I'm planning to take some informal pictures of a friend's dance performance Sat night. In sorting out which lenses to take with my K10D, the FA 35 f/2 and FA 50 f/1.4 come to mind due to the low light scenario.
I've never done any theater or concert shooting, so I put the FA 35 on the K10D to test autofocus in low light. Everything works just fine.
I do the same with the FA 50 and notice it's not autofocusing to infinity. Not even close. So I switch to manual focus, turn the focus ring a bit, and hear a very slight, light scraping sound. Concerned, I remove the K10D from my eye, tilt the camera a bit so I have a better view of the lens and listen of the sound as I very slowly and gently rotate the focus ring, and...the bulk of the lens falls off into my hand. The mount and outer shell remain attached to the K10D, but the rest of the lens is now resting comfortably in my hand.
Never whacked, smacked, or dropped it since I got it 19 months ago. Never even used manual focus before. I've used it strictly with AF and cared for it very well.
WTF! Of course, it's out of warranty (by about 7 mos). And, wouldn't you know, the price has more than doubled since I bought mine new. Hmph!
I've attached a few pictures (sorry for the poor lighting / shallow DOF). The last picture shows four pairs of needle-y thingies, the top and bottom of which are bent to hell and seem like the culprit of the scraping sound I heard. Looks to me like these needles line up with the screw drive, so perhaps the screw drive mangled them. (How, I haven't the foggiest idea.) I'm having difficult visualizing how the gear in the shell (not pictured), driven by the body screwdrive, interfaces with this section of the lens. (Of course, I'm only assuming these components interface, from a rough look at how things line up if I visualize putting it back together.)
And I still can't tell, just from looking at it, how it plum fall apart. Don't see any missing screws, on first look.
I figure I'll contact Pentax USA to find out how much a repair will cost. Based on a quick search here on PF, I may contact Eric Hendrickson, too, and/or one of the other repair shops in the External Links area to see if he/they are willing to work on it.
So, the inevitable questions:
- Anyone ever experience something like this with an FA 50 f/1.4 before? (I found one thread where someone had a similar experience with DA 40.)
- Any recommendations how, or with whom, to proceed for repair?
- Anyone have a line on a new or excellent condition FA 50 f/1.4 for <= $200?
- Anyone have an FA 50 f/1.4 I may borrow in the Chicago area?