DA 17-70 - fixed!

A few weeks before Christmas, my DA 17-70 stopped reporting focal length correctly to the camera. Ie no matter what focal length the lens was set to, it reported back a constant mid-range value of 43mm. This meant that SR wouldn't function correctly, so I sent it off to Asahi photo to have a look (their over the phone quote was considerably less than Johnsons). I asked them to also look at the problem of intermittent focus lock at the longer end that some models of this lens are renowned for and this specimen has always suffered from.

It has eventually come back (a wait whilst Ricoh Germany sent the relevant bit to them), and the lens has come back not only with the faulty focal length reporting fixed, but also the intermittent focus lock problem - brilliant!

They also stiffened up the zoom barrel as well; mine had become quite loose following a lot of usage!

Do you mind me asking how much it cost to repair?

Regards
David

Not at all - the phone quote was £80-£100. The actual cost was £110 which included VAT and return postage/ courier. (Johnson's quote was £150 + VAT, so even with the PU member discount would still have been somewhat more I Suspect!)

I might add that they also cleaned it up as well; the rubber zoom grip had quite a bit of gunge in the grooves from me having pitched forward into anerobic mud a few months ago which sprayed the lens nicely!!

Ah! that was a timely post as I have dropped my 17-70 and it now rattles and won't zoom. Have just left them a message

Johnson's charged me £120 inc VAT for this repair in July 2012. Then it had to go straight back as it did not report back correctly at the extreme wide angle. This happened again in May 2013 and they repaired it again for free (goodwill repair as now out of repair warranty).