Was planning to go out at dawn today to photograph a large bee-hive I have observed in a public park, and also a Kingfisher who comes and perches on a tree-stump waiting his opportunity to grab a nice fish out of the pond. Cleaned out the camera and the 300mm lens… was packing up the gear in a backpack, removed my new 24-70 zoom from the bag to put it away as it would not be needed on this outing…. it slipped out my hand and landed face down smack on the hard floor. YIKES! From the sound of the crash, I knew it was a disaster. The filter-thread surround was shattered in several places, the front lens element looked untouched. But on cleaning it, I discovered two small abrasions. Fxxxing hell! Then I tested the focus and the zoom. Not good. The focus worked fine [AF is accurate, and MF is still silky smooth] but the zoom-ring is stiff and stuck around the 50-60 mm mark…. groan!
Guess it is trash now. I could always use it as a costly and painful-reminder, heavy-duty paperweight though. What an awful thought that! Get it repaired? Can it be fixed? Anyone?
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ouch!!
[...] before. I knew I needed a wide zoom and a long zoom for the session, and was at a loss with the broken Nikkor 24-70. The 80-200 f/2.8 was going to be perfect for the long shots but I still needed to [...]