Issue with my RED 18-50mm lens - need guidance

[Meryem Ersoz]

The iris ring and the zoom ring seem to be "hooking" each other, so that they are not functioning perfectly independently of each other - if I re-set the iris, twisting the iris ring adjusts the zoom ring and vice-versa.

Is this something I can fix myself, or would I need to send it in? Would I get a better price by having the fix done by RED or by a good lens tech like Duclos? Or is this simple enough of a problem to have it done locally? There is a guy here who used to work for Clairmont, but I don't want to have anything super complicated done locally - would this fall into the category of "super complicated" or is it something relatively simple?

Any ideas?

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

whoops - I didn't intend this for the complaint department - I thought I was posting it in RED Accessories...don't know how it landed here...

but to be clear, this is a question for RED Accessories, not a complaint at all...wanting to hear from you lens experts out there on the best course of action...

mods, feel free to re-locate this post to its intended location...

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Is it possibly under warranty?

If so, call RED first.

If they say its going to take a while, and time is an issue, then have the local guy take a look.

The local guy should know if he can handle the work, and should be able to give you better advise since he'll be hands on with the problem.

As for my infamous remote diagnostic(tm): Its either really trivial or really scary. (I know, useless. Best prognostications always are.)

My first guess is that you probably have something stuck in the mechanism.

You may also have something sticky stuck between the lens gears... gaff or camera tape maybe- someplace you can't see it. This is really a variant of my first guess.

The worst case scenario is that you have a deformed lens housing and that's what's making the two rings interfere.

Would love to hear back to see how wrong I am with the infamous remote diagnostic(tm)

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

thanks, Alexander, for the opinion...all thoughts appreciated. It is out of warranty, which is why I'm trying to figure out the cheapest option...I guess asking around for quotes is the way to go. It's always good to see if there is a DIY solution or commonly known issue, though. these lenses are so cheap to begin with, these days, that I don't want to drop a lot of money into fixing it...

 

[Cail Young]

You could first try gently tapping the lens on a hard surface, front element down, while rotating the rings. After that try the other way up. If it doesn't work, you'll definitely need somebody to open it up as there is something bent in one of the mechanisms that is catching.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

I'll give that a whack, so to speak, Cail...I tend to have good luck with slightly ugly solutions working small miracles...

 

[Antony M]

I had the same problem.

But I sent mine back to Red for repairs. They never told me what the actual cause was.

 

[Cail Young]

FWIW, the 18-50 we used to own a long time ago shipped out like that; it seems the design doesn't like getting bounced around too much.

 

[Ben Niles]

Mine does the same.
I've been living with this problem for a while now.
I know I should send it in to get fixed properly but in the meantime as a temp fix I have been placing some gaffers tape on the Iris gear to hold it in place when I zoom.

 

[Justin McAleece]

mine has always done the same thing on occasion.

 

[Mitch Martinez]

My 18-50 has a different issue. The markings for the zoom ring spin with the turning of the zoom ring. Thank goodness for the i4 data display to indicate what the focal length actually is because with the loose zoom ring markings, the ring is not accurate. It's still a great lens though.

Does anyone know how much it should cost to get the 18-50 zooms serviced?

 

[Paul Plonka]

Hi
I have an another issue. My zoom ring is blocked at 18-25 length. I`ve tried to fix it with a local Sygma service, but they don`t know how to open the rings of the lense. Maybe you know what to do?

 

[Tim Bradley]

Hi
I have an another issue. My zoom ring is blocked at 18-25 length. I`ve tried to fix it with a local Sygma service, but they don`t know how to open the rings of the lense. Maybe you know what to do?

My 18-50 had the same issue so I sent it back to red. All is fixed now and the lenses works really well.

Cheers, Tim.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Zooms are more sensitive then Primes on transport, and some zooms more then others.

For this I always strongly advise to carry all lenses, while putting the focus at infinity, Iris wide open on Primes, and on zoom fully rotate the all 3 rings on the same direction, this will avoid lots of possible issues, as some zooms extend internally on the wide and or the long hand, it is best to first rotate the Iris to full wide open and focus to infinity then the Zoom ring rotated to its maximum on the same direction.