Lens cleaning or repair.

[Grandpa Ron]

Can someone provide a source for having a camera lens cleaned or repaired. I have a old film camera zoom lens that has dark mold like spots on the inside of the lens. It works well with my DSLR and I would like to get it cleaned.

 

[dxqcanada]

Do you mean a source for a local camera repair shop ? Where are you located?
Warning ... it will be costly.

 

[Designer]

Can someone provide a source for having a camera lens cleaned or repaired. I have a old film camera zoom lens that has dark mold like spots on the inside of the lens. It works well with my DSLR and I would like to get it cleaned.

Is this lens a collector-grade lens? If so, then you want a professional to do it. If it is just something you want to mess with, then buy an adjustable spanner and do it yourself. You'll spend far less on the wrench than by taking it to a shop.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

It is a no name probably K Mart quality lens from the 1980's. It has two quarter inch spots and a few dots that look like mold on the front lens. I have been told they make little difference to the photo.

Perhaps the best option is a spanner wrench.

 

[Solarflare]

ROTFL spanner wrench.

Just throw it in the garbage bin because thats what your project will end with anyway.

Its amazing how many people believe lenses would be something trivial to repair. Lenses are wonders of fine mechanics.

Fortunately this lens is from the 1980s so at least it wont have autofocus. That alone saves a lot of complexity.

On the other hand its a zoom, those are usually not of trivial construction.

And its a cheap third party lens, that aint a good sign either.


Your reasonable options are:

1. Check the actual images, and, if you dont see anything, use the lens as is.

2. Get a different lens that has no problem. Will be MUCH cheaper than any of the following alternatives.

3. Spent a lot of money on an expert to do this job for you. This will be a lot more expensive than getting a good copy of even the same lens, if not a good used lens.

4. Get the tools to repair lenses (this will cost hundreds of dollars), get a space to repair lenses (needs to be extremely clean and have the space to store and keep track of over a hundred items so you actually stand a chance to reconstruct what you deconstructed) and learn how to deconstruct and reconstruct lenses yourself. After that you can pretty much run this as a business.

 

[RVT1K]

I used these people and was very happy with the service:

Precision Camera & Video - Cameras on Sale Shipped to You from Our Camera Store in Austin


They actually couldn't do anything with the lens I sent but were very honest in the evaluation and fair with the price.

 

[petrochemist]

Your reasonable options are:

1. Check the actual images, and, if you dont see anything, use the lens as is.

2. Get a different lens that has no problem. Will be MUCH cheaper than any of the following alternatives.

3. Spent a lot of money on an expert to do this job for you. This will be a lot more expensive than getting a good copy of even the same lens, if not a good used lens.

4. Get the tools to repair lenses (this will cost hundreds of dollars), get a space to repair lenses (needs to be extremely clean and have the space to store and keep track of over a hundred items so you actually stand a chance to reconstruct what you deconstructed) and learn how to deconstruct and reconstruct lenses yourself. After that you can pretty much run this as a business.

If the lens is a k-mart type no-name zoom getting it cleaned professionally will cost more than getting multiple good copies of the lens

If the issues is on the rear of the front element it will probably be relatively easy to repair yourself using cheap tools. I've done this for several lenses using tools that only cost me ~£20, as well as going a bit further on some simple primes.
Diving further into a zoom lens is likely to end up with nothing usable, but simply removing the outer element cleaning it & replacing it is not to awkward. Usually there's no great issue about decentring these outer elements.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

Solar,

Normally you advice would be a wise choice.

However in this case, after years of building stuff, including a 6 inch telescope, ham radio gear, numerous muzzle loading rifles from scratch, restoring "junked" fiddles and other instruments, plus restoring a 1910 Seneca view camera and currently working on my 1930 Kodak enlarger; my DNA will not allow me to simply throw the lens away.

My hope was, there was an inexpensive way to get it repaired. It appears this is not the case.

The addition of one more specialized tool to my collection is nothing new but as was pointed out; are the mold spots really detrimental the image quality of an inexpensive lens or am I just being knit picky.

 

[petrochemist]

Solar,

Normally you advice would be a wise choice.

However in this case, after years of building stuff, including a 6 inch telescope, ham radio gear, numerous muzzle loading rifles from scratch, restoring "junked" fiddles and other instruments, plus restoring a 1910 Seneca view camera and currently working on my 1930 Kodak enlarger; my DNA will not allow me to simply throw the lens away.

My hope was, there was an inexpensive way to get it repaired. It appears this is not the case.

The addition of one more specialized tool to my collection is nothing new but as was pointed out; are the mold spots really detrimental the image quality of an inexpensive lens or am I just being knit picky.

Your clearly a tinkerer Ron, this adds one other option. If the spot do make the lens unusable, rather than binning the lens strip it down for parts & the challenge/experience.
Doing it systematically your MAY find you can repair the issue, before going too far & then rebuild the lens. I'd guess around a 1% chance of it being usable as intended afterwards.
It's quite possible that an incomplete portion of the lens could prove capable of making good images - I have a couple of lenses that I use without the rear group (a 50mm turned into a ~100mm soft focus, & a 105mm that became a compact 200mm) both needed added extension to allow focus. I've also seen a blog on removing the front group of a zoom to give a macro capability....

 

[Solarflare]

If the lens is a k-mart type no-name zoom getting it cleaned professionally will cost more than getting multiple good copies of the lens

Why, yes ?

Thats literally what was written in the posting you're answering to:

2. Get a different lens that has no problem. Will be MUCH cheaper than any of the following alternatives.

You even QUOTED it.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

One thing I have learned is to have a tripod mounted camera above the work station and take a picture after every action. No change is too small, and it is the simple changes that you think you will remember but don't.

In this case the only mold I see is on the first lens but again I have to be sure it really is a issue.

One of the problems with being an incessant diddler, is to remind yourself that "if it is not broke....do not fix it.

 

[petrochemist]

If the lens is a k-mart type no-name zoom getting it cleaned professionally will cost more than getting multiple good copies of the lens

Why, yes ?

Thats literally what was written in the posting you're answering to:

2. Get a different lens that has no problem. Will be MUCH cheaper than any of the following alternatives.

You even QUOTED it.

I wasn't disagreeing I was adding emphasis.

Both your point 2 & your point 3 state it would be cheaper, but don't give the emphasis on how significant the saving would be. My point was that you could get half a dozen examples & find one that's OK.

When I buy no-name legacy zooms I rarely pay more than £10 for the lens. Servicing a zoom lens is unlikely to involve less than £50 labour, parts may not be available. A £40 lens would probably still be much less than the servicing cost, but it's unlikely to need that much expenditure for a run of the mill lens.

 

[petrochemist]

One thing I have learned is to have a tripod mounted camera above the work station and take a picture after every action. No change is too small, and it is the simple changes that you think you will remember but don't.

In this case the only mold I see is on the first lens but again I have to be sure it really is a issue.

One of the problems with being an incessant diddler, is to remind yourself that "if it is not broke....do not fix it.

Sounds like a sensible approach. There may be a few points where an alignment mark is called for as well as photographs. I've heard of some multi start focusing threads where engaging with the wrong one prevents proper focus...

There have been cases where I have multiple copies of a lens. Generally if I'm fiddling with one of those it's not to 'fix it' but to modify it.

 

[RVT1K]

Solar,

Normally you advice would be a wise choice.

However in this case, after years of building stuff, including a 6 inch telescope, ham radio gear, numerous muzzle loading rifles from scratch, restoring "junked" fiddles and other instruments, plus restoring a 1910 Seneca view camera and currently working on my 1930 Kodak enlarger; my DNA will not allow me to simply throw the lens away.

My hope was, there was an inexpensive way to get it repaired. It appears this is not the case.

The addition of one more specialized tool to my collection is nothing new but as was pointed out; are the mold spots really detrimental the image quality of an inexpensive lens or am I just being knit picky.

The lens I sent in to be evaluated for fungus removal looks terrible when you look through it. I knew that going in but since it was so cheap, I bought it anyway.

The evaluation came back essentially "...the fungus has etched the coatings and we can't do much...". So I had them send it back as-is.

Much to my surprise it actually takes decent shots. Give it a try and see what you see.

 

[dxqcanada]

It is a no name probably K Mart quality lens from the 1980's. It has two quarter inch spots and a few dots that look like mold on the front lens. I have been told they make little difference to the photo.

Perhaps the best option is a spanner wrench.

If the spots are on the backside of the front element ... then it should not be that difficult to get at it, as many lens designs have it so the front element group can be accessed by removing some of the front. Typically the ring on the front (with the labeling) is unscrewed.