50D and no IS on 500mm F4

[Duck_Pond]

I've just bought a 2nd hand 500mm F4 lens which is great, but have discovered that my 50D doesn't fire up the IS on it. Fortunately, I have a 40D, which does, so I'm not stuck.

Has anyone else had any similar problems with their kit?

I'm assuming the 100-400mm lens has a different IS set up, as both the 40D and 50D work fine on it.

I spotted this some months back when playing with a 400mm DO lens, but I thought it was perhaps the lens at fault or that it needed to be a 1D to make that work.

I've tried cleaning the pins inside the camera that meet the lens contacts, but that's not made a difference.

One for Fixation / Canon, do you reckon? It's less than 12 months old, so should be under warranty I assume.

 

[grumpybadger]

I heard you were having this issue Pete (news travels fast).

When I had a 50D, IS on the 500 worked fine so it feels like an issue with the camera body to me. Ideal would be to try it on a number of different body/lens combinations but I guess that may be tough.

 

[paul_g]

Certainly sounds like a problem with the 50D to me Pete. It should work, end of story
If you want to pop round to my house we can try out a right mixture of combinations

 

[Martyn...]

Pete do you have a custom setting in the menu on the 50D that could be causing a problem. I know that the AF-ON button on the back of my D300 will not start up the VR system, just wondered if you had set something in the past that is causing this.

 

[grumpybadger]

Pete

Another thought. If you want to try another 500 on your 50D, you're welcome to head back east again and give it a try - and a 400DO for that matter.

Paul

 

[Duck_Pond]

Cheers - customer setting, no, don't think so. It's set the same as the 40D with the settings for limiting raw noise and having the button on the back for AF.

I have a feeling there's just something not right with it, as Kaz has a 50D and hers is fine on the lens too.

I'll get it off to Fixation I think. The 40D is no real hardship; not much of a difference to the 50D to be honest.

Having 700mm to play with certainly makes a huge difference to what can be snapped... aside from my spine carrying it!

 

[cmonkey]

I spotted this some months back when playing with a 400mm DO lens, but I thought it was perhaps the lens at fault or that it needed to be a 1D to make that work.

I've tried the 50D and 400 F4 DO combination and I remember when I initially put the lens on the body it wouldn't focus or do anything, so I had to play around with the custom function that controls of the ordering of AF/Metering start on half-press of the shutter. Once I played around with that it was OK with AF and IS.