Camera has dust in lens after just over year

damian78

Hello,

I bought a Fujifilm digital camera just over a year ago from Tesco for around £330. Just recently I've noticed that the lens has quite a bit of dust inside of it - I've been having some issues with the autofocus and I expect it will start to affect the image quality the more it builds up.

I believe this must be a manufacturing fault - I'm fairly certain it shouldn't be possible for dust to get inside the lens. Because its gone over the 12 months its no longer covered by the standard warranty, however, would I be within my rights to approach the manufacturer and request a repair for the reason that its not lasted a reasonable amount of time? I never filled in the warranty card that came with it, and I just caught the tail end of Martin Lewis on Five Live saying something about always having to complete these cards - will this affect my rights?

wealdroam

damian78 wrote: »

Hello,

I bought a Fujifilm digital camera just over a year ago from Tesco for around £330. Just recently I've noticed that the lens has quite a bit of dust inside of it - I've been having some issues with the autofocus and I expect it will start to affect the image quality the more it builds up.

I believe this must be a manufacturing fault - I'm fairly certain it shouldn't be possible for dust to get inside the lens. Because its gone over the 12 months its no longer covered by the standard warranty, however, would I be within my rights to approach the manufacturer and request a repair for the reason that its not lasted a reasonable amount of time? I never filled in the warranty card that came with it, and I just caught the tail end of Martin Lewis on Five Live saying something about always having to complete these cards - will this affect my rights?

Not filling the warranty card will not affect your statutory rights.
It may, just may, affect your rights to a remedy under the manufacturer's warranty.

Have a read of MSE's Consumer Rights guide and their How to Complain article for further details.

In there you will see that you should probably be talking to Tesco, but expect them to refer you to Fuji.

InsideInsurance

Unless it is sold as a professional fully sealed unit then it isnt. Even top end pro-sumer cameras/ lenses arent normally sealed and are susceptible to dust.

Any rights with the manufacturer are fairly limited. If it has more than a 12 month warranty the manufacturer can impose whatever terms they want on that as they are contractual not statutory.

Your main rights exist with the retailer as the Sales of Goods Act states it must have a reasonable lifespan (of cause reasonable is open to interpretation) with an absolute cap of 6 years. However it is up to you to prove its faulty rather than miss used/ wear and tear and not up to the retailer to disprove it as its over 6 months old.

In the first instance attempt to return it to Tesco under the sales of goods act stating you dont believe X months is a reasonable life for a $330 digital camera

notanewuser

damian78 wrote: »

Hello,

I bought a Fujifilm digital camera just over a year ago from Tesco for around £330. Just recently I've noticed that the lens has quite a bit of dust inside of it - I've been having some issues with the autofocus and I expect it will start to affect the image quality the more it builds up.

I believe this must be a manufacturing fault - I'm fairly certain it shouldn't be possible for dust to get inside the lens. Because its gone over the 12 months its no longer covered by the standard warranty, however, would I be within my rights to approach the manufacturer and request a repair for the reason that its not lasted a reasonable amount of time? I never filled in the warranty card that came with it, and I just caught the tail end of Martin Lewis on Five Live saying something about always having to complete these cards - will this affect my rights?

Lots of cameras do this. Has yours got an electronic zooming lense on the front? If so, that's a common issue.

Shouldn't be a difficult job to take it apart and get the dust out yourself. Done it myself several times.

damian78

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll do as advised, take it back to Tesco first and see what they say, then if I get no joy contact the manufacturer and see if they are willing to do a repair (if it is actually a fault, which reading some of the above it might not be).

Its actually a manual SLR type zoom rather than an electronic one, though its not removable. I might end up having to take it apart, but will probably end up doing more harm than good.

notanewuser

damian78 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll do as advised, take it back to Tesco first and see what they say, then if I get no joy contact the manufacturer and see if they are willing to do a repair (if it is actually a fault, which reading some of the above it might not be).

Its actually a manual SLR type zoom rather than an electronic one, though its not removable. I might end up having to take it apart, but will probably end up doing more harm than good.

Can you post a link to it? If it has a telescopic lens then that's likely the problem. Can happen to any of them.

damian78

notanewuser wrote: »

Can you post a link to it? If it has a telescopic lens then that's likely the problem. Can happen to any of them.

I'm not able to post links unfortunately as a new user, but if you search Google for "Fujifilm HS30EXR" it comes up with loads of results.

InsideInsurance

It is a bridge camera, rather than dSLR and so certainly wont be environmentally sealed. Looking at the front end it appears to come in and out a lot when zooming. Even when you get into $1,000 + lenses with this sort of action you will get dust issues.

Look at a pro lens like the Canon 70-200mm L IS (http://www.johnlewis.com/canon-ef-70-200mm-f-2-8l-is-ii-usm-lens/p231857602?kpid=231857602&s_kenid=1fad6a12-ef60-21a9-ca71-000077ca3e11&s_kwcid=ppc_pla&tmad=c&tmcampid=73) and you will see that the lens remains the same length and the zoom is all done internally and thus it doesnt suck in air and thus dust when zooming in.

damian78

InsideInsurance wrote: »

It is a bridge camera, rather than dSLR and so certainly wont be environmentally sealed. Looking at the front end it appears to come in and out a lot when zooming. Even when you get into $1,000 + lenses with this sort of action you will get dust issues.

Look at a pro lens like the Canon 70-200mm L IS (...) and you will see that the lens remains the same length and the zoom is all done internally and thus it doesnt suck in air and thus dust when zooming in.

Ok, thanks for the info and explanation. Now I think about it, my old D-SLR (which I got rid of due to the prices of lenses such as that you posted above ) had some dust removal feature when I turned it on, so they must have expected dust to get in.

I've emailed them anyway just to see if there is anything they can suggest. I think it might be causing issues with the autofocus, as if I zoom right in on subjects it refuses to focus, whereas I didn't used to have that issue. I have to zoom back out before it will focus.

InsideInsurance

That would be for the dust on the sensor which is a consequence of having removable lenses. The sensor vibrates when you turn it on to try and shake any dust off. It probably also had a mode to expose the sensor by locking the mirror up etc for more thorough cleaning.

On top of that you will also get dust that gets into the lens. A lens can have many actual lenses inside it, the one I mentioned previously has 23 elements. Any lens where the volume/ length changes as you zoom (or even just focus) are prone to getting dust in the lens itself because as it expands it creates a vacuum and so air gets pulled and so dust will over time come in.

The judge of a good (and thus expensive) lens is that it remains 100% the same externally as it zooms and focuses as this 99% removes the vacuum issue and is pretty much required for any environmentally sealed lenses. Obviously we are excluding fixed lenses like on cameraphones and digital zooming here.

damian78

Yeah, it was for the sensor.

I've already received a response from Fujifilm advising me to return it to their service department for inspection. Didn't mention anything about cost though so I'll have to check that out before doing so (I don't really want to be without my camera if they aren't going to repair it without a charge anyway).