Talk about having egg on your face...

[Stradawhovious]

Not sure if this belongs here, but it is a good lesson for me about viewing my equipment as tools, and not much more.
Today I pulled my camera out of its case and switched over to a lens I haven't used in a while... A Tamron 17-50 2.8 AF DiII which I'm rather fond of. After mounting it to the body I noticed some stuff on the front element grouping. Lots of stuff. Enough stuff to interfere with image quality. I went to try and clean it off and to my horror discovered that it was on the inside of the front element group of what I thought was a sealed lens. (turns out this lens is ANYTHING but sealed.)
Having no idea what this substance was, I set to disassembling the lens to try and get it clean... If any of you know how a SLR lens is constructed, this is proably the LAST thing you want to do. This lens consists of 19 elements in 14 seperate groups, all to a pretty strict tolerance. Mess with that, and you have a $600 paper weight. Since this thing was pretty much bricked anyways, I said "Forget it" and grabbed a screwdriver.
The front element group came off easy enough, but when I had it disassmbled I found the remains of a past photo shoot littering the inside of the lens.
Egg. Lots of Egg. Egg everywhere. I'm really kind of lucky that it was limited to that front element grouping, and it didn't make its way into the lens any more than it did. The good news is I was albe to assemble the lens pretty easily, and in addition to being cleaned up, it works!

How did I get egg INSIDE my camera? Easy.

Like this.

And a few more like it. I assumed I had cleaned the lens well enough but I hadn't. This stuff dried and eventually made its way inside.

Moral of the story, (in addition to being more dilligent about not getting egg on my lens) is that my lenses are tools. Try as I might to protect them, things happen.

 

[tirediron]

Interesting story and great images!

 

[lambertpix]

One of those rare instances where a UV filter might have been a good move. Great shots, though.

The insides of those lenses are pretty remarkable -- I had a 17-85 that broke a $4 ribbon cable once. Same situation -- it was worthless as-is, so I made a $4 bet. I was pretty happy to get it back together and find everything worked.

 

[Stradawhovious]

One of those rare instances where a UV filter might have been a good move. Great shots, though.

Funny you should say that... I DID have a UV filter on for just that reason! This stuff somehow crept in behind the filter ring. When those eggs blow, they REALLY make a mess.

 

[lambertpix]

One of those rare instances where a UV filter might have been a good move. Great shots, though.

Funny you should say that... I DID have a UV filter on for just that reason! This stuff somehow crept in behind the filter ring. When those eggs blow, they REALLY make a mess.

Wow.... Add exploding eggs to the list of shots to avoid... right under color runs & lasers.

 

[CameraClicker]

Next time, a sheet of plexiglass?

 

[Stradawhovious]

Next time, a sheet of plexiglass?

Yeah... hindsight and all that.

 

[pez]

Great shots and story. I have a Tammy 17-50 and love it- it is a wonderful lens!
My front element got a little loose once, so I took the opportunity to disassemble, clean, and tighten- pretty straight forward operation and everything's all shored up now.

 

[mmaria]

 

[Stradawhovious]

My front element got a little loose once, so I took the opportunity to disassemble, clean, and tighten- pretty straight forward operation and everything's all shored up now.

Yeah, same here. I noticed that there is the opportunity for some kind of micro adjustment with those 3 screws... not sure what, if any impact that would have on image sharpness, but I did notice that there is the option to adjust the front element about 4mm either direction.

I just cranked it all the way down, and the images seem fine. Good enough to capture some more exploding eggs anyways.

Or maybe some fruit this time.

 

[astroNikon]

One of those rare instances where a UV filter might have been a good move. Great shots, though.

Funny you should say that... I DID have a UV filter on for just that reason! This stuff somehow crept in behind the filter ring. When those eggs blow, they REALLY make a mess.

Wow.... Add exploding eggs to the list of shots to avoid... right under color runs & lasers.

This past weekend I actually was going to do something like this.
but now after seeing this, I think I'll avoid it unless I get a clear filter and a camera/lens cover.

 

[Stradawhovious]

This past weekend I actually was going to do something like this.
but now after seeing this, I think I'll avoid it unless I get a clear filter and a camera/lens cover.

Go to the hardware store and pay $2 for a square piece of window glass. mount it in front of the camera, and problem solved!

That's what I will be doing from now on.

Besides.. tools were meant to get dirty.

 

[Gary A.]

Alls well that ends well. I now know where I'll be taking my photo equipment when I need a cleaning or repair.

Bon Appetit,
Gary

 

[pez]

My front element got a little loose once, so I took the opportunity to disassemble, clean, and tighten- pretty straight forward operation and everything's all shored up now.

Yeah, same here. I noticed that there is the opportunity for some kind of micro adjustment with those 3 screws... not sure what, if any impact that would have on image sharpness, but I did notice that there is the option to adjust the front element about 4mm either direction.

I just cranked it all the way down, and the images seem fine. Good enough to capture some more exploding eggs anyways.

Or maybe some fruit this time.

My copy, at f2.8, was a little sharper on the extreme left side than the extreme right side, and I attempted to fix that somewhat. It was definitely better, but I should have messed with it further. However, I guess it's not a big deal for me, as I never got around to going in there again, lol.