Bench Testing?

Hello everyone, this is my first post to this forum. This looks like a great resource and figured someone would have some insight for me.

I recently talked to a friend of mine that is a avid shutterbug, about a year ago he bought a Canon 5d along with the 24-105 f/4L IS & the 24-70 f2/8L Lenses from what I believe is a very reputable local dealer.

A friend of his that works for a local newspaper strongly suggested that he have his lenses bench tested as soon as he gets them. My friend being a little skeptical went and talked to the people at the place that was suggested. He found out that they are a Canon Authorized Repair Center and they claimed that a surprising # of lenses have issues right out of the box.

Based on this information he brought his 2 lenses in to have them tested. From what I understand they tested the min, mid and max focal lengths at all available f-stops. My friend was shocked to find that both of these very expensive lenses did miserably in these tests.

This is where it gets crazy - He swapped them out and each time the 24-70 "Failed" if we can call it that. After the 3rd one he gave up. He also had 3 of the 24-105's fail but the 4th one passed with flying colors.

Recently I decided to invest in some good lenses myself so I purchased the same 24-105 f/4L IS as well as the 70-200mm f/4L IS Lens. I would have never considered having them tested but after that story I felt like I had to have them tested for peace of mind. I took them still in the box to them (never even put on my camera).

I called them today and got the good / bad news. The good news is that the 70-200 tested excellent, he said he normally only saw results like this from fixed focal length lenses. The bad news is that the 24-105 did so poorly he couldn't believe it.

If serial numbers are any judge then the number between the ones my friend had and the one I got of the 24-105 are almost 500,000 apart but yet seemed to have very similar failures.

We all know that we are talking a little over $1000 for each of these lenses. To have this percentage of failures does not give me the warm and fuzzies.

Has anyone else had any experience like this before or any insight as to why so many of Canon's Top of the line lenses are performing so poorly in these tests?

First I would like to say welcome to this forum. It truly is a great place to learn and discuss photography.

I'm far from an expert in this field but your experience's with some of Canon's finest lens being so far out of whack is a bit disturbing to say the least. Just out of curiosity where is this dealer that you are having these lenses tested? How much is the charge for this testing if you don't mind me asking?

I'm having a few questionable results with a new 100-L but am still checking it out in case its the operator that's causing the problem in my case.

Sorry I didn't have my profile completed before posting... I think you can now see that I am in Boston, MA. The company I am referring to is called Sanford Camera Repair located in Arlington, MA. They charge $30 - $45 per zoom lens depending on how many positions you want tested. They usually start with Min / Max and will go from there. I believe fixed is a little less money.

This is their Site http://www.sanfordcame​rarepair.com/

while some lenses have focus problems this smells like a good way to bilk naive photographers out of hard earned cash, especially since canon will calibrate lenses under warranty for free

Well without running the tests myself I don't think we will ever know if this is 100% accurate or not. In this case this company has a great reputation locally so I can only take their word for it. I can't imagine major news papers would be dealing with a company that would be bilking them.

At the same time I did think of the fact that each time I have to pay the fee but after the second shot with my friend I believe he said that they waved the fees.

Assuming that they are correct and there are issues with these lenses there is no way I am going to send something that I just paid over $1,000 for back to the manufacturer. These "Canon's Best" lenses should be perfect out of the box the majority of the time and not the minority.

In my case spending the money gives me peace of mind knowing that I have a good lens out of the box and is well worth it.

deadpass wrote in post #5138891
while some lenses have focus problems this smells like a good way to bilk naive photographers out of hard earned cash, especially since canon will calibrate lenses under warranty for free

yah i dont see what the problem is. you buy a race car, it will handle like crap untill you get the suspension setup the THE car. those lenses you baught will fit on any EF or EF-s mount camera, so sending your camera and lenses to canon who will calibrate the WHOLE lot for FREE under warrantee is the thing you should expect to do.

the seating of his 5d might be out by 0.01mm over the focal length of 105mm that is going to a significant change in focus point... so much so that it would be noticeable in these tests.

i reccomend letting canon do the work for you... test and calibrate.

In this case they are only bench testing the lens and not the body / lens combo. I can see what you are saying about sending them both to Canon. That makes sense.