Olympus 70-300mm Lens (1 Viewer)

Hi, Here's hoping someone can advise me. I dropped my Lens and sent it to Olympus as it was not focusing . When it came back the extending barrel would only extend to 150mm even though I had turned the Lens to 300mm. I sent it back. It has come back with the same problem and their customer services have told me this is normal, that the barrel, which is marked up to 300mm only comes out to 150mm even though it reads 300mm on the Lens. It never was before I dropped it, the figure on the Lens and the barrel always matched. I even found a video on youtube showing the Lens extended to 300mm and both figures match (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5qYFHQ8zYA&feature=related), at about 1.37minutes.
Has anyone got one of these Lenses and could give some advice. How can I convince 'the experts' at Olympus that they are wrong. Should I just buy a new one and write off the £140 repair fee?
Sorry this is so long

Figures from a working 70-300 swithched to MF.

With the lens focussed at infinity the lens extends by about 55mm from 70mm focal length to 300mm focal length. The macro reading on the lens is 1:6.

Winding the lens to maximum close up the lens starts with approx 34mm extension with a macro reading on the lens of 1:8 and extends to approx 86mm extension with a macro reading of 1:2.

( The 1:8 macro position has 150mm inscribed against it - on mine with the focal length set to 150 this is the minimum focussing distance on AF - the 300 mm setting on the extending barrel is again marking the closest focussing distance with the focal length set to 300mm.)

Don't forget that minimum focus is less for MF than if running on AF.

Thanks so much for all the info. Just one more thing though, am I correct in thinking that if I turn the Lens to the 300mm mark (whether on or off the camera), should the extending barrel also come out to the 300mm mark?
In other words should the extending barrel always read the same as the Lens, be it 70, 150 or 300mm. Sue

Hi Sue. I had a look at mine last night and I couldn't see a 300mm mark on the extending barrel of the lens. I think the marks on there refer to the macro settings.

You could check if your zoom is working correctly by taking a photo at 300mm and then looking at the exif data for the shot or checking the info on the display.

Ron

Hi Sue,

The 1:4 - 300 mark on the extending barrel will only be visible if the lens is close focussing i.e. as Ron says you are taking a close up/macro, it is not visible all the time when set to 300mm zoom.

At 70mm on the zoom that marking will never be visible if the lens is working properly - it will only ever extend to the 1:8 mark.

The extending barrel only extends a limited amount to accomodate the zoom action - it moves a whole lot more to focus.

Quick check is to set the lens to 300 mm on the zoom and auto focus on something about a metre away the barrel will extend to show tha marking you refer to.

If you set the camera and lens to manual focus and 'play' with it a bit you will see that that marking is only visible when you are close focussing and not all the time when the zoom is set to 300mm.

Generally if you can rotate the zoom collar from 70 to 300, the image changes appropriately and it can be focussed at sensible distances, the chances are that it is working. The exif data is a good confirmation.

John

Sue,

I have just had another look at that youtube clip. In the first part they zoom to 300mm with the lens off the camera with the lens focussed on infinity and the extension is as I describe it in my first post. In the later clip the camera is focussing on something very close - out of shot, but not far away hence the full extension at 300mm zoom.

J

That's a good explanation John. When I looked at mine last night it was on my old E-510, which didn't have a battery in. I just tried the zoom but not the focusing, so I didn't see the extending barrel moving all the way out. I will have another play with the battery in some time.

Ron

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. I guess I will have to get some more practice in. Sue