I'm starting a thread so owners of the Canon 24-105L IS can report their Date Code and Serial Numbers and whether they have the flare problem. Here is mine:
Date code: UT07xx
Serial number: 307430
Flare: reliably reproduced
Edited by gasmaster58 on Oct 21, 2005 at 10:57 AM GMT
Edited by gasmaster58 on Oct 21, 2005 at 11:03 AM GMT
Edited by gasmaster58 on Oct 21, 2005 at 03:24 PM GMT
Have been able to reproduce flare here is how.
Camera on Tripod, lens parallell with vertical axis, desk lamp light pointing at lens at an angle of aprox 45 deg from side and top. Did take a bit of playing to get it.
Looks like a few with the same date code as my flare lens.
I shot my ceiling with the recessed light at the left or right upper corner. The light has to be partially in the viewfinder. No flare if the light is either completely out of the viewfinder or completely inside the frame.
Date Code: UT0700
Serial No.: 309XXX
Flare: UPDATE!!!!
I posted before (deleted) that I hadn't seen the flare but I finally got the flair for the flare and can repeat it at will at 24mm f4.
It seems on mine that I have to be very close, like within a foot of the light source for it to happen and I can usually see part of it in the viewfinder.
However, the technique for getting the flare is so far from my normal picture taking habits and if I can see it in the VF it's easy to avoid so I have to wonder if getting it fixed is worth the aggravation.
I tried the hood and it doesn't help but just for schnitz and giggles I put a piece of duct tape over the smaller petal of the hood bridging to the larger petals, and now the flare doesn't seem to happen at all.
I have not seen the unusual flare pattern (I call it "heavenly light") in any of my normal picture-taking. The only way I was able to produce something like that involved light from a bare 52W bulb just inches from the lens, to the side--see http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1029&message=15503273. I've tried to reproduce the effect by pointing the camera almost directly at the sun, just outside the field of view (24mm f/4), but I got only the sort of normal flare you can get with any lens. I think the 24-105L IS is a great lens, and, in the event that Canon does offer to modify the lens, as people have said, I'll have to think hard about whether fixing what for me has been a non-problem is worth taking a chance that the lens will come back with the "fix" having caused some impairment of other aspects of the lens' optical quality.
Edited by Robert Deutsch on Oct 21, 2005 at 08:36 PM GMT (Reason: added information)
gasmaster58 wrote:
So far, both lenses with date code UT07xx and serial # 30xxxx have the flare problem. Only one with date code UT08xx has it.
I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, I think we'll find Canon will report they all have the problem and will be recalled . As I found (even on my "early" one), it's not that easy to reproduce the first time, but once you figure out how it's very easy.
