I accidently did not secure my camera to the tripod properly and my 50mm became a tilt lens (I probably should have tried taking a photo with it like that, but was not sure of the damage). It just fell a short distance, but the plastic body lens does not take much abuse. These lenses are really cheap (but great value) and at the cost of repairing it you might as well just buy another one. So those were my options: buy a new one, or try fixing it.

So fix it we shall…..first step, carefully dismantle.

Fortunately nothing broken, just a few plastic clips that hold it together. Let’s put it back together now….

Ah, that looks a bit better. The autofocus sounds like a coffee grinder but works. And the photos? They seem perfect and the last few days photos on the blog have been with the repaired lens – yay for flash free low light photography. Fortunately the autofocus has settled down and sounds better now – I think it was not seating in the grooves properly, but settled in after a few photos.

And by now I am sure you are wondering how I managed to take it all apart and put it back together successfully…..I googled how to fix it and found these awesome step-by-step instructions. In total, including cleaning and figuring out how to clip it all back together, it took about an hour to repair the lens. Definitely worth it and a lot of fun.