Fuji lens lost in wilderness for 4 months – found, and still works! – By Steve Boykin

I’ve just found a 23mm f/2 Fuji lens that I lost in the wilderness in June. I just happened to be looking down and it was sitting on the ground a few inches from my foot. I had looked in this area before too… I must be honest, I didn’t expect it to work, but when I got home and mounted it on my X-Pro it came to life like nothing had happened.

The glass is fine too. The front element was protected by the B+W filter on it – it was really hard to get off though. The filter cleaned up nicely but had a bunch of water spots on it. The rear element was protected by the cap so is perfect too. The darn thing is, I must have walked past it 30 or 40 times over the last few months. It wasn’t where there was any grass.

The spot where I found it

I am absolutely astounded it still works. The auto focus is like nothing every happened. The aperture and focus ring turn smoothly. There is a slight discoloration on one side on the barrel. It’s the widest part, so it’s probably the part that was touching the ground. The paint is still on the lens too.

As far as the weather is concerned, we had a lot of rain in June through say mid July. Then it was like an oven outside from mid July until last week. Seriously, from mid August until last week it rarely got below 95 degrees with most days getting into the lows 100’s. It would be 90 degrees at 9 PM some days. Then suddenly on Wednesday night the temperature dropped. It was actually in the 30’s yesterday when I found it. We had also heavy thunderstorms Thursday night through Friday AM too.

I have to give them credit. It may look like a relatively inexpensive lens but it’s apparently very well made. I got this one when it was originally released, so it’s maybe 3 years old. I think I got it for $399 with the price being a sale. I paid $449 for the replacement. For that sort of money, this sort of resilience to the elements – especially in a lens filled with electronics – is fantastic.