justashooter wrote:
The chances of a brand new lens failing for some reason on any given day are probably as high as the 20 year old lens you are using.
Yes, it’s called the bathtub curve: the chances of failure are high when new due to assembly or materials faults, then falls to a low level for much of the life of an item, then rises steeply again as parts reach the end of their design lives, with seals drying out, plastics going brittle etc. The curve looks like a bathtub in cross-section.
melcat wrote:
Well, yes. It is not a business, but if I’ve driven 700km, stayed two days, hiked and snowshoed, and driven 700km back, I do not want a lens failure to ruin the photographic part of the trip.
And what will prevent a brand new one from failing for some reason?
melcat wrote:
I have a couple of L lenses that are approaching 19 years old, and am wondering when I can expect problems with them.
These are my two oldest lenses. Before that, I used fully mechanical lenses on the Olympus OM system and did run into problems with the grease hardening from old age, or migrating onto the aperture blades and causing them to stick. My understanding is that this is no longer a problem with modern materials and lubricants, but that the AF motors and IS mechanisms do wear out with use. And then there’s random failure of electronics. I just have no relevant experience, so I’m asking here.
As far as I know, there is nowhere in Australia to get these two lenses fixed any more. Canon have discontinued service for them, and the place in Easey St. Collingwood no longer services Canon except for government customers....Show more →
IMHO, once Canon discontinues a lens, you are on your own. I am doubtful that (m)any third party shops would be capable of performing a competent repair.
I am certainly not in a financial position to upgrade/replace functioning equipment when Canon decides to release something new and discontinue the old.
I am also somewhat concerned about internal electrical component failure, mainly of capacitors. Maybe the ones that Canon uses are "better". Motors would be next on the list. But, I am choosing to keep using the stuff, so that is a risk I take.
I have several older Pentax 645 lenses that continue to work just fine with whatever lubricants were used then. Still probably new enough to be synthetic type lubricants.
There are more and more third party lens options, so that helps. I am not afraid to buy manual focus lenses for my uses.
The EF lens prices have also taken a shit, so getting a replacement isn't necessarily a problem, but there aren't new ones. This also removes most of the incentive to sell what I have and switch- the sale price will nowhere near cover the replacement price.
You can go buy a new one and also have it fail. Extreme heat or cold certainly won't help.
The only suggestion is to have a backup or option in place.
I would have no problem sending an EF lens to a third party shop, a couple pieces of my discontinued Profoto gear have been serviced at Silvano in LA and were done at a high level. I did send my 100MacroL to the Canon Virginia Center and it looked like a ten year old did the work.
danski0224 wrote:
IMHO, once Canon discontinues a lens, you are on your own.
Canon does service discontinued lenses, but not once they’ve run out of parts. The dates for end of service for lenses are published by Canon Japan, and many (including me) are assuming those will apply to subsidiaries in other countries, because it’s a result of how many spare parts they made.
I am also somewhat concerned about internal electrical component failure, mainly of capacitors. Maybe the ones that Canon uses are "better".
It’s electrolytic capacitors that routinely fail at 20–30 years old, and those are mainly found in power supplies, radios and audio amplifiers. Lenses probably don’t have them, and I don’t remember seeing any in online teardowns of Canon lenses. Transistors, diodes, resistors and the other types of capacitors do also fail but much less often and probably not at only 40 years old; an EOS lens does have those.
Motors would be next on the list.
USM motors, both ring (EF) and nano (RF) work using the piezoelectric effect, where you can make a crystal crawl along a surface by passing the right waveform of electric current through it. Friction can wear out the surfaces but they’re supposed to be long lasting compared with conventional motors. The wire in conventional motors will slowly degrade due to heat... and “voice coil” is a fancy way of saying the coil is made of very thin wire.
There are also motors in the IS and aperture mechanisms.
I can confirm motors and flexes are two problematic areas.
EF24-70mm f2.8L IS v1 (purchased 2007) - Iris flex cable broke in 2024 (17 years), repaired for $230 Canadian at a local shop (Sun Camera in Toronto). Used on 20D, 5D, 5D2, RP and R5 now.
EF-s 17-85mm f4 IS (purchased 2005) - Iris flex cable broke about five years later. Repaired it myself with a friend. Took 8 hours of careful disassembly and two flex/iris assemblies at a total cost of $35. (Damaged the first one with soldering iron. Then we needed to order a second, so we left it disassembled in a tackle box--we wrapped all the components in saran wrap to keep dust out) After all that work...I found one rubber pad which dampens the zoom action. Whoops. Lens still works though, twenty years later. The front droops a bit faster due to the missing pad.
EF70-200mm f2.8L IS v1 (purchased 2006) - USM motor broke 2015 (9 years), repaired for about $300 I think at local shop. Sold a year later as I got a v2 from a friend. Still using the v2 ten years later.
The oldest lens I like another post above is a 50mm f2.5 Compact Macro (2001 I think). Still works great. Sharp as a tack.
Another concern, not so much in North America but in other parts of the world is fungus and humidity.
But I guess my point is, these things are meant to be used. Buy them, use them, if they break, fix them within reason. I'm proud of them breaking--that means I used them, made great images with them, and got value out of them.
I have a 50-200 F3.5-F4.5 L that I bought around the time I was shooting a 35mm Canon EOS A2 camera. It still works fine on a 1Dx and 1DxII. I r recently got an R3 and adapter, I can try it one of these days.
I still use an original 70-200 F2.8L Pre IS lens regularly.
melcat wrote:
Yes, it’s called the bathtub curve: the chances of failure are high when new due to assembly or materials faults, then falls to a low level for much of the life of an item, then rises steeply again as parts reach the end of their design lives, with seals drying out, plastics going brittle etc. The curve looks like a bathtub in cross-section.
Without any substance for support, I presume that the new bodies with far faster response are more demanding on some(?) of the moving parts. Any engineer with thought on this?
The consequences of the bathtub curve are real. But it is impossible to predict how wide the tub is for any individual lens or other equipment. Time left can be zero or a decade or three. An interval of confidence could be calculated and without any consequence for the outcome.
Generally tender and slow use is the best way towards the Eternity. I still use the original battery in my 1000D from 2008 with a timer snapping 1-3 images a day depending on day length with recharge perhaps every third month.
I would use those old lenses as always. You may be in the middle of their bathtub, so why change if they do The Work?
melcat wrote:
Well, yes. It is not a business, but if I’ve driven 700km, stayed two days, hiked and snowshoed, and driven 700km back, I do not want a lens failure to ruin the photographic part of the trip.
(The above is an actual example of use.)
I know what you mean. I'm not a photographer, but factor in the cost of lost opportunity at $800-2000 per day in the field since travel mostly outside of the country, sometimes 10,000-15,000km. Even in the States it's always a fligth or two or three away from home.
I used to create 3D risk analyses of every little thing on travel, but no matter what the most practical solution is redundancy.
In general I travel with enough redundancy in cameras and lenses except the big whites are just too bulky to duplicate. IME cameras are more failure prone than lenses, but lenses can break from impact or drown. Sometimes I rent second copies of cameras or lenses.
As long as we maintain them well, they work perfectly Electronics can fail over time...that’s just normal wear and tear. I still use my 400mm f/5.6 lens on my R5 Mark II; the lens is over 20 years old,CANON CPS still supports that lens !!
Here is my 20 year report, covering 2005 through today. In 2009, a non-IS 70-200 F2.8 L the focusing unit came loose, it.was repaired by an independent local shop never had another problem with it. It was eventually replaced with a new 70-200 2.8L IS II in 2014.
28-70 2.8L purchased used in 2007 (date code 2005). In 2015 it was dropped unto an asphalt parking lot at a car show along with the camera. The mount broke (as it is designed) so the mount and the lens body were hanging together by the ribbon cable. I sent it into a shop in Michigan, I think the name was Midwest Camera repair. Four months later I got it back repaired. It is still being used and is tac sharp. I always think about replacing it but it still works fine.
I currently have 8 EF L lens from the 8-15mm fisheye up to the 300 2.8L IS, all are old and never had any other problem with them. I also have 2 Sigma's and one Tamron, no issues with them either.
I don't really worry about them (except a self inflicted issue) they are tools, if I was traveling and one died I probably could still make do. Or I would order another and have it dropped shipped to my location. If I need to I would purchase a new RF lens to replace a failure. I'm 71 so my resources are better spent traveling and seeing more.
I have seen photographers comment that they don't want to have a lens that Canon won't support. My repair history with Canon (all Camera issues) is pretty bad so I don't view them as my savior at all.
No more chasing the latest gear and I'm down to only 3 bags & 2 Pelicans!
I still have all my EF camera (5D MkII) and lens gear which I bought between 2006 to 2013. When Sony FF MLC came out in 2013, prices for EF lens gear rapidly depreciated and never recovered (I decided not worth to sell) - also when a few year later Canon released its first RF lens gear. I sporadically still use my EF gear but very rarely at this point. The lenses still work perfectly fine (so does my 5D MkII - my last Canon camera I bought).
They can last one more day, they can last forever. Impossible to answer. But as most have mentioned - if handled correctly they should last long enough for your GAS to want something new later on anyway. Semi-PRO L lenses are probably a safer bet. 17-40/4 instead of 16-35/2.8. 24-105/4 instead of 24-70/2.8 and so on.
Having said that, the 24-105/4 has a design flaw with the internal cables so it's a riskier lens.
I just looked up my 70-200 f/4L NON-IS... July 2005. Still used pretty often as one of my kids uses it on a 7D but I have used it now and then on the R6ii - absolutely perfect, great images and responsive as hell.
If non-L's count for anything: I also have a working Push/Pull EF35-105 from 1989.... not a great quality lens with a focus speed best described as "eventually" but damn it's got some miles on it I really miss that push-pull lens - so much better than the twist versions that persist (probably not a popular position). Went in to the shop to buy a Nikon F401 but Canon had a sale
Electronics can fail over time...that’s just normal wear and tear. I still use my 400mm f/5.6 lens on my R5 Mark II; the lens is over 20 years old,CANON CPS still supports that lens !!