Am I damaging my Canon 55-250mm IS lens?

I purchased a used Canon 55-250 IS lens here and it seems to be working well. I have kept the focus switch to Auto. If I accidentally turn the focus ring (instead of the zoom ring, which is what I meant to turn) when the auto mode is engaged, is it causing damage to the lens?

And how about when the end of the lens does not fully recede when I turn it back to 55mm (I don't know how else to describe it), and I put the lens cap on, and the light pressure causes the lens to push back in. Is that something anyone else experiences?

When you twist the lens from 55 to 250mm, is there supposed to be a slight resistance feel to it?

Thanks for the help!
Sandi

Zoom is supposed to have some resistance. Otherwise it will creep in and out by itself, when you don't want it to. Sometimes it does that anyway.

The focusing ring on these inexpensive lenses isn't supposed to be turned manually without setting the lens to the MF position. You can often do it anyway, but you do risk destroying the gearbox if you do. I have heard of this happening to some people, even if I haven't had it happen with my equipment.

If you do want to stow the lens in as compact a configuration as possible, the safest you can do is to either use autofocus at infinity before removing the lens from the camera, or switch to MF, set to infinity and switch back to AF.

it isn't as easy to turn the focus ring while on AF then the zoom ring, you should notice it immediately, not to mention the AF ring is close to the front of the lens and the zoom ring back near the body :P

yes you can damage it, don't do it (at least on purpose).

you have 3 options to retract completely the lens:

-set MF and turn the focus ring
-focus something on infinity
-put the lens cap and press shutter halfway (it will hunt for focus and stop at infinity)

Thanks for the replies. I realized my mistake right away, and have been careful since, but I worried about the damage I may have already caused. Not that anything can be done about it now, but the question just bothered me.

I was about to ask how to reach the mentioned infinity focus (truly, I'm an overwhelmed newbie with the 40D), but the #3 option seems easy enough. Thanks!

I retract my 55-250 by hand all the time after the camera is off. It turns easily then and I doubt it is damaging anything. If you try to do it when you are focussing in the auto mode it fights you. At that point I believe you could damage it.

James

Once or twice probably wont hurt it, but better safe than sorry.

Also the lenses that it does not hurt on are FTM (full time manual) where they are designed to be manual focuses whenever (even with AF on). This is usually just the more expensive lenses though.

idnas71 wrote in post #6139997
I was about to ask how to reach the mentioned infinity focus

just point your camera to something thats far away and focus it (half press shutter).