I bought an externally battered copy of this old lens about a year ago, and
quickly found that it was a "goodun", but that I really needed to sort out
my tripod head etc. for birding, with a 1.4x or 2x attached. This took
longer than I expected, but last December I got a Manfrotto #393 gimbal
head
(despite how Manfrotto describe it!) and I quickly realised that matters
weren't right. Eventually, I tracked it down to quite serious lens front
focusing, and took it in for service. They warned about its age, and no
guarantee etc. but quoted ~135GBP for what they could do. I said
"proceed", but a few days later they said the lens was far too old to fix,
so I got them to return it.
On return I did a few checks and immediately thought that it was back to
where it was on purchase, and now after several visits to the local lakes,
I'm convinced that once again it's a "goodun". Some really excellent shots
of mandarin duck mating etc. (When queried, the repairers claim not to
have
opened the lens, despite the tripod mount detents now being 45 degrees from
where they were....) Very relieved as the total cost was around 12GBP.
I'm puzzled as to why its performance deteriorated, but I had been
transporting it (and heavy tripod etc.) from car to birding site and return
in a small wheeled trolley, so I suppose the vibration might have been the
culprit on the lens' USM.
(I'm using it on a 5D occasionally, and mainly on a 30D for birding. The
5fps is good for this application.)
Malcolm
Milton Keynes, UK
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