Heldur
Established
Please see my post just bought the contax IIIa for further info
(sorry I should have posted it as a new post)
(sorry I should have posted it as a new post)
Contax III sonnar lens problem- fungus?
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ErnestoJL
Well-known
Hi Heldur!
AFAIK, all pre war Contax II and III lenses weren´t coated, so no problem of fungus should be expected, unless yours is a WWII example that survived (and that´s really fungus what you have).
Cheers
Ernesto
AFAIK, all pre war Contax II and III lenses weren´t coated, so no problem of fungus should be expected, unless yours is a WWII example that survived (and that´s really fungus what you have).
Cheers
Ernesto
Heldur
Established
Thanks very much for your reply! Mine is a IIIa, the lens is a zeiss-opton sonnar 50/1.5 , looking through the lens I could see white delicate spiderweb like growth. Anyway I have put the whole camera and lens in for a CLA (see the thread just bought a contax IIIa for more info) so hopefully it will turn out well.
raid
Dad Photographer
not fungus but ...colors
not fungus but ...colors
My Opton arrived to me with a rainbow colored covering below the front element. It covers about 75% of the lens area. How can this rainbow be removed? I was told that it is not decementing with Opton lenses.
not fungus but ...colors
My Opton arrived to me with a rainbow colored covering below the front element. It covers about 75% of the lens area. How can this rainbow be removed? I was told that it is not decementing with Opton lenses.
W
wlewisiii
Guest
I hate to say it, but that is exactly what you get from delamination and no other source that I am familier with. You might try asking more of Brian S. over at NFF.
William
raid
Dad Photographer
Hi William,
It was Brian who told me that it is not decementing. He mentioned something about adding some oil to remove the effect.
W
wlewisiii
Guest
That's ... interesting 😱 I'll have to look into it some more now as, like I said, that's all I know of that can cause that effect. Hmm...
My experiance with Contaflex lenses has given me lots of those rainbows 😉
William
My experiance with Contaflex lenses has given me lots of those rainbows 😉
William
furcafe
Veteran
Adding oil is precisely a "quick & dirty" method of dealing w/separation. It temporarily fills in the gap left by the separation.
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Heldur
Established
So back to my original question, is the white, delicate, spiderweb like thing I see in my lens fungus or could it be something else?
W
wlewisiii
Guest
Heldur,
Yes, that is 99% probably fungus and will need to be cleaned by a professional. I can strongly suggest Eddie Smolov in New York. His prices are very reasonable so that even with shipping you won't get chewed up too badly. You can email him at 123camerarepair@gmail.com
Raid,
That the oil was to repair separation was what I thought I remembered but wasn't sure enough to mention last time. IIRC, Brian used that trick to repair a Carl Zeiss Sonnar or two.
William
Yes, that is 99% probably fungus and will need to be cleaned by a professional. I can strongly suggest Eddie Smolov in New York. His prices are very reasonable so that even with shipping you won't get chewed up too badly. You can email him at 123camerarepair@gmail.com
Raid,
That the oil was to repair separation was what I thought I remembered but wasn't sure enough to mention last time. IIRC, Brian used that trick to repair a Carl Zeiss Sonnar or two.
William
Heldur
Established
Thanks wlewisii, I am in Ecuador so I decided the shipping and CLA cost in the US wasnt viable, I found an old camera technician in the historical center of Quito who is cleaning the lens and CLAing the camera. He has decades of experience but with the contax IIIa I dont know. He is taking 7 days to complete the job and at least showed alot of appreciation of the camera, CLA and len clean $60 full price, (Ecuador is cheap, most workers are lucky to get $1 an hour). I am hoping that he will do a good job!
raid
Dad Photographer
Hi William,
I will let Brian decide what to do about my Opton. I bought the lens as a gamble from KEH in UGLY condition. This is the first time that I got burned this way. Usually, I got lucky.
raid
Dad Photographer
furcafe,
I wonder how useful the lens is. Would replacing the glass element take care of the problem? Older Optons are readily around.
micromontenegro
Well-known
We tropical birds tend to suffer mold in our lenses, rather then proper fungus. It cleans up much easier. My own 50-1.5 Sonnar suffered from the spiderwebs you describe, and it was a moldy growth. Of course, a picture would help 😀
steamer
Well-known
Herr Scherer weighs in here:
http://www.zeisscamera.com/services_lens.shtml
http://www.zeisscamera.com/services_lens.shtml
steamer
Well-known
Yeah HS is not god, and he talks a lot of bollocks on occasion, but when all is said and done nobody has ever complained about his work. (at least on this forum)
Highway 61
Revisited
My guess is that he had the SK Grimes company doing it for him. I can't figure out how he could heat decement, then re-center, re-cement and re-coat inner lenses elements.steamer said:
He has Megatron LTD in the UK making the Contax IIIa selenium cells for him and very probably has Akihiro Asahi selling him some 3.0mm silk ribbon for the Contax II/III shutters overhauls.
The matter is - as ever - not about his work but about what he writes.
For instance his recent article about the Nikon S - Contax RF lens helicals compatibility problems demonstrates that he has not got it at all despite all what he claims.
If you follow his conclusions you wonder why Nikon bothered to manufacture the 'C' lenses line and not just sold 0.31mm shims outfits so that Zeiss Contax lenses could be used on Nikon RF bodies, and told their customers to remove the shims from under the Contax cameras lens helical units so that Nikon RF lenses could be used on Contax bodies.
Does not make any sense... sorry.ErnestoJL said:
It's separation (aka decementing, aka delamination) - the glue that cements lenses elements together eventually dries up and allows for air to get between the cemented elements. Then the "rainbow" is caused by some abnormal light spectrum transmission, it's a well known phenomenum called "interference fringes".raid said:
Not wanting to be rude but since they are tons of posts written down on many Internet forums about that peculiar problems re. some late Zeiss Stuttgart lenses on which a synthetic glue which didn't hold up well with time and which was used to replace the traditional Canada balsam (which is less prone to separation, while it's not at all separation-proof) I can hardly believe that :
1/You bought a lens having such a defect for about 75% of the lens surface, which is quite impossible to fix unless you are prepared to some compromises about optical qualities
2/You don't know what it is.
Okay you bought an Opton not a late Carl Zeiss but Opton lenses are not 100% separation-proof guaranteed ; plus, you may very well have bought a late Carl Zeiss lens on which a Zeiss Opton namering had been swapped.
Anyway first classic 50mm lenses addict commitment is : "Never ever buy a lens with such a rainbow".
That said you bought something clearly listed as "ugly" - you've got what you've paid for...
Yes but it works, and as nobody can actually fix separation the "clean way" (by decementing the separated elements, cleaning them from their old balsam, and recementing them with modern UV-curing cement making sure of a perfect centering) any longer, I'm afraid there are not many alternatives...furcafe said:
SK Grimes used to do it but they don't do it any longer and AFAIK nobody does it any longer.
http://www.skgrimes.com/popsci/index.htm
A lens with separation, was it a Zeiss Sonnar, has either to be self-fixed with the oil method (which is by no means "dirty" if properly done - it can very well last for a lifetime, and at least it will last till film is available...) or thrown away. Then the Sonnar emptor has to look for a similar lens without separation on the worldwide market, which is by no means a hard task. Best thing is to never ever buy a Sonnar having such a "rainbow" inside because, unlike fungus which may be curable, separation isn't.
micromontenegro said:
Absolutely, they're two types of fungus, one is relatively harmless (what you call "mold" with good reason, since it's close to the mold that develops on cheese and marmelade...) since it just grows on the glass surface and can be removed easily with isopropylic alcohol ; and the other one is terrible since it's acid and definitely etches the glass, ruining a lens as for its optical properties. Hard to tell which one Heldur has got without having the lens in hands. They can look very similar to the naked eye (what he calls "delicate spiderweb filaments") so he'll know what he had in his lens once a repairer has attempted to clean it.
Once and again, there are tons of written matter about this available around on misc. Internet databases...
micromontenegro
Well-known
I Beg to differ. Do a search on my posts and you will see I have done
steamer
Well-known
I stand corrected, curiously that is the same thread where the repair guy who stole my camera comes in for high praise.
furcafe
Veteran
Doesn't John Van Stelten @ Focal Point still offer a similar service?
http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html
No guarantees & perhaps not for the Sonnars, though.
Also, FWIW, @ least in my experience, a lens w/a modest amount of separation, e.g., along the outer edges, can still perform decently.
http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html
No guarantees & perhaps not for the Sonnars, though.
Also, FWIW, @ least in my experience, a lens w/a modest amount of separation, e.g., along the outer edges, can still perform decently.
