About being too picky about lenses...

[Spyderman]

Would you buy a lens with cleaning marks and scratches ? I wouldn't. But what if you already have one (or two) like that ? Then don't be affraid to use it.

These shots were taken with a not-very-nice-looking Industar-22 collapsible, on Fomapan 100 (sorry for the contrast, i'm without my CRT screen for a while, with only crappy laptop LCD, and these pics are only resized scans)

Sharp. Surprisingly sharp... And surprisingly nice bokeh too.

The second shot is only for illustration of what the cleaning marks and scratches do: Leica glow 😀

 

[myoptic3]

I'll bet that if you put on a yellow filter (for B&W) you would eliminate that flare. Or a hood. I have a Nikon 35 70 2.8 zoom that has lots of scratches and nicks on the front element and the pictures from it look EXACTLY like the ones from the mint one I had. If the problems are on the rear element you will possibly see image degradation. It is amazing how badly a lens has to be messed up to show up in your prints.

 

[swoop]

I've got a 40 nokton with some surface scratches on the front and it still does a great job. It's my "I don't know which lens to bring so I'll grab this one" lens.

 

[gliderbee]

I think I agree with the TS.

This is the first picture I made this weekend with a "new" (you know what I mean) Industar-26m (a 52/2.8 mm) on a FED-2, HP5+, developed in Rodinal 1+50, and of course some curves, etc ... in PS.

I'm surprised it didn't have much problems (maybe the fingers ?) with the strong backlight situation. I think it's rather good, but since I'm quite new to scanning, I would like to hear your comments about it.

 

[steverett]

I think this might amuse you:

http://www.deansphotographica.com/deans_of_idaho/old_stuff_pages/dirtylenstest/dirtylenstest.html

 

[Spyderman]

Thanks for the link. I once saw that page, but then later couldn't find it. This, and the famous picture of a C/Y mount Zeiss Planar with the bug inside of it show pretty clearly how bad a lens can be and still produce amazing results.

My Industar looks like a pretty sharp lens, and I quite like the "Leica glow" it produces. I'll probably be using it for some "vintage looking" effects. I've alredy made a hood for it (out of thick black cardboard) so the hood should help control the flare a bit in situations where I don't want flare.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Internal Haze will effect a lens much more than cleaning marks.

I just learned to get over it, and will grab a lens with cleaning marks on it at a good price.

 

[Spyderman]

Thanks Brian to pointing that out. I'll avoid hazy lenses in the future...

BTW: If anyone's interested, I'm attaching a crop from the first picture. All I can say is Wow!