I have been diving in Fiji for the last week and i used just to two lenses. The Sigma 15mm for WA and a Nikon 105vr on a D850.
My 105vr is over tens years old and well used but is in good physical condition. At some point while using it this week it would just up and fail to Autofocus anymore. The motor would not activate at all. Turning the camera off for 5-10 seconds would revive it again for a while. But eventually it would fail again. The sigma had no issues with autofocus.
I tried to clean the contacts on the lens and body, but this did not help.
Has anyone had this issue before? I've never had a lens serviced before. The 105vr sells used for about $450. Is service even worth the cost?
Argh, what a pain - sorry, Dave
I've had lenses serviced by Nikon after spending a year working in the Lembeh Straits which led to lens problems.
If you go to a Nikon service centre they will take a look and give you an estimate for the repair cost. You can then decide if it's worth it.
In my case it was mould on the optics and repairs were definitely NOT worth it! A new lens was a better deal. With yours it may well be an electronics issue and possible that a repair might be a reasonable financial option.
My suggestion would have been to try cleaning lens contacts. I had a new 14-30 stop reporting aperture after a few dives, and it was fine after contact cleaning.
I'm thinking, especially right now with all the move to ML and various trade-in rebates, that it would be cheaper and easier to buy a used lens.
FWIW, I checked just now with MPB and they have what appears to be a very clean "like new" 105 for $509. Maybe not worth fixing yours but perhaps no harm in getting an estimate from Nikon, if it is a lens you use often. Since they are now discontinued, maybe not a bad thing to have an extra anyway?
Heading to Fiji in a few weeks. Land-based trip in the Bligh waters area. Would love to hear about your trip, what lens you used most, etc. Been to Fiji once before, seemed mostly wide angle.
I was one a liveaboard so we covered quite a variety of dive sites. To be sure the big attractions in Fiji are the colorful soft and hard corals. But we did night dives and some sites that didn't have a much soft coral. Those were pretty good locations for shooting macro. Small critters included pygmy seahorses, pipefish, nudibranchs, tiny hairy shrimp, etc.
I only brought along my Sigma 15mm with a 170mm Zen dome, at 1.4tc & 20mm extension for better CFWA, and the 105mm with a +5 diopter for macro. This was a pretty good selection and worked out well.
Thanks, and good luck with the 105. If you decide on getting a used replacement, I have had good luck with MPB and they offer free returns if you are not happy with the lens.
3 hours ago, Draq said:
Thanks, and good luck with the 105. If you decide on getting a used replacement, I have had good luck with MPB and they offer free returns if you are not happy with the lens.
Thanks for the advice. MPB had better prices on used 105mm vr's than B&H. I bought the $500 "like new" lens.
I'll update one what Nikon has to say about repairing my lens.
