, I assume?

[muleskinner]

My EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM has taken over 85,000 photos and has never failed. 95% are motocross photos with TONS of dust, and it's still a great lens.

[macroimage]

My 70-300 is on its way back to Canon now. Hopefully they can restore it to its original performance.

[macroimage]

I just got the EF 70-300mm IS back from Canon and WOW I think it's better than when it was new.

I just hope it lasts now.

[scrumpy]

My EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM has taken over 85,000 photos and has never failed. 95% are motocross photos with TONS of dust, and it's still a great lens.

Bit daunting reading the posts above about this lens - I've just ordered it.
So thanks muleskinner, your remarks have cheered me up no end :lol:

[Familiaphoto]

I had this lens for 10 months and never had an ounce of issue with it. A solid performer that I only replaced because I got a 70-200 f/2.8 L.

[macroimage]

i've found now that using IS under high-tension power lines, near a substation is a bad idea. Standing in some places the IS oscillates at high frequency blurring the pictures. It works well elseware. Since I was taking a lot of pictures of birds in that area, I wonder if that is how it failed. I now turn off the IS when under the high voltage lines.

[Mama Tried]

i've found now that using IS under high-tension power lines, near a substation is a bad idea. Standing in some places the IS oscillates at high frequency blurring the pictures. It works well elseware. Since I was taking a lot of pictures of birds in that area, I wonder if that is how it failed. I now turn off the IS when under the high voltage lines.

One of the clients I had a few weeks ago worked the lines and with about 28 lines running 10,000 volts each my 70-300mm worked just like it always does :D

[macroimage]

I went out there to try it again today and it is repeatable however the IS oscilates when the lens is parallel to the lines and I am underneath them. If I point the camera perpendicular to the lines, the IS works correctly. These are the three phases exiting the substation.

Strange. The field must be inducing a current in one of the IS coils which is messing up the control.

[Mike55]

I owned the 70-300IS. It's a great lens. Unfortuantely I had the vertical issue, which Canon took care of. The lens came back better not only optically, but in terms of build quality.

However, It is kind of a jangly affair and I could see BQ issues cropping up rather quickly if one used it hard everyday. I used mine mainly for rare wildlife and mountain landscapes, so it wasn't abused here, but it was abused for a few months of the year in the mountains, with hundreds of pictures a day and very rough roads/trails. It held up fine then.

[macroimage]

I quite enjoy using this lens. It is almost as sharp as the EF 100-300 f/5.6L lens. If you stop the 70-300 down to f/8 it is similiar to the 100-300 at f/5.6. The IS is fantastic as long as I'm not too close the the substation and it goes wider too than the 100-300.

The big draw of the 70-300 is that it is quite compact and very light but still quite good.

I sometimes wish it focused a bit closer. It doesn't work well with diopter close-up filters, not even the Canon 500D. It gets quite low contrast and hazy with close-up filters Extension tubes work good with it but there is a lot of light loss.