![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI accidentally my camera. Fortunately not the WHOLE camera, just one of the lenses. 😰 On our trek to the foot of a glacier on New Zealand's Mt. Cook eleven days ago I was swapping lenses on my camera at a vista point. I put the lens on, and my camera came up "LENS CONTROL ERROR" and wouldn't record. I tried numerous in-the-field fixes but nothing worked. Dejected, I did without the lens for the rest of the hike and indeed for the rest of the vacation in New Zealand.
On the one hand, this was just one lens. I was carrying two others in my kit, and I have another two on the shelf at home.
On the other hand, it's my most-used lens, my spendy ultra-wide angle lens I use for 80%+ of my landscape photography.
Yes, this is the lens I accidentally a few years ago. I was able to send it in for repairs then. Though that time I actually dropped it while climbing a rock, so I felt like I deserved the problem. Repairs cost "only" $323— a relative bargain compared to the $1,000 cost of replacing the lens. On a trip to Comet Falls on the flank of Mt. Rainier two years ago I had a similar "lens control error" message. Then, like now, I tried several field fixes before giving up. Except then, I tried one more time two minutes later, and it worked. It worked until now. And this time I tried multiple times over the course of multiple days. No luck.
I was so saddened and frustrated by the loss of this lens near the start of a long trip, a potentially once-in-a-lifetime trip, that I thought several times about tossing it off a cliff. No, maybe you can fix it again for "only" $400 (inflation, natch), I told myself.
Once back at home this week I tried the lens again. The camera came up with the same error message. I tried cleaning the electrical contacts one more time, using the same method I used halfway around the world... and I'll be damned, it worked!
Well, good news/bad news.... Good news: It works now, so I don't have to hope for a $400 repair instead of a $1,000 replacement. Bad news: I still missed using the lens for easily hundreds of pictures I would've made with it in New Zealand.
On the one hand, this was just one lens. I was carrying two others in my kit, and I have another two on the shelf at home.
On the other hand, it's my most-used lens, my spendy ultra-wide angle lens I use for 80%+ of my landscape photography.
Yes, this is the lens I accidentally a few years ago. I was able to send it in for repairs then. Though that time I actually dropped it while climbing a rock, so I felt like I deserved the problem. Repairs cost "only" $323— a relative bargain compared to the $1,000 cost of replacing the lens. On a trip to Comet Falls on the flank of Mt. Rainier two years ago I had a similar "lens control error" message. Then, like now, I tried several field fixes before giving up. Except then, I tried one more time two minutes later, and it worked. It worked until now. And this time I tried multiple times over the course of multiple days. No luck.
I was so saddened and frustrated by the loss of this lens near the start of a long trip, a potentially once-in-a-lifetime trip, that I thought several times about tossing it off a cliff. No, maybe you can fix it again for "only" $400 (inflation, natch), I told myself.
Once back at home this week I tried the lens again. The camera came up with the same error message. I tried cleaning the electrical contacts one more time, using the same method I used halfway around the world... and I'll be damned, it worked!
Well, good news/bad news.... Good news: It works now, so I don't have to hope for a $400 repair instead of a $1,000 replacement. Bad news: I still missed using the lens for easily hundreds of pictures I would've made with it in New Zealand.
