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Friday Slide Show: Soaked by a Storm
6 January 2023
The second of three atmospheric rivers hit the region this week dropping another four or five inches of rain. The ground was already saturated after the first. The second brought both more flooding and power failures from downed trees along with it.
We've been out in both, taking care of disabled family members in two locations. We relied on National Weather Service radar to time our travels during lulls in the storm. But that didn't protect us from overturned SUVs and flooded roadways.
UPS dodged the storm long enough to deliver our 18-200mm Nikkor after it was serviced by Nikon. We let the package acclimate to the house overnight before opening it and inspecting the lens.
Nikon called it a "moderate repair service" which included checking the lens mount, focus at infinity and the zoom as well as a general check and clean.
To address the performance problem of the scene in the viewfinder hopping up and back down before focusing, Nikon replaced the main board and a relay. It also repaired the focusing mechanism and adjusted the autofocus operation.
That makes it sound rather severe. We've asked Nikon to elaborate, particularly since we have a second copy of the lens that has exhibited the same issues. We'll update our previous story Fixing a Nikkor Zoom when we get some answers.
Meanwhile to test the repair, we put it on our Nikon D200 and opened the back door to the garden to try a few shots at several focal lengths in both portrait and landscape orientation.
We liked what we saw through the lens. A garden soaked by the storm. We'd been out in it earlier to clean up a bit before the next round of rain hit us. So we focused on a few of our favorite corners of the yard.
Ask anyone around here and they'll say we need the water. Reservoirs are way down after years of drought. These atmospheric rivers carrying more water that the Mississippi certainly help that.
But it's an expensive remedy. There's been a lot of damage that isn't as easily repaired as a lens.
