Lens advice please

[alj23]

Hi everyone - I have a Canon 20D with a Sigma 28-200 which is in pretty decent condition and a battered hand me down Canon 70-300mm - The problem I have is that the Canon lens is so battered that when I zoom in there is loads of muck inside it !! I can see it when I look down the end of the lens !! and tried to take some pics of candles at christmas and zoomed in - too my horror it looked awful with lots of bits !!

Three questions -

1) is it worth getting it cleaned up and if so where is the best place to go ?

2) if not worth cleaning it up I was looking at a decent replacement and saw the Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di LD Macro for £129 at Cameraking.co.uk. The Sigma lens seems to be doing me ok and I have a 50mm 1.8 on its way. I want the extra zoom so I can take good pics of wildlife and zoo animals as I live near the zoo !!

3) when I lock the sensor of the camera I can see dust on it, and when I look through the viewfinder I can see the dust inbetween the little focus marks - I am shying away from trying to sort it myself and tried one of those little blower things - real carefully !! but dust is still there - wondering what to do next !!


What do people think - any comments welcome, and sorry for so many questions in one go !!! - feel free to point me in the direction of useful threads.

AJ

[mwomwell]

Might be worth you looking through threds on the following site:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/

[h4rri]

The 70-300 is a reasonable lense and would cost you £150 ish to replace it. As it's an older lense and as you say 'battered' I wouldn't send it away for cleaning. Simply get a rocket blower and see if you can clear the muck yourself. You can then use the blower to keep all your kit clean on a regular basis.

[kavster]

You will fine with a rocket blower. Just dont poke it inside too far!

I get the muck on the VF focus area too, just point the camera downwards and blow up towards the VF, clears it out nice

K.