Sticky barrel on manual Nikon lens

Gene Sung

Veteran
Hi,

I just got an old manual Nikon 100-300 AIS f 5.6 for filming surfing. The lens is very clean. It's one of those older zooms where the focus and the zoom are one giant ring that you push and pull to zoom.

The barrel is pretty sticky and it's hard to do a smooth zoom. When I start at 100mm and go to 300mm, it jerks a bit at the start, which obviously results in a bad zoom.

Is there anyway to get rid of the "stickiness" when zooming? Any kind of lubricant or something of that sort that will make it zoom smoothly?

Thanks for any tips
 
Take it to a camera repair shop. They'll know what to do. Lenses need very particular lubricants (typically propriety compounds specific to each manufacturer) and lubricating procedures to which only camera repair specialists have access. DIY is an easy way to ruin your lens in this case.
 
I dont know if any one has done a good zoom 'in shot' with any DSLR lens ever

You may need to realign your expectations

S
 
Thanks for the tip on the camera repair. I suppose the point is not really to do a good zoom in shot, but more just to have your equipment functioning well.
 
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