Anyone in the US buy a RF 70-200 2.8 IS recently?

what do you mean by intermittent AF issues? and how can you tell how old the lens is by the serial?

tifa3 wrote:

what do you mean by intermittent AF issues? and how can you tell how old the lens is by the serial?

It misses the focus in instances when it shouldn't, and it's happened multiple times (i.e. non-challenging scenarios where my 1D4/5D4 and EF 70-200 2.8 IS II always hit). But I haven't used the RF (nor the R5) enough to rule out anything yet, which is why I just want to determine if the lens I got was possibly flawed/a return.  If a few other people recently got RF 70-200s that were produced last year, that would ease my mind a bit 

As for lens dating: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

Brand New wrote:

tifa3 wrote:

what do you mean by intermittent AF issues? and how can you tell how old the lens is by the serial?

It misses the focus in instances when it shouldn't, and it's happened multiple times (i.e. non-challenging scenarios where my 1D4/5D4 and EF 70-200 2.8 IS II always hit). But I haven't used the RF (nor the R5) enough to rule out anything yet, which is why I just want to determine if the lens I got was possibly flawed/a return. If a few other people recently got RF 70-200s that were produced last year, that would ease my mind a bit

As for lens dating: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

The lens became available in December 2019 so there shouldn’t be that many old stock though.

Brand New wrote:

tifa3 wrote:

what do you mean by intermittent AF issues? and how can you tell how old the lens is by the serial?

It misses the focus in instances when it shouldn't, and it's happened multiple times (i.e. non-challenging scenarios where my 1D4/5D4 and EF 70-200 2.8 IS II always hit). But I haven't used the RF (nor the R5) enough to rule out anything yet, which is why I just want to determine if the lens I got was possibly flawed/a return. If a few other people recently got RF 70-200s that were produced last year, that would ease my mind a bit

As for lens dating: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

The R5 does not have any cross type AF points so there are some scenarios where the R5 will not find focus that the DSLRs would. Could it be that these situations only have contrast in one direction?

Mike Mulaw wrote:

Brand New wrote:

tifa3 wrote:

what do you mean by intermittent AF issues? and how can you tell how old the lens is by the serial?

It misses the focus in instances when it shouldn't, and it's happened multiple times (i.e. non-challenging scenarios where my 1D4/5D4 and EF 70-200 2.8 IS II always hit). But I haven't used the RF (nor the R5) enough to rule out anything yet, which is why I just want to determine if the lens I got was possibly flawed/a return. If a few other people recently got RF 70-200s that were produced last year, that would ease my mind a bit

As for lens dating: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

The R5 does not have any cross type AF points so there are some scenarios where the R5 will not find focus that the DSLRs would. Could it be that these situations only have contrast in one direction?

Thanks for the suggestion, but there's good contrast in both directions, so I don't think that's it. Like I said, I need to do more testing to rule some things out, but I'm hoping someone will chime in about the serial numbers. But I may be exchanging the lens anyway, since it came with a fairly big piece of dust or some other debris speck inside as soon as I pulled it out of the box (part of the reason it feels like a return...with the other being the old production date).

My serial number starts with 83. I’m assuming that means November 2019? No issue focusing at all with the R5.

To answer your questions:

• No issues
• 82

But how do you tell the year it was made from these 2 numbers?

If you believe the first 2 numbers are the year this make mine built in 82 and an RF35mm 1.8 lens, I have, built in 69!

The serial number may have the date buried in it but it will be coded (not as clear date by as encoded date with Canon only knowing the key)

Tony Defriez wrote:

To answer your questions:

• No issues
• 82

But how do you tell the year it was made from these 2 numbers?

If you believe the first 2 numbers are the year this make mine built in 82 and an RF35mm 1.8 lens, I have, built in 69!

The serial number may have the date buried in it but it will be coded (not as clear date by as encoded date with Canon only knowing the key)

Here is the decoder key:

https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

Tony Defriez wrote:

To answer your questions:

• No issues
• 82

But how do you tell the year it was made from these 2 numbers?

If you believe the first 2 numbers are the year this make mine built in 82 and an RF35mm 1.8 lens, I have, built in 69!

The serial number may have the date buried in it but it will be coded (not as clear date by as encoded date with Canon only knowing the key)

Thanks Tony. 82 would be October 2019 and 69 is September 2018. The production can be ascertained via: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Lens-Aging.aspx

Do you remember when you got the 70-200?

Thanks Mike!

shawnphoto wrote:

Brand New wrote:

Bought a RF 70-200 2.8 IS a few weeks ago, and have had some strange, intermittent AF issues. It's not at MFD and I did update the firmware to the latest, but I still need to test more to confirm if it's the lens, the R5, or the operator.

My question for now is if anyone who has bought the lens in the past few months could share the first two digits of your RF 70-200 serial? I purchased mine from a very large retailer, who I thought would sell through their inventory and re-stock fairly often, but my serial indicates that the lens was produced about 9 months ago. That makes me wonder if it was a faulty return that accidentally slipped back in, or if it really has been just sitting in the warehouse for over half a year.

Define missed focus. Is it just barely missing or is it way off? Can you post an example?

You can probably send it to Canon and they'll fix it. Might be better than playing the lottery with the dealers again.

Not way off, but not too close, either. It definitely isn't a motion blur/shutter speed issue. I just sent the lens back, anyway, because I think the speck of debris inside the lens is going to bother me down the line, AF issues or not. It doesn't quite look like dust, since it's a little big and somewhat shiny, and a brand new lens shouldn't have that straight out of the box. Hopefully the replacement is fine, but if I have the same AF issue, I can pretty much rule out it being the lens (or it's confirmation that I have the worst luck). Thanks