How to clean / polish lens Agfa Record?

[FallisPhoto]

I checked, its on the negative :-(

For future reference, way back, even before coated lenses, very occasionally an old lens would come along that had built up a kind of "tarnish" that looked like an oil slick. Well, it was soon noticed that lenses that had this, had vastly reduced lens flare, more contrast, and were better in a few other ways. These lenses were referred to as "bloomed." Bloomed lenses very quickly became in extremely high demand, were quite rare, and supply and demand being what they are, a bloomed lens became worth anywhere between 100 and 1,000 times more valuable than a non-bloomed lens.

Anyway, for decades, camera companies were trying to artificailly duplicate this process, mostly without success. This was probably because STILL nobody really understands the process by which the right kind of natural coatings form in the right way. Finally, in the 30s, Zeiss developed a commercially successful lens coating process. It was not as good as a naturally bloomed lens, but it was way better than a non-coated one. It was not until the 1960s that Pentax finally discovered that baking lens coatings fused them to the glass and hardened them, making multicoating lenses possible, so now we have lens coatings that are very close to as good as bloomed lenses.

In short, don't EVER do anything like that again. When you removed that lens coating, which probably took 30 or more years to build up, you reduced the value of the lens by at least 100 times, if it was originally an uncoated lens.

 

[chippy]

no doubt his record II had a factory coating-i referanced the oil appearance of the older lens coating for an example and they can look oily as well.

just to add to Charles rendition , one of the earlyist chemical/man made coatings that i recall reading about was patended by the same fellow that made the cooke triplet, D. Taylor but it wasnt put into production (too soft i believe) and the first useful coatings was made by a Ukrainian bloke that went to work for Zeiss in 1934-5 but it was still too soft and by 1937 they developed a harder coating that was said to be used on some Ziess cameras. not that i have noticed a 1937 camera with a factory coated lens. the early lens coatings were apparently known as chemically bloomed (a referance back to the naturely bloomed lenses) and then just bloomed.

and i think its a funny old saying that goes around, that a bloke in a English lens factory, looking at all the lenses, said something like 'what! so now they want us to put all these lenses through that bloomin proccess' LOL..i can just picture him saying it-always makes me laugh, but then i am easily entertained 😛

 

[Rogier]

What ever was/is on the lens it effected the image quality poorly so something needed to be done. Working on a roll to see what the results will be.
From my point of view as sad as it is, I can only make an improvement by removing what ever is causing the blurry center 🙂

 

[FallisPhoto]

What ever was/is on the lens it effected the image quality poorly so something needed to be done. Working on a roll to see what the results will be.
From my point of view as sad as it is, I can only make an improvement by removing what ever is causing the blurry center 🙂

Well, now that the damage is done -- the coatings on bloomed lenses were said to usually be very sensitive to ammonia, which is the main reason why you are never supposed to get anything containing ammonia anywhere near an old lens. Ammonia often even causes the old chemically created soft coatings to seperate from the glass. It is relatively harmless to modern hard coatings, although I think that getting into the habit of using ammonia to clean lenses is a very bad idea nevertheless.

 

[Abbazz]

It was not until the 1960s that Pentax finally discovered that baking lens coatings fused them to the glass and hardened them, making multicoating lenses possible

According to Gerjan van Oosten's book, modern photographic multicoating was not really a Pentax invention. Here's the quote:

An American company, OCLI (Optical Coating Laboratory Inc.) had designed a special coating that was used for coating windows of planes and space crafts. Asahi Optical was very eager to apply the same principle to their lenses, but due to color shifting towards the green part of the spectrum, to which the human eye is most sensitive, the coating was not suitable for photographic purposes. OCLI then changed the compounds of the coating to Asahi standards and when the envisioned result was reached, Asahi Optical Co. took a license in the OCLI patents. This resulted in the introduction of the multicoating in the field of photography.

Gerjan van Oosten, The ultimate Asahi Pentax Screw Mount Guide 1952-1977, ISBN 90-76537-02-X

Cheers!

Abbazz

 

[Rogier]

While taking new shots with this camera the shutter jammed.
So I took it upon me to take the entire lend from the body and take completely apart.
While doing so I examined all 3 lens elements and am pleased to say that the steel blue shine is still present on all of the elements. I worked more on the "oil" like stain on the front element and have been able to remove most of it 🙂


As with taking the test shots I have a problem with the 220 film. Its the very first time that I use this film (my 3rd MF roll in my lifetime..) and noticed that it does not have the numbers printed on the back that help me find the next frame.
Guess I will be wasting some film by guessing how manny turns between each exposure plus some extra just to make sure.

 

[oftheherd]

Unless you have something I am unaware of, those old cameras didn't take 220 film. As you mentioned, there is no paper backing. I would worry how light tight the red window is. That is, the one used to view the numbers on 120 film. It is even possible minor leask which would be stopped by the paper backing might get through to the film without the backing. Point being, I just don't see any worthwhile way or reason to use 220 in these old cameras. If you do figure out a way, let me know.

Stay with the 120. There is more film variety anyway.

 

[Rogier]

I was unaware of this difference between 120 and 220 I thought it was just a longer film.
Will rip it out of the camera and dump it.
Thanks for saving me time, effort and some money for development 🙂

 

[FallisPhoto]

According to Gerjan van Oosten's book, modern photographic multicoating was not really a Pentax invention. Here's the quote:

Gerjan van Oosten, The ultimate Asahi Pentax Screw Mount Guide 1952-1977, ISBN 90-76537-02-X

Cheers!

Abbazz

No, they didn't invent multicoating, but they did invent the process that made it possible. You can't multicoat with soft lens coatings. The second coat just dissolves or blisters the first.

 

[FallisPhoto]

Unless you have something I am unaware of, those old cameras didn't take 220 film. As you mentioned, there is no paper backing. I would worry how light tight the red window is. That is, the one used to view the numbers on 120 film. It is even possible minor leask which would be stopped by the paper backing might get through to the film without the backing. Point being, I just don't see any worthwhile way or reason to use 220 in these old cameras. If you do figure out a way, let me know.

Stay with the 120. There is more film variety anyway.

There is no film advance stopping either, or double exposure prevention, so there is no way to tell where one frame ends and another begins. I'd expect at very least to see big gaps between frames, and at worst, frames overlapping and double exposures. You need that backing paper to see the frame numbers and keep track of them.

 

[oftheherd]

I was unaware of this difference between 120 and 220 I thought it was just a longer film.
Will rip it out of the camera and dump it.
Thanks for saving me time, effort and some money for development 🙂

No problem. Easy mistake when your aren't used to MF film. Just a shame the folks where you bought it didn't mention it. I just bought some dated film, and the clerk, who didn't know me, was quick to let me know what it was. I thanked him of course. I will use it in my Super Press 23, not a folder.