Epic fail? 70-200s of all makes among least reliable lenses

Ditto on the old Maxxums... bulletproof. Oops, shouldn't have said that; now the second-hand price will creep up even faster

The old Minolta Maxxum screw drive lenses have served flawlessly for 25 years. Not one problem with anything from 16mm to 600mm. Two of the lenses took heavy falls onto basement floor concrete. They work perfectly and hardly show any external damage.

The old original Tamron 70-210/2.8 SP LD AF (screwdrive) works like new after 20 years... Having lived through Maxxum 9000, 9xi, 9, and Sony a900. It won't die.

Sony a900 has 140,000 shutter count. Strong like bull. Strong like all previous Alpha 9 series.

My Canon 70-200 /2.8 is rev. 1 was around the world, shooting music festivals, many commercial jobs, and I was still able to sell it for more then I paid brand new, when I picked up my MkII. My secret, I TAKE CARE OF MY EQUIPMENT, and don't use my lens as a tactical weapon, garden tool, stool, or in the stead of other household items, and my equipment does not fail me.

I dropped my Nikon 80-200 f2.8 from 6 feet onto concrete in a neoprene pouch and all it need was to be recalibrated. I must have been lucky

My Olympus 35-100 2.0 or 70-200 in your world is one of most beautifully made lenses ever made with great reliability and output second to none. Hopefully Olympus can come up with a better sensor and AF compatible with this wonderful lens in next couple months.....

As always, lensrentals provides unique and first rate info. Doing great service to the world by doing so - a lot of big corps would hold this info secret "just in case".

My 70-200 2.8 vr Nikon was saved though it was fallen from a car sit--Its front filter ring was bent due to fall-but later repaired in Nikon service centre,Gurgaon,New Delhi,India.

Those who think that lenses last longer than camera bodies, think again ...

It's nice to get such insight...
that is one side of the picture we never get to see: relative/comparative reliability between various 70-200 lens models.

Obviously the manufacturers would never let on that they have a problem or flawed product. They probably don't even know how reliable their own products are compared to the competition. Until you get reports like this, made public.

Thanks very much for the insight.

Isn't the amount of time a product gets rented more important than the time between servicing? Plus the type of job a lens gets rented for?
It's just an article to generate free PR for a rental company, means nothing to any of us in practical terms.

I have a 70-200 -2.8VR that never fails. When I remove the lens cover, there is an insulated bottle inside where i can carry my coffee. Good way to hide the "hot" stuff inside the photo bag. The 24-70 has a mugg inside. SPhoto shooting stuff and hot coffee at all time, all in one single camera bag :-) .

The price of these things makes a bit more sense now.

stick to primes

Even expensive made for Arri film lenses get banged up & lose quality/sharpness because of rentals. Think Zeiss, Angenieux, Cooke- especially large zooms. No surprise.

Looks like Rokinon lenses are the champs for falling apart soonest. Most reviewers generally praise their build quality.

This confirms what I have thought about reviewers and build quality - their opinions are not worth much. Except possibly for those cases where the build quality is obviously cheap and nasty.

As usual, another interesting, well-written, well-researched article by Roger Cicala.

I think the main take-home message of the story is to beware from whom you rent lenses.

I just had to have my Canon 70-200/2.8 non-IS serviced twice in the last month. The AF motor was not tracking, but Canon missed the fact during the first service that lens was still soft due to the fact that one or more of the lens elements were out with respect to "tilt", and the lens had to go back for a second service. All is well now, but I completely understand where Roger is coming from.

The lens did perform exceptionally well for the better part of a decade before needing service, however.

It's amazing to see how complex these lenses are!

In 30+ years of shooting in all sorts of conditions with Olympus/Zuiko OM and HG/SHG digital lenses never once have I had a failure. Then the digitals do not have that IS bugaboo built into them, to create even more problems. Maybe Canikon should take a lesson from one the world's eminent lensmakers.

My "ancient" 80-200 Nikkor AF without an internal AF motor is looking real good after reading this article...

Let's face it... modern lenses are too complex for their own good. Prior to internal AF motors and IS we could count on Nikkors working for years without any problems unless one took a particularly bad hit/drop. I had a couple of lenses (105mm 2.5 and 20-35 2.8) that survived amazing drops and kept on clicking.

These days many Nikkors are fragile beasts that cost a small fortune to purchase. And the cost of repairing lenses has dramatically increased. I'm glad that I resisted the impulse to "upgrade" my lenses when my gear was still capable of doing everything I asked of the glass.

Nice to see the Sigma 120-300 OS has improved a lot. It has previously been the most repaired lens by a large margin IIRC.
Sigma's new emphasis on QC seems to be more than just marketing.
Shame on the Canon14L II, an expensive prime, no IS and likely to be looked after better than average due to that front element reminding you to take care with it but still fails a lot.

Never had a problem with my Tammy lens units, got three of them. But, I don't bang them around either. Not the most expensive lens units by far, but, for me, money doesn't grow on trees! I baby my lens units. They stay in the bag, capped when not in use, and I don't carry my camera on a neck strap. I use one of those strap to your wrist thingys.

I think a better way of looking at why these lens units fail, would be for the consumers to be honest as to what caused them to be sent in for repair. "Well, I got mad at my ex and slammed it against a coffee table."

Moral of the story, buy tamrons latest version of the 70-200 with vc usd and the 6 year warranty it comes with :-) lol

Soooo, taken at face value, I guess the moral of the story is don't rent 70-200mm lenses from Lensrentals? :)

I have a few 70-200's and some much older 80-200's and even a sun 80-240 (built like a tank). I use them often, even accidentally dropped a 70-200 f4 a few times (and it still works fine). Hazards of the job.

If I were to fathom a guess, is that folks don't treat rentals as equally as they would treat one of their own, purchased with hard earned cash? I generally reserve my vintage lenses for harmful and wet use, (No electronics to short out and can withstand constant dis-assembly and a hair dryer). My EF and Simga's 70-200 are handled gently, always capped and shot with a regards towards wear and tear. Etc.

So while my first comment might seem a bit comical, there is a real issue to consider when renting lenses for critical (aka paid) applications.

The IS in my EF 70-200/2.8 IS II always made an ugly grinding noise, then it stopped working altogether after just over one year of very little use. Had to shell out $200 to Canon to have it fixed. My previous, non-IS 70-200/2.8 got 10 years of use and never had a single issue, and I sold it for $200 less than it cost me!

More of Roger's always excellent work. But for those of us who own and take reasonable care of our stuff, I think what this shows is that with hardware or software, the more complicated you make it, the more problems you will have. It's not really surprising that prime lenses have fewer problems than zooms.

Nikon need to work on their repair system: too long and too expensive.

The title and extract taken from Cicala's long article are SO MISLEADING. One should really go through the original article.

This is reminiscent of my father who said the most difficult design job he ever had was the fuel injection system on the Merlin engine. Every design broke because there was so much energy passing through such a small volume. He said reliability finally came down to getting the geometry right. High loads operating in small spaces leads to failure unless the mechanical design is perfect.

Hyperbole of the silly Web 2.0 headline aside, without knowing exactly what the lens endures in shipping or how an end user treats it, there is no way to draw any meaningful conclusions from rental house repair stats. Complex lenses, and no real control in such a "test" make such stats essentially meaningless. Which is why car companies don't use stats from a Hertz car rental agency to publish reliability numbers to their customers.

Most people treat their own gear better than a rental. And as we learned from the guy who put a camera inside of a package to follow it's arduous journey, delivery guys and complex electronics and optical formulas are recipes for disaster.

I've never had an issue with either my previous 70-200 f/2.8 VR I or 70-200 f/4 VR (so far so good). I've brought both lenses abroad to Europe, used them in all kinds of conditions, and have never had an issue. So no, "epic fail" is not a phrase that comes to mind with either of these terrific lenses.

My friend's Nikon 70-200II, put on a D800. Lens hood on.

The camera was put on its back on a hard floor (screen facing the floor, lens pointing upwards). Then it fell back to horizontal - lens pointing forward (don't ask. It happened).

AF stopped working. Focusing ring started turning loose. The distance scale stopped working.

While my friend was pulling his hairs, I realised that by turning the focusing ring over and over again I started feeling like the the focusing gear was "attaching" (giving resistance) to the ring every now and then, which would make the distance scale move a little.

After ten or so minutes of mindless focusing ring turning, the focusing came back to life, distance scale started moving normally, AF came back to life.

Lens works good to this day.

I can't think of any lens which would have a problem from such a small shock. Then again, I can't think of any lens that would fix itself after that, like this one did :)

Perhaps the "failure rate" has something to do with intensity or kind of use. A 800mm lens probably never fails because the user will treat it like the luxury item it is. It will always be on a secure mount or in safe storage. A compact prime won't fail because is protrudes little and won't be twisted or yanked a lot to achieve different zoom settings. A 70-200 is very vunerable because the user will trip over rocks, while chasing a subject, and mangle the thing badly.

KEYWORDS in this article...The final factor, he says, is complexity.
I love my simple 100-400mmIS and no problems

The 70-200mm F/2.8G of Nikkor is my perfect nr.1 murder weapon with a failure rate of "zero" If it was possible, all my ex-wifes could tell you how well lthey are build.

Got my Nikon 70-200 for some time now and it is a workhorse with no problems. It's a lens not a hammer

My Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm held together. Sold it long ago, though.