Hi,
after some practice shooting by the sea I've discovered that there are some sand particles in the iris ring of my XHA1, I can feel them when turning the ring, there is friction. They must have been blown there by the huge wind.

Any advice on how to get it out withou endangering the lense?

Thank you!

i've used a razor blade.

find out where they are and gently slide them out.

I can't feel their exact position, but I'll gently try the razor thing.

Had the same problem with a new Canon XHA1 cam after 5 hours shooting. Not in the iris but in the focus ring. Not even at the beach... I can hear the 'crunch'.
Tried to blow it out with compressed air and with a sigarette paper, no luck.

I tried hard blowing together with a thin plastic card and solved about 60% of the friction problem. Will try again tomorrow, probably will buy compressed air.

Andris,

I had the same situation a few weeks back.

Here is the thread.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=105145

Thanks, Jay!
But is iris ring non-mechanical too?

sorry guys, but its actually the problem. Friend of mine has FX1 and some dust under focus ring. The more he uses it, more of it drops on the center of the inner lens. Which you can easily see and which will cause a lot of problems, coz u just have a white spot in the middle of picture.

You cannot really clean it, you have to replace the whole zoomlens. Although I heard that one company can do it.

i have a same problem with HVX, my thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=94437