Do you shoot with scratches, cleaning marks or haze?

[Mean Panda]

Many people want to buy their lens as Mint as possible. No scratches, cleaning marks become like requirements for choosing a used lens. I personally only lens in Mint condition, but I wonder how many people use scratches, cleaning marks lens?
thanks

 

[robbo]

I'm like yourself, I want as near perfect glass as possible but am less bothered about wear to paint. As far as image quality is concerned, I need all the help I can get!

 

[photobizzz]

I have a Summarit with cleaning marks, but at the lens' age it is to be expected.

 

[ChrisN]

You need to add an option for "Big chips of glass missing from some elements".

This lens is actually a fine shooter. I've stopped worrying about a few scratches here and there. I'm comfortable with a bit of dust. Haze can be a problem depending on how bad and what you want to do with it.

 

[photobizzz]

Wow that lens took a hit! Looks like someone got mad and used an icepick...LOL darn leitz glass, my photos dont have the glow I was promised!

 

[Morca007]

Quite a few cleaning marks on my J-8.

 

[northpole]

Looking at this question from a slightly different perspective, does anyone have any objective criteria which would inform us at which point of scratch/ internal dust/ other, that the performance of e.g. a Leica lens looses its erformance advantage/ characteristics. such that you would be better either replacing it whether with a new cheaper alternative or minty Leica? The problem being that we tend only to have one model of a given focal length hence unable to make the comparisons for ourselves.

Or does it matter if we are happy with the results as they appear before us?!!!

Peter (no scratches)

 

[clarence]

I have a 65mm Mamiya TLR lens. The front element can be easily screwed off the same way you might remove a filter, so exchanging the viewing and taking lenses on the field is possible. I use the scratched up, hazy lens when I want very low contrast photos and the other lens when I want the opposite effect.

Clarence

 

[ChrisN]

Looking at this question from a slightly different perspective, does anyone have any objective criteria which would inform us at which point of scratch/ internal dust/ other, that the performance of e.g. a Leica lens looses its erformance advantage/ characteristics. such that you would be better either replacing it whether with a new cheaper alternative or minty Leica? The problem being that we tend only to have one model of a given focal length hence unable to make the comparisons for ourselves.

Or does it matter if we are happy with the results as they appear before us?!!!

Peter (no scratches)

Peter, if you literally can't see any fault that displeases (in whatever print or output you prefer), can any other test really matter?

 

[hans voralberg]

I got four, 2 have dusts, 1 seems to be mint but there's some very very light haze at the edge, superb pics though so i cant careless

 

[alternatve]

I use a Jupiter 3 and a Jupiter 9 lens on my Bessa. Both have cleaning marks on the lens, and the J3 even has a spot on it's rear element! But it doesn't stop it from taking pictures like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1808562349&size=m&context=set-72157600028530359

 

[Brad Bireley]

check this out!

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

 

[Pherdinand]

How do i vote for all three.

 

[rlouzan]

http://leica-users.org/v03/msg05845.html

 

[VictorM.]

I very carefully convert internal haze to cleaning marks, then use the lens!

 

[feenej]

Hey Chris, are you sure that's not a bug that crawled into your lens?

 

[northpole]

Peter, if you literally can't see any fault that displeases (in whatever print or output you prefer), can any other test really matter? __________________
Chris

Indeed Chris, but if this theory is correct and we viewed/ judged our results in isolation, I wonder how many of us truly need to be considering other more expensive pieces of glass - whether our existing ones are scratched/ hazy/ or perfect! I guess that's where this GAS thing comes in!

Peter

 

[ferider]

I'm OK with cleaning marks and scratches on the front element
as long as not too many. The rear elements should be as clean
as possible. Good mechanics are important, too, otherwise using
RFs is pretty pointless, IMO.

I'm real picky with haze.

 

[foto_fool]

Here's a shot with a notably hazy Summar:

I like the effect but the light has to be perfect.

I have put up a comparison of some boring test shots comparing a LTM Summarit with a little dust and some cleaning marks with a near perfect M Summarit just back from DAG - click here if you are interested. I see no difference in the originals at native resolution.

I'm not shooting test targets, newspapers, documents or brick cityscapes on CMS 20. I can live with imperfections in the glass.

- John

 

[Blank288]

Recently I took a bit of a gamble and bought a cheap Elmarit 2.8/90 with haze on the front element. If you look through the lens 'normally', you don't notice. Against a bright halogen light it is very obvious. Only a bit less than the Kodak lens in the link above.
Actually it looked very much like I would be able to clean it (that's why I bought it), but unfortunately I only partly managed; it seems like the front coating is corroded or something like that.

Considering that flare will be the most probable issue, I bought one of these quite deep Chinese Leica tele-hoods and just finished some test shots in some cloudy and sunny situations.
Indeed: to my surprise for now everything looks fine. I can't even see significant differences with some DR-Summicron pics on the same roll.
This time I didn't shoot right against-the-light, which almost certainly won't work out well, but sun-lit white objects in my images didn't flare either.

And oh yes: my well used Jupiter-3 with quite a few cleaning marks performed visibly better in real picture taking than another crystal clear like-new example which appeared to suffer from decentering.

I assume that a suitable hood might be an inportant solution in some lens damage issues.