Nikon D80 AF Problem

[Taceas]

Hey gang, its been a while since I've posted; life got busy for a while and I'm on so many forums for a variety of things this one kinda got put on the back burner.

Anyway, today I picked up my D80 and the auto-focus is screwy. It can't seem to find the target, and continually zooms in and zooms out. This is also accompanied by an occasional metal scratching/ratcheting noise as the lens moves.

The lens is a Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-135mm, it came with the camera when I bought it in Feb. 2007.

Any ideas on what could be the issue and if it can be remedied? I've heard horror stories of Nikon's customer service so I'm hoping I really don't have to go that route. As far as I know there aren't any camera service shops in the area.

I don't have any other lenses or cameras that I could try the lens out on, or use other lenses on this camera, so I'm kinda ground to a halt.

Thank you in advance.

[Ads]

[rooky]

I know this seems silly, but have you tried to take the lens off and reattach it? Mine did something similar once and i just took it off and put it back on and it worked. Figured it is worth a shot.

[Taceas]

One thing I learned from my dad's meticulous problem solving skills was, "Always try the simplest and stupidest things first". So yes, that was the first thing I did, to no avail.

I took a few pictures last night and it worked fine, I sat it on the kitchen counter and that was where it sat all night till this evening when it didn't work.

[Miaow]

I know this seems silly, but have you tried to take the lens off and reattach it? Mine did something similar once and i just took it off and put it back on and it worked. Figured it is worth a shot.

I've had a similar thing with the Canon zoom lens a couple of times-(minus the noise though), And yes doing this actually worked for me - i also gave the contacts a little bit of a wipe incase there was something on them.