After coming back from Galapagos, I noticed that some images taken with my 24-105 were soft, specially wide open at the longer end. I run a focus chart test and indeed everything longer than 60mm looked very soft at f/4.0. No amount of microadjustment would fix the problem. With two weeks left of its one-year warranty, I decided to give it to Canon along with my 7D for calibration. A few days later I get an email saying that my equipment is ready for pick up.
Once at Canon, I overhear the conversation of the guy ahead of me with the Canon folks. They had burglars breaking in the previous night and several things were missing. "Weird" they told the guy, "they left behind several 5DIIs and 1DIIIs and took your 30D instead". The guy ahead of me did not appear to be too sorry, his company would order a new 50D as a replacement for him. I approached the counter trembling, fearing the worst. Was my 7D still there? They looked over and over in the shelf of equipment ready for pick up .... "hmmmm ..." they tell me, "I don't see it here ..." My sweat gets colder and colder ... Finally "ah! here it is!" Uhhh.. big relief!
"So, what was the problem?" I asked. The technician comes in and tells me that the lens was not working properly. "I was not able to find what was wrong with it" he says, "so I asked Canon to send a new one". I rushed to check the date code of the lens in disbelief: UX1120 (i.e. Utsunomiya November 2009). I could not believe it, I was getting a brand new lens after one year of use! "Don't worry" he says "we get paid from Canon for our work, it's all taken care by the warranty". My God! Had I gone to Canon two weeks later, I would have had to trash my lens (and then jump from the top of my building ... ) But instead, I left with a brand new baby without paying a cent and very content. Yeahhh!!!
Thanks Canon! The new lens works wonderfully and I am very happy!
(Addendum: no MA was needed for the new lens. The report I got from Canon says that the AF system of the camera was calibrated, and indeed, I did have to change the MA values of most of my other lenses. Typically less MA was needed.)
