{"id":37220,"date":"2016-02-06T06:55:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T13:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37220"},"modified":"2016-02-06T07:42:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T14:42:26","slug":"more-lens-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/06\/more-lens-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"More Lens Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feathered Photography is under\u00a0stress at the moment.<\/p>\n

Some readers may recall that about a year ago I had to send my 500mm lens in to Canon because of sharpness issues. A malfunctioning primary lens is never a pleasant experience and mine was compounded by the fact that Canon had my lens for a very long time.\u00a0 Their eventual diagnosis was that it had been “shock damaged” which never made any sense to me because I baby that lens. It had never been dropped or even bumped hard. There was no physical damage to the lens,\u00a0only electrical adjustments had to be made, and when it was finally\u00a0returned to me it worked perfectly\u00a0again\u00a0so I thought my lens woes were behind me.<\/p>\n

Then several weeks ago I began to notice sharpness issues again and they perfectly mimicked the problem I’d had the year before. So, long story short, Canon now has my lens, my 7D Mark II (my primary camera)\u00a0and my teleconverter (extender) for diagnosis and repair. In the meantime I’ve been wracking my brain in an effort to figure out what’s causing the problem and I may have solved the mystery.<\/p>\n

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\"lens<\/p>\n

Much\u00a0of my shooting is done from my pickup, largely because birds are more easily approached from a vehicle than they are on foot. I’ve built what I call a “lens caddy” that mounts\u00a0on top of my folded-down center seat console. The lens with camera attached mounts securely in the caddy but can be lifted out in an instant when I need it. But this is a hard mount with very little “give” on bumpy roads and I’m now thinking that the jarring it receives is likely causing my focusing issues as those sensitive electronic parts\u00a0slowly go out of adjustment.<\/p>\n

The extreme bumpiness of many of the dirt roads I drive on for photography\u00a0cannot be overstated. Farmington during winter and the Centennial Valley of Montana are the worst but there are many others that rival them.<\/p>\n

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