Canon LTM Canon Serenar 35mm f3.5 pretty good!

[Darinwc]

I picked up this little 35mm Canon Serenar for a good price. It needed a cleaning and a lube. It is now working great even though there is still a bit of haze I could not remove.
It flares quite a bit, but that could be partially due to the haze left on it.
In the daylight, I mostly shoot at f16 or f5.6 in the shade. So no need for wide open performance.
It is a 4 element Tessar wide angle design like the elmar. But it is in a fixed non of-collapsible mount.
I am generally happy with this lens. Results are sharp and pleasing. The results can be interesting in some situations.
I underdeveloped the film a bit, so the negatives are a little flat. But they scanned easily enough.

 

[charjohncarter]

I have one, and I have had it for 7-8 years. It had a big haze problem, I sent it off for cleaning and it was fine for about a year. After that it came back, now I completely did assemble it (which is easy), I do it every time I use it.

This is before cleaning by me:

Puerto Vallarta 2010 by John Carter, on Flickr

And after cleaning by me:

Tmax400 HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr

 

[Darinwc]

That is quite a difference!
Did you replace the helical grease on the lens?

 

[charjohncarter]

No, I just remove all the upper and inner lens elements and clean them. Before reassembly I clean the middle element that is still mounted. I have it down to 10 minutes. You might have to get a tool to remove the rings at first, then I just snug them and use a toothpick to remove and replace.

No gear grease needed>

 

[phong nguyen]

I also had this lens (Canon Serenar 35mm/3.5) and use it with my Leica M mount via a simple adapter L39 - M. The images produced by this lens seem to be quite OK with me. I insert some pictures for your reference. Thank you.