FIXED: Digital Rebel Canon 18-55mm kit lens

mpmcleod · May 30, 2006

My wife called me tonight from her grandparents. After a short pause she says "Well I have some bad news....."

Her father put her camera bag into the car without zipping up the bag. When she took the bag out of the car our Digital Rebel landed lens down on the concrete driveway. It shattered the UV filter and the lens is locked up. While I might be able to fix it (I was able to disassemble and repair a similar Nikon lens) she thinks is a total loss. We have a 50mm and a 70-300 so she can still shoot a bit until I can look at it. As she said at least she learned this lesson with a cheap lens instead of a $1000 lens...

In the meantime does anyone have one laying around they would be willing to part with cheap?

PM me if so.

thanks

yoyostock · June 1, 2006

Ouch! But, I feel your pain. Same thing happened to me with an 18-55 kit len. It fell lens side down (luckily it had the lens hood on it) and it ended up getting locked up and slanted off track. Here's what I did (you can discern whether this may worth it or a really bad idea)...I gave a good twist, manually, to see if the focusing ring would get back on track and voila! it worked. It made a nasty sounding click as it got back on track, but now, the autofocus works fine and it's been in good use. If you're considering the lens to be a complete loss, might as well give it a twist and see if you can salvage it, eh?

SpeshulEd · June 1, 2006

My 18-55 kit lens I got with my 20d could probably be for sale. What were you looking at price wise?

mpmcleod · June 1, 2006

here are the pics

I was able to pull the glass from the filter off and then wrench the metal band off. Then I managed to twist the lens hard enough to force it back into shape. It appears to operate fine and can focus but there are black pieces in the lens which I imagine are bits of plastic and may prove impossible to clean.

I have seen them going for around between $50-80 on eBay so that is the range I am looking at.

ScottMcLeod · June 1, 2006

mpmcleod wrote:

I was able to pull the glass from the filter off and then wrench the metal band off. Then I managed to twist the lens hard enough to force it back into shape. It appears to operate fine and can focus but there are black pieces in the lens which I imagine are bits of plastic and may prove impossible to clean.

I have seen them going for around between $50-80 on eBay so that is the range I am looking at.

Got plans for the broken one yet?

mpmcleod · June 1, 2006

ScottMcLeod wrote:

Got plans for the broken one yet?

Not yet. I may open it up and try to clean all the bits off before I give up.

mpmcleod · June 5, 2006

No longer WTB

mpmcleod wrote:

Not yet. I may open it up and try to clean all the bits off before I give up.

update:
I managed to salvage it and clean up the stuff inside the lens. Autofocus is messed up but the lens is otherwise functional. So we are going to hold off on a new lens at this time. Probably look at investing in some better glass. We will keep this lens at least until we purchase the upgrade.

FIXED: Digital Rebel Canon 18-55mm kit lens

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