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Bigmose
Tinkerer
Username: Bigmose
Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2011
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 05:22 pm: | 
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I have a Nikon D60 and use a 18-55 Nikon lens. The other day the lens started acting up. Right now the lens works fine in manual mode. It is the auto focus that is the issue. I thought that it was not working at all, but what I found that is it works, but it struggles. It actually makes a faint squeaking sound and the focus ring moves very slowly. If I keep pressing the shutter button, the lens will usually eventually focus it is a pain. It is almost like the gears inside need to be "lubed". My kit lens works fine. Any ideas why this might happen and if the lens is now a paperweight? |
Cooltouch
Tinkerer
Username: Cooltouch
Post Number: 81
Registered: 01-2009
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 10:05 pm: |
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It probably isn't a paperweight -- yet -- but it definitely sounds as if it needs servicing. Sometimes it's cheaper just to replace these 18-55s than it is to repair them, though. |
Camera_recycler
Tinkerer
Username: Camera_recycler
Post Number: 3
Registered: 03-2011
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 02:08 pm: |
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The SWM motors that do the focusing are notoriously fragile. If you drop the lens, or knock it, in the area of the motor, it's a goner.
Last time I priced a replacement motor it was very high $$. Nikon has planned this so that it is cheaper to replace the lens than to service it. |
Glenn
Tinkerer
Username: Glenn
Post Number: 905
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2011 - 06:39 am: |
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There are over twenty million SWM motors out there, so I suggest that the 'notoriously fragile' comment could be somewhat over the top. As a professional user of SWM equipped lenses since their release onto the UK market, I have never had a professional quality lens fitted with this auto focus mechanism fail.
I note that the above Poster runs a business selling reclaimed parts from scrapped/broken cameras and as such will have had an amount of accident damaged lower end Nikon equipment through his hands, but I suggest that this will not be a true reflection of the failure / breakage rate. One gets what you pay for in this world, but a careful amateur will get years of use from their cheaper 'plastic' variant. Notice I said 'careful', many of these damaged cameras come from people who expect photographic equipment to exhibit the same properties as a football. Only last Tuesday, during a visit to the coast, we just managed to prevent the car alongside us in the cliff top car park leaving with a Canon DSLR perched on the roof - the driver's comment of ' it doesn't matter the stuff's insured', left us somewhat bemused.
Like many manufactures of certain types of equipment, the price of spare parts supplied by Nikon outside of their official service networks probably carries a price premium. The appearance of fake or Factory 'back gate' spares on that well known / (un) loved site a few years ago certainly caused / causes problems for some manufacturers of optical and luxury goods.
As to Nikon actually going out of their way to produce equipment that was cheaper to replace than service - if the Poster has definite proof then he should 'put up or shut up'. This Forum is not the repository of internet 'tittle tattle or plain outright lies, so let us maintain the high standards of information that is written up on here and that we have become accustomed to. In many cases camera manufactures will exchange a damaged/broken item with a 'Factory Rebuilt' replacement at a fixed service price. This is good sound commercial sense - in todays world of modular design, 'chips', sensors and engineering plastics it is far cheaper to refurbish on a production line, with all the factory tooling/test equipment present, than on the benches of dozens of individual service agents. For one thing the world wide spares inventory would be huge, with the attendant costs also to be past on to the customer. |
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