Dust Inside Lens

[oconorchris73]

I own the 28-135mm Canon IS lens, but dust has been gradually building up behind the front element over a period of several years. When travelling, I keep my lens in an enclosed Low Pro bag at all times, which is then placed within another casual bag, for security reasons. But despite this, dust still seems to be able to get in. As one reader said... "This lens is like a hoover!"
Most of my photography is taken in India and a large majority in the bigger city`s, where I am constantly exposed to both pollution and dust and there is no doubt, this is where the majority has come from.
Does anybody know if it is possible to remove this dust from inside the lens itself?? And will it affect the quality of the pictures?
And do Canon L lenses suffer from this problem?

Thanks for the help,
CHRIS

[another view]

All lenses, especially zooms, will do this. Dusty environments make this worse of course and after several years you might be ready for a good cleaning. I'd contact Canon's service center about this. I use "the other brand" but a basic service would be cleaning and checking it over - if you have enough dust inside the lens then it would probably be good to have them check over the electronics inside it too (IS).

[Clemmie]

I'll second that! Most lenses actually come from the factory with a bit of dust inside, no matter how 'clean' the operation is - and ALL will almost certainly acquire more dust over time, even if they are specially sealed lenses.

So long as the dust doesn't reach the level of affecting image quality or viewfinder clarity, don't worry about it. If it does reach that point, then a cleaning is in order - but I wouldn't spring for it until it became truly necessary. Unlike the common 'clean/lube/adjust' service on a camera body, internal cleaning of a lens requires complete disassembly, and thus can get pricey.