Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

[grahamdevizes]

Can anyone help please? The above lens is attached to my 700D body and it has a issue ( most of the time) obtaining an AF lock. If I press the shutter button halfway down, the lens judders and whirs and will not focus. It doesn't do this all the time, but probably about 75% of the time and it has only developed this fault in the past couple of weeks, prior to which it worked perfectly.

Sometime, if I zoom right out to max focal length, it will get an AF lock, after which if I refocus on the subject, it works fine. I've tried the lens on a neighbour's 650D and the same happens so I'm assuming it must be the lens?

Thanks for any help.

[EOS_User]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Hi Graham; welcome to the forum. Sorry that your first post (well 2nd...) is a cry for help... How old is the lens; is it still under warranty? Since the fault occurs on two separate bodies; I'd say it's pretty well a dead-cert that it's the lens that's at fault. I'd call a Canon Service Centre (or specialist) and get a quote for a service & repair; but if the lens is out of warranty it 'may' not be worth repairing!!! eBay has what looks like a demo 18-200 at £250. Good luck...

[grahamdevizes]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Thank you for your reply and welcome Lee. I should've mentioned that I cleaned the contacts on the camera body and the lens with alcohol but it didn't make any difference to the problem. As the lens will sometimes find the AF lock, then it appears to be an intermittent fault, hence why I cleaned the contacts. I bought the lens second hand about a year ago but believe it to be about three years old so well past any warranty period. Thanks again

[lunarbo]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Hi Graham

I too had a similar problem with this lens after about 3 years usage - I could focus most of the time but when fully extended there was much whirring and buzzing but no focusing. Wiser folks than me on this forum advised that it was a problem with the ribbon that has to extend and retract to move the lens into the correct position and with such a great amount of work to do it simply failed after a lot of use. Mind you, other lenses have similar work to do (70-300, 100-400 etc) but it seems we are not alone in encountering this problem with this lens.

I think you'll find that the maths of repair don't add up- for me there was the added problem of getting the lens to Uk or Madrid for mending.

I was fairly grumpy at something so expensive failing like this but in the end I bit the bullet and bought another which so far- touch wood- is fine

[grahamdevizes]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Thank you lunarbo for your reply. I think too that sending it off for repair outweighs the value of a 3 year old lens. Oddly enough, my friend whose 650D I borrowed says he had the same issue too a couple of years back, so it might seem to be a problem specific to this lens.

[TonyT]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

I don't know where you are, Canons repair prices are here for the UK

http://www.canon.co.uk/images/UK%20RCC%20Service%20Costs_tcm14-1174182.pdf

You could try the old "I don't expect a lens to fail after 3 years blah blah blah" and see if canon will meet the cost of some of it. A grovelling email to Canon UK?

Welcome to the forums Graham..

Other thing, did you buy it with a credit card? You might find it has an extended warranty past Canons original one.

[grahamdevizes]

Re: Issue with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Thanks for that useful link Tony. It looks like the repair could be anything up to £175 and as has been said, decent quality used ones are available on the likes of Ebay for not much more than that anyway. I'm going to have to bite the bullet but I doubt I will buy a one-for-one replacement as this issue seems prevalent.