grainy lens. please help.

marko5 · Mar 13, 2004

i have a 80-200 sears lens that has a fine grain all over the glass inside. it shows up in the pix. is this normal? or is the lens in need of repair? it doesn't look like dust or dirt. it is too uniform. any ideas?

markc · Mar 13, 2004

It could be fungus. The cure is to dunk it in a vat of 12 molar hydrochloric acid.

Okay, not really. It may be cheaper to buy a new one than to have it serviced.

voodoocat · Mar 13, 2004

Yeah those 80-200 lenses are a dime a dozen.

drlynn · Mar 13, 2004

Yep. Cleaning fungus out of a lens is costly, and if I understand correctly, often not permanent. Fungus is very hard to kill (ask anyont with athlete's foot :wink:

). Cleaning it off the lens will buy you some time, but it WILL come back, and then you'll be forced to go to the expense of having it cleaned out all over again.