TROUBLESHOOT LENS ISSUES
Overcome challenges of lens operation by understanding causes and solutions
One of the main difficulties with lenses as the tools of our trade is that they are made up of many advanced optical and electrical technologies, which we cannot easily gain access to, let alone tinker with. They’re complex bits of kit. While there are some technical malfunctions whose causes we can easily diagnose ourselves and potentially even fix, many are either beyond our capabilities or best left to trained professionals – for insurance reasons if nothing else.
As working photographers it is our responsibility to maintain our equipment to operating standards, but unfortunately, when gear is in frequent use, sudden breakdowns or abnormal functioning is inevitable. In most cases, assuming the overall upkeep is of a high quality, lens issues should be confined to minor software glitches, unintentional mode changes on the part of the user, or temporary electrical failures. The majority of these have relatively quick solutions that can be applied in the field, with minimal disruption to the flow of your shoot.
An effective strategy is to run through some quick checklists when encountering lens malfunction. The first step is to check the lens barrel for unexpected switch positions, which could have been moved by accident. Since modern lenses are tightly integrated with camera function, and the two parts of the system are in continuous electrical contact, the next step should be to run through related
camera menus to ensure that AF modes have not been altered or custom functions manipulated. Finally, if the route of your problem remains unidentified, turn your attention to the physical contacts between the camera and the lens.
Systematically discounting potential causes enables us to rapidly find the root cause of the lens’s issue without introducing further complications through inadvertent setting changes. In any troubleshooting scenario, when there is a need to rapidly resolve the problem, we should avoid moving the camera setup away from the current state it’s in. That way, if we are still unable to capture the images we need, we can at least be certain that it is because of the initial issue we encountered, and not a secondary problem we have subsequently introduced.