What are the options for a damaged zoom lens?

Question

I have had a Nikkor 18-55mm lens for about 3 years. I just realized that my lens only zooms upto 45mm and then gets stuck.

This was my first SLR lens, and I did not pay attention to the zoom range earlier. I have dropped the lens once from around waist level to a hard concrete floor once. I don't know whether the lens was defective when I got it, or if it got damaged due to the fall.

Apart from the restricted zoom range, the lens works fine (as far as I can determine).

Is there any way to find out if the lens was always defective or if got damaged from the fall. Should I try to contact Nikkon regarding the lens warranty^[1]? Or should I just leave it alone; it is a cheap lens and works fine till 45mm.

¹ I bought the lens in USA and since then have moved to Canada, so I don't know how the warranty will work, but that is a separate question.

Answer

There is a way to find out if the focal lengths were accessible earlier. Given that you haven't had any other lenses in the same focal length range, you could use a tool like ExposurePlot to run over your older photos and see if you have ever used any focal lengths in the now inaccessible area. The results are shown in 35mm equivalent, so look for usage of focal lengths from 70 to 84.

Difference between 45mm and 55mm is actually not very big. You can still achieve similar field of view by cropping about 20% of width and height from a photo taken at 45mm.

I would not bother with getting such a small defect on such a cheap lens fixed, even if it does qualify for warranty (which I doubt, given the facts here).

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