Help - Grinding noises from within my lenses

Hallo all.

I got a nikon F80 and two lenses - one sigma 24mm and one nikon zoom lens - 70-200 mm i think. All have work very well until resently. It has been used in a very dusty enviroment and now every time I use the autofocus, horribly grinding sounds comes from within the lenses. I suspect that dust is the issue - What can I do - I don´t have alot of money and therefore sending it to be fixed at a professional place is not an option at this point. Can I fix it myself ? any suggestions.

regards, kim catton

I hate to say it, but if you are asking whether you can do it, this indicates that you are not a professional repairman! Brave people do take lenses like this apart, sometimes they even manage to put them back together again, but really the lens need to go to a repairman and will wear out very rapidly if you continue to use it without servicing!

Regards,

David

Kim,
you may want to get a set replacement lenses and try your luck on dissassembling the ones that make grounding noises. Perhaps you discover you have a talent you didn't know about. Either that, or find a friendly handy person very soon who'll do it for the love of seeing you or your pictures. I don't know if the lenses you have are worth the cost of a professional repair.

The bringer of bad tidings,
Norm

Howdy: Most likely this isn't simply dust but if you've been down to the beach lately, I'd lay odds that's probably the culprit. Take them down to a repair shop for a good cleaning, lube and adjustment. And while you're at it, take your body (camera body that is) in too because it may be suffering from the same condition and you just haven't noticed it yet. CLA are pretty reasonable and a qualified repairman will ensure they get put back together properly.
Take it light.

Unless you are good and know what your doing, the most likly outcome of trying to tear a AF lens apart is going to be a couple of paper weights or a couple of nice magnafying glasses you can start small fires with, like we use to do in Science class in high school!

Unless you can afford to loose your lenses, my suggestion would be to send to a shop and have them CLA them, most of the time the CLA is no to expensive and you can send them in one at a time.

Good luck, don't act rash and you should be okay.

Dave