Canon’s 24-105mm f/4L lens has become a staple amongst Canon users. Whether pro or hobbyist it’s the perfect balance between quality, versatility and price. Its successor, the 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, though, seems to be having a few teething troubles. Imaging resource mentioned the service notice a couple of weeks ago. But it wasn’t corroborated by any other Canon sources, and was quickly removed from the Canon Philipines website
Canon USA have now announced that certain examples of this lens exhibit “an AF operation-related malfunction”. This isn’t quite a recall just yet, because Canon don’t seem to have come up with a viable solution to the problem. At the moment, they are making “preparations”, and as soon as they’re complete, they’ll tell owners what they need to do.
The problem
Essentially, the problem the peripheral AF points don’t always nail their target. This happens when you’re at the shorter end of the lens’s zoom range. Canon say it happens regardless of your AF area selection mode. If you only ever use the centre AF point and “focus and recompose”, then this likely won’t be an issue for you. But, you’ll still want to know if you own an affected lens in case you ever decide to sell it on.
Affected lenses
Canon say that the affected lenses have serial numbers that start with “48”, “49”, “50”, and “51”. If the serial number of your lens starts with those digits then your lens “MAY POSSIBLY be affected” (Canon wrote it in capitals, too).
If you want to check for sure, Canon have put up a serial number checker. Enter your lens’s serial number, hit the button and it’ll tell you if your lens is affected or not. However, Canon’s service notice says that the list will be updated periodically. So, I’d check back several times over the course of the next few weeks to be safe if your lens initially comes up ok.
What you can do
At the moment, beyond checking your serial number to see if you’re affected, there’s really nothing you can do at all. Right now, Canon don’t seem to be accepting these lenses for return and repair.
As soon as preparations have been completed, we will inform users about the start date for accepting support requests for lenses affected by this issue.
Potentially affected products will be inspected and repaired free of charge. If you own one of the potentially affected products please contact our Customer Support Center.
This information is for residents of the United States and Puerto Rico only. If you do not reside in the USA or Puerto Rico, please contact the Canon Customer Support Center in your region.
If you want to find out more, and see Canon’s full statement, please check the links below for your country.
So far I’ve only seen official service notices for the USA & Canada, not including the one that briefly appeared on the Canon Philippines website. So, the issue may be limited to North America. If we happen to spot similar advisories in other countries, we’ll be sure to update this post.
[via SLRLounge]
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