Finaly I got my Orion 15 !!

[thafred]

I was looking for a wideangle lens for my Bessa R and found this little gem an the EvilBay for 99€....waiting one week for it to arrive, finaly yesterday I could play around with it 😛

The first impression was not so good...the glass is very clean and the Lens Body looks nice but the Focusing ring was soo stiff that the lens comes loose while focusing close objects!! 😡

Knowing that the lubricant might harden in time (like the focusing ring on my isolette III) I carefully dropped Isopropylalcohol (IPA) between the threads and wiggled the focusing ring around for awhile and the thing finaly came loose but still isn´t as smooth as my Jupiter or any other lens I have. My question is, has anyone of you a solution to hardened lubricants (I thought of putting the lens in my oven for some Time...good or bad idea?)

After that I went for some shooting with Fuji Neopan 1600 in the Camera and my impression of the Lens really got better. Dealing with an max Aperture of 6 isn´t easy but a fast Film makes up for that. on the other hand , this lens is so small and light that it is a joy to carry it around (no wonder when you look at the size of my other lens, the Nokton 50 is so heavy and big!) my whole camera fits into my pockets now!

As I came home I instantly developed the Film and made some Prints and then my jaw dropped, that little cracker performs incredible!! in the center the lens has a very very high resulution slightly less so in the curners but still very good! Oh, I´m so happy 😀
Using the entire viewfinder of the Bessa R for 28mm works nicely (my framing was exactly like I remembered)
I thought I try the Orion 15 before investing into CV wideangle glass but now I cant see how it could be bettered by any other 28mm except for speed!

I´ll post some Prints soon, just thought I share my happiness with you!
happy winter shooting,
Fred

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi,
Most of the FSU lenses used a waxlike grease that hardens over time and gives the result you have found. The only real solution in to strip the lens, clean all the old muck out and re-lube it with modern synthetic grease. The is no sensible or realistic way to try and patch it with solvents, heat etc. All you are doing is hiding the problem and making it worse for the future.

Kim

 

[thafred]

Thanks Kim for the information, I was fearing that I have to take it apart 🙂
Does anyone have a repair information on this lens? Are FSU lenses all alike when it comes to construction?

Anyways heres a few sample Images...please excuse the bad scanning and grain (somehow the flatbed scan shows more Grain and lesser sharpnes than the Print!)

 

[Will]

EvilBay, that's put a smile on my face. 🙂

Thafred, do you develop, scan, print at home?

 

[Kim Coxon]

Hi,
They are all fairly simple. I haven't done any Orion's or J12s yet but all the rest follow one of two patterns with minor variations. All the I's are similiar and the J3, J9 and black J8's are similiar. The silver J8 is in between. If you have a digital which can take reasonable close ups, I can try and talk you through it by email. Alternatively, if you want to send it to me in the UK and pay for the return postage, I will do it for you and write a guide at the same time for the files section. I can check the collimation at the same time although with a 28, this is less important.

Kim

 

[ZeissFan]

Generally dripping anything into the helicals is only a temporary fix. It simply loosens the hardened grease, and once the liquid that was added evaporates, the grease rehardens. It does tend to redistribute it into different spots.

And I fully agree with the advice that the proper thing to do is to disassemble, clean the helicals, relube, recollimate and reassemble.

Once completed, the lens should be good for several decades, depending on how you treat your gear.

 

[thafred]

@ Zeiss Fan: thanks for the advice, I´ll do it as soon as I can! Today it worked well but a temporary fix is always a bad thing (I wonder why suddenly the bellows of my Isolette come to my mind 🙁 )

@ kim: I would be very thankfull if I could send you an E-mail if I encounter problems with dismantling the lens. I did some DIY repair before but it´s great to have someone with experience!! I´ll try to take Pictures of all steps when doing this (I´m always to impatient 🙂 ) I think that since I have no webspace I will open a thread with the pics here if maybe someone else needs the information.

@ Will: yes I develop print and scan at home. I just discovered that my apartment is suited to darkroom work and I´m really having a good time with that (learning all skills and cleaning dust off my enlargers neg carrier 😛 ) The few Prints that came out good got me hooked on b/w!