Fogged 50/2 dual range - cleaning?

[EmilGil]

I got lucky last night and bought a 1958 summicron 50mm dual range on a famous internet auction site. For a long time, the highest bid was about $100 and right before the end I put in a bid. To my surprise, my bid was the highest and I won the lens at $220 (ex. goggles).

To add to my surprise, the invoice was signed by Youxin Ye who has been widely spoken about here at RFF as a trustworthy repairman. He described the lens as having "light haze inside" so after the auction I mailed him and asked if he could clean it for me (on my account of course). It doesn't seem like he is as handy with lenses as with camera bodies, his reply was corteous but negative, "it is hard to find lenses of this age without haze and even DAG or Sherry might not be able to clean it". He also offered me to cancel the sale if I wished to due to the fogging (which was clearly stated in the description!)

Youxin can't send me the lens until Friday so I got a few days to decide whether I should try to have it cleaned by DAG/Sherry while it's still at their end of the big pond. Shipping it back and forth from Norway is hilariously expensive so either I take the lens as it is and see for myself the state of the glass (possibly using CRR Luton to clean it later on) or I ask Youxin to send the lens for cleaning and then here.

Pro's and con's please, what would you do? How much is a lens cleaning at DAG/Sherry? (difficult to say of course, just give me a hint or example)

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

Your best course is to have Youxin send it to DAG or Krauter. A full CLA is roughly $100 to $150, so my guess is that a cleaning is somewhere in that range.

After the CLA, just add shipping to Norway from Krauter to DAG. Why not email DAG directly, he is very very quick on responses in my experience. good luck

 

[JohnM]

Sherry Krauter just cleaned my dual-range Summicron a month or two ago. It went in with some haze and dust and came out pristine. She also adjusts the lens to tolerances and lubricates whatever needs it.

A 1/2 overhaul (front half of the lens) is $65 and a complete bath as she calls it is $95. (Mine, which was in decent shape, needed the $65 variety.)

As to what can be cleaned - you might be surprised. I picked up an insanely cheap Rokkor 40 on pnet a while back that was advertised as having "some fungus, but sharpness is not affected".

In reality, the lens was packed with fungus and the photos looked like they were taken through wax paper. I sent it to Sherry and got the lens back after about two weeks. It came back very clean - remarkably so.

 

[chendayuan]

DAG is the better one. Both of them can not clean lens pristine or as clean as the factory. you will see dust and smear clean trace when you shine a flash light through it.

 

[clintock]

I have taken apart a summicron or two for cleaning, and it's both easy and difficult.
Easy to take apart and put together- they use shims so don't need to be calibrated usually, but can be difficult to clean without damage to the coatings. Those internal coatings have to be treated as carefully as the first-surface mirror in slr bodies.
In one case, the fog I saw in a summicron was the coating itself having come off of the glass, sitting on the element surface as a dust.

I live near Youxin and have met and watched him work with cameras, he sometimes prefers to send even his own lenses to DAG for lens cleanings, or for more modern leica glass Leica in NJ is not too expensive. Youxin is very careful to never do anything that could damage other's equipment, so he seems to me not to be really comfortable cleaning the internal elements in the lenses, with the coatings of some so soft.

 

[EmilGil]

Thanks for your replies. I've mailed DAG and Sherry for a first price quote and will email Youxin Ye tomorrow to ask him if he can send it to either of the other repairmen on it's way to me.

It should be worth $100 to have it cleaned; add the goggles on eb*y for another $100 and it's still cheaper than KEH/Ffordes/ApertureUK. 🙂

 

[roundg]

haha, I hesitated in last second. So lost the bidding yesterday. I recommend Sherry as I have one CLAed by her and it's great.

 

[peter_n]

I just had a rigid Summicron CLA'd by DAG and it cost $120. Well worth it IMO.

 

[wlewisiii]

DAG.

Period.

Based on simply my own experiances, there is no one else I would consider touching anything of mine from Leitz or Canon (RF era). His talent is world class and his prices are, to this bottom feeder, almost impossibly reasonable.

I have a collapsible Summicron that came to me in pieces and needing a CLA for haze. I paid $75 for it, as is. It came back to my Lieca CL for a grand total price of $130. (Yes, $55 to him.) His prices and quality would be effectivly impossible to best.

Hope this helps.

William

 

[Keith]

Those damned Russians ... is nothing 'Leica' sacred?

Oh ... fogged ... I thought you said forged! 😀

 

[EmilGil]

Lol Keith, lovely one! 😀

Both Sherry and DAG replied during the night and I'm asking Youxin to send the lens on to Don. Sherry seemed pretty busy; "I have more than enough work, and only do what is necessary".

Sorry about snatching it in front of your nose Roundg, better luck next time!

 

[peter_n]

You will have to wait maybe 8-10 weeks for Don to get to your lens but the wait will be worth it, believe me.

 

[Harry Lime]

Leica in New Jersey did a full rebuild of my DR in about 4 or 5 weeks. Cost was around $140 and there is quite a visible improvement in performance.

http://www.leica-camera.us/service/

HL

 

[EmilGil]

Thanks guys. Youxin mailed me yesterday saying he sent the lens to DAG and I reckon I'll hear from him once it gets there and he has had the time to look at it. A few weeks wait shouldn't be a problem, it'll be like a second christmas! =)

 

[d_e]

I also got a lens bought at a low price that seems fogged due to its old age - a Summicron 50 Rigid M. I am wondering if the results are dramatic after having it cleaned by professionals like DAG... or just investing in a brand new VC 50 1.5 end up better?

 

[wlewisiii]

I'd say get the CLA. That's a good lens and even if you decide to sell it, it'll go for more than you paid for it if that has been done.

William

 

[EmilGil]

Today (yes today, March 2nd) the lens finally arrived. I had almost forgotten about it until two weeks ago when I sent DAG a reminder by email.

My neighbour called on my door three hours ago, handing me "a package from America". The lens is a fantastic piece of mechanics and I look forward to using it. It does have a few tiny front coating marks and when shining a light through there is still some haze so I wonder what it looked like before the cleaning. Unfortunately, I don't have a digi-cam so no pics of it right now but it looks like quite a bit of dust. DAG charged $55 for a "rear element cleaning" and shipping was $30, totalling just over $300 (w/o glasses).

Now where did I put my old lens hood? 🙂