Decentered Lens Fix - How much does it cost

[@yska08]

My Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 was de-centered. I send it to Nikon in the Netherlands. They were very quick with their answer. It cost me 244 euro. That included shipping and handeling. A few parts like guide rollers needed to be replaced. I think it is not enormously high priced, this repair. They need to take practically the whole lens appart and than allign and calibrate the whole lens. That is labour intensive. My two cent. Great video by the way mate. Keep.up the good job.

[@mibreit-photo]

Thanks for the reply. Good to have a comparison. cheers

[@nb7524]

Hi Michael, thank you for this information, it is helpful. I purchased a lens recently and I’m going to do the check you did to make sure it is focusing properly.

[@edwardforgacs4172]

In Australia it's $418-440 AUD (up to 270 EUR) to get a lens re-aligned by Canon. The reason I know is that currently three of my lenses are in for this service (including one which is still under warranty and less than 3 months old). De-centering or alignment issues seem to be an extremely common problem, either shipping damage is very widespread (which I suspect) or the whole industry has an issue with quality control.

[@mibreit-photo]

Yea that's bad. I think it cannot be completely blamed on shipping. Quality control has to play it's role here too. The more important to test regularly within warranty period. Which reminds me that I will soon have to do some close tests for the 15-35 again ;-)

[@mariuskasteckas774]

I'm in photography for more than 10 years and I never knew about such a problem! Thank you for the video! Happy New year 2021 Michael!

[@adokapo]

Sony is notorious for this problem with all their lenses. This is quality control issue and should be handled by manufacturers free of cost no matter how old lens is.

[@notgazo7009]

I have the same problem with my EF 24-70 2.8 II. There is also a problem with backfocus on the left side of the image and front focus on the right side. I've had my suspicions about it for a long time. It is the first and only lens I bought with my 80D. At first I wasn't impressed with it but I thought it was because I was using it on an apsc body. Then I bought my EF 16-35 III 2.8 and its IQ was much more impressive than the 24-70. Now, on my R5, I'm really sad because I couldn't see the full image (on my crop body) and it's really bad. But the warranty is now over.

[@mibreit-photo]

Might still be good to get it fixed though. I didn't for a couple of years and it was a bad decision on my side.

[@Theaaronchris]

Did you get this fixed? I just noticed this on one of my 24-700 2.8 ii and it’s really frustrating

[@Vile0387]

I have the same issues with a Sony 18-105 f4 I bought second hand. I didnt notice right away when I tested it but once I found out, i messaged the original seller and he ignored me. Now I can't sell because I would have to lie... Anyways, the lens geta good focus as long as I stop it down to f8 and lower.

[@siegfriednoet]

Another question Michael, would you notice this with a telephoto lens also, I guess not but not sure ? Looks obvious that it could only be seeing clearly with a wide angle lens, or not ?

[@mibreit-photo]

The test with a telephoto lens is a bit different. You find some landmark at the horizon and then take different photos, putting this landmark into the different corners to compare. But it will be harder to see and often not be a problem I'd suspect

[@siegfriednoet]

Here I have the same question Michael, how can you be absolutely sure you are perfectly parallel with those trees very far away ? Looks impossible to know if you are perfectly the same distance away left or right to the trees The same at your card inside the house, normally you should measure this with a laser to be correct parallel to the wall and the sensor. I think most people won't notice this, if there is a decentering going on in the lens, you didn't have a problem with it for the past seven years ? So therefore I have my doubts, plus it looks impossible to have only one side decentered in a round object like a lens or glass , if the middle is perfect centered and the left side is decentered than shouldn't be the right side also be decentered ??

[@mibreit-photo]

I don't need to be absolute parallel to those trees. The DOF at f/8 should give me everything sharp till infinity. So + / - 100 meters at that distance is negligible and should not show such a difference. After all, with the fixed lens the line is equally sharp throughout. Also I explain in the video, that I had the problem the past 7 years, I just worked around it by applying focus stacking. It became annoying for shots where I couldn't do focus stacking though. If I had seen such a video 7 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of pain and I would have sent it to repair right away. Finally, lenses are very complex and I would not know how decentering should manifest itself. There are many lens elements and if just one is a little at an angle this will affect the shape of the focal plane. How? I do not know. But Canon also decided that this lens was decentered and needed adjustment and it worked. PS: if you would be ok using such a lens, that's fine. But if you need perfect sharpness, those tests are helpful. And I just learned that it helps to do such tests early on and then decide what to do.

[@bmwcar335]

If you still have lens I can buy. Let me know the contact number. I can use on my R5