After getting my EOS 450D I soon started lusting after new lenses. I saw a bargain on our local version of ebay (Trademe) for an EF-S 10-22mm. It was water damaged and going for a giveaway price. It said in the advert that it worked fine apart from some blurring

However I soon discovered that the operation was intermittent. Sometimes it would work fine, but most of the time it went crazy; the autofocus hunted and the aperture showed random numbers. So I sent it to the local Canon agent for service. Two weeks later it was returned as unrepairable.

So I took the lens apart. Managed to clean it so that the glass was all clear and the blurring was gone. But I could not get the electronics working, despite cleaning it very carefully. I was about to despair when someone on a forum suggested I ask Canon if they could supply a spare PCB. I asked them and they said they could, and for a very reasonable price, less than $100. So I ordered one and a few days later had a perfectly working EF-S 10-22mm lens, for a fraction of the new price.

Here’s one of the early shots I took with it.

Waitangi Falls (Click for full size)

This is Waitangi Falls near to Waiuku.

The 10-22mm has become one of my favorite lenses. You do need to know how to use it though. One of the secrets is to get really close to things (like almost touching the lens). If you don’t you just get images where everything seems a long way away.