Is it possible to have a lens and camera that just don't get along?

[Jonathan F/2]

Strangely my 85 1.4 G and D3 just don't get along. When mounted to other lenses/cameras they work fine, but when they're paired together they just don't want to play nice. I'm having the hardest time getting consistent results with these two. Is it possible to have a combination of lenses and cameras that just don't get along and need to be calibrated at Nikon repair together? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Ryan_T]

I don't believe in electrical gremlins. Some odd things can happen with machines, but there's always a cause.

 

[Jonathan F/2]

It's driving me nuts. I'll probably bring both in for repair, I just don't like having one body though.

 

[VisualEchos]

I can't get anything to work well with my camera lately, save for the 200/2, thinking it's the D700 body. Guess I should send it in to Nikon for a checking out.

 

[static808]

be careful jonathan, if they end up calibrating them, then all your other lenses/bodies might not play nice with them...

 

[sambo.]

it's rare, but not unheard of.

if the camera and the rest of your glass get along, it sounds like a lens problem. send it in to a service centre to have a look. if it's all still in warranty it shouldn't cost you a cent.

 

[Rooz]

I can't get anything to work well with my camera lately, save for the 200/2, thinking it's the D700 body. Guess I should send it in to Nikon for a checking out.

We all go thru those periods. And like most people, when things are humming i say its me being a superstar, when things turn to crap its the gear of course.

 

[Jonathan F/2]

Due to that fact, I would first try to use the fine tuning in the camera and store the corrections by myself, regarding a dedicated lens.
It is necessary, to check the correction on several distances, due to the fact that optical laws are not stable over a range of distances, i.e. that a correction at a distance of 30ft might be o.k. but at infinity it might not match as well as on a distance 5ft. My 180 behaved that way; other lenses showed similar "non-linearities".

This is the problem I get. Closer up, I get very sporadic focusing issues, but further away the issues go away.

 

[PJohnP]

This is the problem I get. Closer up, I get very sporadic focusing issues, but further away the issues go away.

Contacts. Dirty electrical contacts on the lens mount and/or camera body, often both in my experience.

Get some electrical contact cleaner - the late (and very much missed) David Cramer introduced me to DeoxIt, but there are others - and thoroughly clean the contacts on the lens and the camera body.

I get this occasionally with my 200-400mm along with a specific TC, and contact cleaning fixes the problem every time. Focus begins to degrade for closer objects, but it works to some degree on much further ones as the lens doesn't have to rack back or forth so far. Turning the camera body on and off provides some limited relief, but the problem doesn't disappear. Dirty contacts are the culprit, although I've never been able to discern the contamination visually. It seems to be some kind of oxidation or perhaps a very thin coating of something else. No matter, it makes the lens start to act crazy.

Do be careful to apply the cleaner on a Q-Tip or other cleaning bud away from the camera and lens - I saw someone squirt the stuff right into the mount end of a lens before I could utter a syllable, and the cleaner made a complete mess inside on the glass.

In any event, it's a good area for general camera/lens maintenance, the relative cost of the cleaner kit is very small compared with sending in a body and lens, and it eliminates one repair question for Nikon if it doesn't work.



John P.

 

[VisualEchos]

We all go thru those periods. And like most people, when things are humming i say its me being a superstar, when things turn to crap its the gear of course.

Here's me waiting for the humming :biggrin:.

 

[Joseph]

I had an 18-200 that sucked with the D300. Awful, just awfully soft. The same 18-200 was tack sharp with my D40 though. It left me scratching my head.

 

[Jonathan F/2]

I had an 18-200 that sucked with the D300. Awful, just awfully soft. The same 18-200 was tack sharp with my D40 though. It left me scratching my head.

My 85 1.4 G is great on my D300S, was awesome on my D3X, but for some reason it just doesn't want to give me consistent results on my D3. I'll try cleaning the contacts asnd see what happens.

 

[bumeister]

I think it is possible, and as was mentioned above is likely the result of a kind of perfect alignment of manufacturing tolerances.

I had trouble with my original D300 and 70-200/2.8, they would intermittently refuse to communicate with one another at all (no AF, no metering, it was like the lens wasn't even on the camera), and always at a highly inconvenient time. Both lens and body were sent to Nikon (Melville) 4 times for investigation/repair. Nikon was never able to remediate the problem, and after the 4th trip to Melville they replaced both the body and the lens. The new pair got along very well.

 

[Turbo V6 Camaro]

i had this happen to me, nikon replaced the mount on the lens and body

 

[viacorsa]

A few years ago my D70s and my 70-200 VR1 would not place nice with each other. The 70-200 would not autofocus. After a bunch of swapping bodies & lenses..as well as 3 (THREE!!) trips to Nikon Service, it was an unfixable problem with the lens. Nikon replaced the lens.

 

[KMud]

The problem are the tolerances of both, the lens and the body(mount).

I had this problem with a different pair: D300/180-2.8

The result was, both items are within the tolerances - but these differences have to treated as "errors": if the value of tolerance A is a and value of tolerance B is b, then the resulting value of total tolerance T is axb

It is possible, to ask at Nikon to do a calibration of both single items, but usually only the single items are calibrated - the lens and the body. Usually the bodies are calibrated with Nikons "calibration lens" - Nikkor 50 mm 1.8 D - the lens solely is measured and calibrated (if possible/necessary) on a different system.

Due to that fact, I would first try to use the fine tuning in the camera and store the corrections by myself, regarding a dedicated lens.
It is necessary, to check the correction on several distances, due to the fact that optical laws are not stable over a range of distances, i.e. that a correction at a distance of 30ft might be o.k. but at infinity it might not match as well as on a distance 5ft. My 180 behaved that way; other lenses showed similar "non-linearities".

Twice my request for calibrating a prime mounted to a dedicated body was refused by Nikon, last week I heard the same from a friend of mine, who requested a similar issue and was as friendly as I informed, that Nikon does not provide that service, so both we did our special calibration by ourself.

Sorry, what? I get what you're trying to say, but that equation needs further explanation if it has any basis in reality...units? Is this empirical? Is that a multiplication sign or vector cross product? I realise this is a post on a photography forum and not a peer-reviewed journal, but if you're going to give equations...