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A Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS lens that’s part of the LensRentals fleet was returned without a problem, but when the technicians inspected it to make sure everything was ok, they found a very unpleasant surprise.

A fly had lodged itself deep inside of the weather-sealed lens, between the glass elements on either side. It took a technician four hours to remove the fly from the lens, and as he worked he captured images that show just how dust and hair can end up stuck in your lenses.

“The point to be made here is that there are huge openings into the inner lens through the helicoid slots,” LensRentals wrote on its blog, “Obviously anything that gets inside the lens is free to move about to the inner elements. Dust particles, spiders, or in this case a fly, are all going to find their way down inside the lens.”

The technician ended up having to fully disassemble the lens, and it just goes to show that even a weather-sealed lens will inevitably have openings where air (and creatures) can get through.

You can read the rest of the story over on LensRentals’ Blog

This occurrence is actually not unheard of. Last year we interviewed a Canon technician and he had a similar story to tell about a lens that a National Geographic photographer brought back from the jungle.