Dual range Summicron 50mm grinding noise?

[jbharrill1]

So I noticed a couple days ago my dual range summicron has a tiny tiny bit of wobble at the focus ring and a little bit at the aperture ring. I located all the screws and tightened them down a bit which seemed to help a little, still not perfect. The issue now is that when i turn the aperture ring from 16 to 2 (not in the other direction) I'm hearing a grinding noise between 8 and 4. Of course now that I'm typing this it seems to have stopped but it was very prominent for about 30 minutes.

I bought a CL a few months back for 350 and was basically given this lens for free as the dealer thought that the cleaning marks had more or less ruined the lens. From the first few rolls I have developed this doesn't seem to be true and it seems like an awesome come up! However now I'm wondering if there was more to it than just the cleaning marks.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Huss]

Have you viewed the movement of the aperture blades as you change aperture? There may be binding of the blades.
While not common, this happens even with new lenses. There have been reports of this with the new $8000 50mm Apo.

 

[f16sunshine]

If the glass is in good condition, you should send this now quite old lens in for a service.
It will be worth every penny. No amount of forum responses will replace the cleaning and re-lubing that DAG or Youxin could do for this lens.
If the aperture is binding, I would park it until you can get it serviced so you don’t damage anything.

 

[jbharrill1]

So that is what the glass is looking like. I have a feeling like it may not be worth saving. Like I said I was told these were marks from improper cleaning? Any idea what happened?

Also the blades seem to be moving just fine, but also like posted earlier I don't seem to be experiencing the issue anymore. I definitely don't want to just ignore it though and pretend like it never happened .

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Where is one mark which could be described as improper cleaning. The major and different amount is something else.

 

[Steve M.]

If the noise came and then went, it was probably just a tiny bit of grit that worked itself out.

 

[Rob-F]

Is that all surface damage? Damage from cleaning? What could anyone do to it to wreck the surface like that? COuld some of that could be internal dust that could be removed during cleaning? If the pictures are good, I think it might be worth sending it in. John Van Stelten at "The Focal Point" in Colorado can do major lens restoration. The surface can be repolished and recoated, although the repolishing will alter the formula somewhat.

 

[AZPhotog]

Leica glass from the 50's is extremely soft and many examples are very BADLY scratched from dirt and resultant excessively rough cleaning that has literally ground ridges into the glass surfaces. These badly damaged lenses look as if they were 'sandpapered' with 100 grit sandpaper. Depending on the damage level, some may be OK, and some may provide 'soft' images.

If your images are decent, it may make sense to have the entire lens cleaned and re-lubed if you intend on using it for a long time. Mechanically these are among the finest lenses ever.

 

[peterm1]

I have not seen anything like those lens elements before. Except for the one large scratch the other marks do not look like cleaning marks to me (not in the sense normally meant anyway) - they look like pitting as might happen if a strong acid were applied. Could someone have used something of this sort to try to get rid of fungus I wonder. Weird. It's hard to say if the lens can be fixed. If it is pitting then I should say definitely not. But if its something adhering to the lens elements then possibly yes. it almost looks like grit - which might account for the sound you describe too if that grit has got somewhere else it should not. This can only be determined by examination by a technician.

If the lens cannot be saved but the actual appearance of the lens exterior is good you might consider selling it for parts. You could still attract a reasonable return for this depending upon condition. I had one of these lenses (which I sold only because it could not be used on my M8 and I needed the proceeds of its sale to buy the M8) and I can say they are a gem in terms of build quality. Beautifully made so I can well imagine there being a market for parts for one of them

 

[AZPhotog]

Those 'deposits' look typical of old out-gassed (broken down with age) lube that has deposited on the internal lens surfaces. Might clean off, might not. If it will clean off, the tech can apply newer space age lubes in the mechanisms that are long term stable and should not cause issues like the ancient lubes in these old lenses.

I had one old lens which looked as bad as the one in the photos, and fortunately it cleaned up nicely. All in all -- you take your chances with these issues.

 

[jonmanjiro]

So that is what the glass is looking like. I have a feeling like it may not be worth saving. Like I said I was told these were marks from improper cleaning? Any idea what happened?

Any idea what happened? > soft front element glass X over enthusiastic cleaning

The front element can be polished and recoated. A while back, a friend got this done to his collapsible Summicron with scratched up front element and the improvement in image quality after the work was quite remarkable.

 

[jbharrill1]

Any idea what happened? > soft front element glass X over enthusiastic cleaning

The front element can be polished and recoated. A while back, a friend got this done to his collapsible Summicron with scratched up front element and the improvement in image quality after the work was quite remarkable.

No idea..when the camera/lens was purchased he told me that He thought it was from improper cleaning, that someone who didn't know what they were doing took it apart to try and clean it.My guess would be what peterm mentioned and someone used some strong chemicals and just had no clue what they were doing.

I also just realized that this grinding noise only started when I started storing my lens sitting up right(sitting on the back lens cap facing up.) I started this because I read that keeping your lens facing up and at wide open (f2 on this lens) that you are less likely to end up with oil on the blades. Any thoughts on this?