Servicing a Canon lens

Been mucking around with my almost 10 year old Canon EF 28-105 recently and I've noticed that its performance has noticably deteriorated. It doesn't focus correctly anymore and upon closer inspection I discovered what I think is very fine dust *inside* the lens body, although I guess it could also be mould or who knows what else grows inside lenses!

Has anyone here had a lens serviced (i.e. cleaned and calibrated) and was it successful in restoring the lens back to its original performance?

Or is the cost too high and would I be better off putting the money towards a new one ?

Cheers,

JK

i think Canon technical support could give you the best answer.

Yes, but I was just curious as to whether anyone had actually done this to one of their lenses and how good the result was!

Well, I have heard horror stories about lenses coming back worse than they went, but usually from what I read the feedback on Canon's factory repair centers is pretty good

Yeah, that's what worries me!

Well let's see. I didn't send my 100-400L in for servicing, it was sent in to have the failed IS mechanism fixed. It has subsequently been back twice to try and get the optics back to an acceptable standard after Canon's "repair". I am eagerly awaiting it's return to see if they've managed to get it right this time. So far I've been without a useable lens for two months.

My experience of Canon Service on this lens has not been a happy one.

I now wish that I'd accepted the IS mechanism failure and just used it as a good 400mm zoom with no IS.

If it's dust then they can clean it up like new but if it's fungus then it may or may not clean off properly.
Canon australia have set prices (plus extra for any parts required) for servicing different model lenses.Just give them a call and ask-it will be around the au$70-120 mark i imagine .
Find out if they can give a free quote first.

One thing that will help the diagnoses and likely cost is knowing if it is dust or fungus.When you look through the lens at a bright light-can you see any 'structure' to the stuff inside?
Dust will be fine or course specs while fungus has a a definite shape.Most fungus looks abit like a spiders web but there are also while puffy shapes and others

By the way,if you decide it's not worth fixing,you could still sell it for a reasonable return on ebay.Describe it honestly-there are quite a few people out there (like me) that like to work on lenses and are happy to buy something that needs work

Thanks for the feedback guys! Will get a quote for the repair, but I think I may just *need* to get a new L series to replace it instead!