Category: Teardowns and Disassembly
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Disassembling the Lumix S Pro R70-200mm f/4 OIS
We’ve been impressed with most of the lenses that have come out for the L mount cameras but haven’t taken many of them apart. But as luck would have it, we have several Panasonic Lumix Pro 70-200mm f/4 OIS lenses needing repairs for autofocus issues. In the U. S., Panasonic doesn’t offer repair really, just […]
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The Secret of the Broken Element: A Canon RF 100-500mm f4.7-7.1 Teardown
In ancient times, the IS unit in Canon EF lenses was physically locked down, so the unit didn’t make rattling noises when the lens wasn’t powered up. Canon decided the lockdown was no longer necessary in modern times, so some RF lenses, like the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1, rattled when the lens wasn’t mounted to the […]
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Taking Apart the Canon EOS R5 Mirrorless Camera
Let’s get one thing out of the way in the first sentence. If you’re here to understand the mysteries of thermal flow in the Canon R5 I can tell you everything I know without doing a teardown: It’s small, it’s weather-sealed, and photo-body cameras have limited ability to get heat out of the camera. I am […]
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The Fujifilm GFX 100 vs Salt Water Teardown
So today is “Every Dark Cloud Has a Silver Lining Day.” The dark cloud involves a Fujinon GFX100 medium format camera that went out on rental, got used in a dive housing, and ‘suddenly died for no reason.’ Except on further investigation, well, maybe it got a little wet, but just a bit, but it […]
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Taking Apart the Canon RF 600mm f/11 IS STM
Here I sit, the guy who gets poetic writing about tiny resolution differences in high-priced wide-aperture lenses, having just bought this lens. Its aperture is in the diffraction-softening range. The manufacturer’s (pronounced ‘better than reality’) MTF charts aren’t very good. So why did I buy this pig? Because it could fit a need, of course. Despite the religious […]
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A Peek Inside the AF-S Nikkor 120-300mm f/2.8 FL ED SR VR
We’ve wanted to look inside the Nikkor AF-S 120-300mm f/2.8 FL ED SR VR lens. When we took apart a Z lens recently, we found Nikon had moved on from their ‘classic’ internal optomechanical and electrical design for a neat, modern design. We were interested to see if newer F lenses would pick that up, or if they would […]
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The Not Very Long Awaited Teardown of the Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS
Long ago, a visiting Canon engineer put a box on my workbench, grinned, and said: “You’re going to like this.” Then he pulled out a mock-up of the RF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS lens, and my jaw dropped. I’ve been doing this stuff for a long time. My jaw drops very infrequently. My only comment was, “That’s […]
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Why Side-Mount Buttons and Ports Break on Cameras
We spend a lot of time fixing broken stuff. As sort of a side gig to that, we advise some manufacturers about what is likely to break or is regularly breaking. We offer our input to all manufacturers; some are interested in it, and some don’t give a flying damn. For free, we blog about it, […]
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Disassembling the Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM
When we optically tested the Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM we were mighty impressed. Then I threw up in my mouth a little when I read a couple of reviewers comment on the build quality. Because holding a lens gives you not the slightest idea about the build quality. So I was excited when a 135mm […]
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Removing a Fly from ‘Weather Sealed’ Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II
I’ve been doing lens stuff for a long time now. Long time. Trust me; it’s hard to remain polite the 843,911th time some newbie goes into hysterics because there’s dust in their lens. Telling them it doesn’t matter a bit, and that all their other lenses have dust they just can’t see ( because different optics magnify […]
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Assembling the C-4 Optics 4.9mm f3.5 Hyperfisheye Prototype
You guys have watched us gut a lot of lenses and cameras over the years. So I thought it would be fun for you to see us put one together from scratch. Compared to many of the lenses we’ve taken apart, this is all mechanical lens is rather simple: no focus motors, image stabilizers, etc. […]
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The Great 400mm Teardown Comparison. Part II – The Sony 400mm f2.8 G
In which you will not only learn how good the construction of Sony’s new flagship is, but also everything you wanted to know about Kubu. As I mentioned last week, we usually don’t write up super-telephoto teardowns, but the release of two remarkably lightweight 400mm f/2.8 lenses seemed like a great opportunity to do a comparison. […]