Whatcom Falls trip 2: Farewell 100mm

I went out to the Whatcom Falls area again, and got some wonderful shots of waterfowl. Unfortunately, my favorite lens also broke rather abruptly. Walking from the lower lot up to Northridge still wore me out, but this time I think it had more to do with the fact my feet haven’t fully recovered from the beach trip.

The relatively big 200mm L II did its job beautifully when I had it equipped. My favorite shots of the day are of a couple geese in Derby Pond. They seemed interested in following the ducks around at a leisurely pace. The ducks seemed so disinterested one of them took a rest while I could still fill a frame with it.

I also managed to get several shots of a robin perched on a tree near Scudder Pond, though getting the foliage to agree was a bit tricky.

My favorite lens, the Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM, gave a great performance while it lasted. Unfortunately, after autofocusing to infinity for one last time, the lens stopped focusing accurately. One of its final shots right before the breakdown was this squirrel sitting in tricky light.

Manual focus still works, but the fringing throws off the manual focus assist features of my camera. I am soliciting quotes for repairs. From what I’ve looked up, one of the clutch rings likely developed ruts and would be relatively simple for a repairman to fix. If repairs wind up not being possible, I might try my hand at it; but I’d rather not. If the problem winds up being too serious to fix, I’ve heard of some similar off-brand lenses I could try to replace it (though 100 f/2 itself is hard to find, 85mm is common). For full disclosure, I did try it on other camera bodies. The old Rebel 2000 behaves just like my X-T4’s Fringer adapter with the AF working too coarsely to find anything; whereas the newer Rebel T7 can accurately focus with it, but only within a tiny range.

One lesson I learned (or re-learned) seems obvious in hindsight, but: If you’re going for the “taffy effect” on water, Image Stabilizing or a tripod are needed. More traditional gear that focuses on speed and aperture will do no favors working at deliberately slow speeds.