Lens CLA cost?

M

merciful

Guest
Hi guys,

My Canon 50/1.2 shows some funny stuff near the edge of the glass inside; and I'm pretty sure there was nothing there when I got it. So, obsessive and easily panicked as I am about this stuff, I figure I'll get it cleaned: I don't need my fast lens totalled by fungus.

The question is: how much should a cleanup cost? Stephen Gandy (who I rather like) just quoted US$150 + shipping to CLA it. Doesn't that seem rather steep? Or is there much more to a full CLA than cleaning? It's working great; so if I don't need a full job, I don't want it.

Thanks as always.
 
Lenses are complicated beasts. I've had a few of them apart - some I was able to put back together again.

It is my understanding that fungus and other nasties often attack the organic cement once used to weld lens elements together. This gets in between the elements and could necessitate splitting them open, dissolving the cement, cleaning, and recementing the elements. As well, the acids produced by the fugus as a byproduct can etch the lens over time or at least eat into any lens coatings - so sometimes the cure is as bad as or worse than the disease.

There are not that many competent camera repairmen left in the USA (probably fewer in Canada, I'm guessing) and fewer still who can or will tackle lens repair. One whom I often hear recommended is SK Grimes - the man himself has passed on, but his fully-trained staff continue the business, and from what I hear, very well, too. I have it on good authority that the Large Format folks like to have their lenses done by them. I have no actual experience with them myself.

I have heard of a couple of folk remedies for fungus, which you might or might not want to try (assuming that fungus is what you have). I am told that ultraviolet light kills it off - some advocate leaving the lens on a brightly-sunlight window sill for a couple of days. I tried it with an old Paxette lens. The lens got clearer, but the damge caused by the fungus was left behind.

You might also consider not putting your lens near other lenses while it is 'sick' with fungus (if it is fungus, again). Fungus spreads by spores - tiny nearly microscopic and airborne. No lens is airtight - it could 'infect' other lenses.

Depending on which element is being bothered, you might consider doing the work yourself. I have had good luck with removing the front element from rangefinder lenses - easy to do and give you access to at least two more lens surfaces to clean. However, I've tried to get at elements deeper inside the lens and had aperture leaves fall out and been unable to put them back - I'm too clumsy.

Here's a link to SK Grimes' page on lens cleaning - they quote $125 per element. And you might check it out, they explain what goes into this sort of work.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

http://www.skgrimes.com/popsci/index.htm
 
Thanks very much, Bill; it's great to have access here to guys like you.

I've just had a look at the lens through a magnifier; and the problem area seems to be made up of tiiiiiii-ny bubbles. If it's not fungus, I can cope; it's way off at the edge and not going to affect anything in a material way. I just don't want it to spread.
 
merciful, does it look like this?
Click to expand...

No, not like that, Joe. Maybe it was there when I got it; I may not have looked closely. Under magnification, it's surprising how many bubbles there are throughout the lens. I love the old stuff.
 
Bubbles? Older glass sometimes has bubbles in the glass itself - actually considered as a point of quality by some. However, it would have been there from the beginning, not recently developed.

One thing I wanted to mention - I have shot through lenses that I would have thought at first glance to be hopeless; scratched, coatings damaged, stuff in the lens elements, and so on. Amazing how often the resulting image is acceptable anyway.

That is not to say that the image is optimum - it could no doubt have been better; but it does pass the sniff test on the resulting negs many times when I would have thought not.

In general, damaged lenses will cause loss of contrast, haze, and perhaps glare. None of these might be serious enough to even be detectable unless you have access to a similar lens without the defects cited and compare side-by-side with all other conditions controlled for.

As Joe pointed out - light damage is common on older or vintage lenses - almost to be expected - and is often 'not a problem'.

Like you, I am obsessive about my glass. Can't stand dirty optics! But, I'm often surprised how well a lens did when I later discover I left a big greasy thumbprint right on the rear element with my fat-fingering during mounting it.

Although ANY damage to a lens is to avoided if possible, it is amazing how well they work anyway much of the time.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
Yup, bubbles. It distinctly looks like bubbles. A patch of tiny, tiny ones, and there are certainly many others (not) floating around in there.

The lens (Nikkor 85/2) that made this is a mess: scratches, cleaning marks, everything. Matters much less than one would think. And makes the lenses cheaper to get.
 
Nice portrait!

I agree that many lens 'bargains' are just that, because the seller accurately describes them with scratches and all, and everyone shies away. Just saw a nice 50mm f1.8 Canon go for something like $60 on eBay just a bit ago - described honestly. I'm guessing someone will be very happy with that.

What does bug me is sellers who refer to scratches in the lens coating as 'wipe marks' or 'swirl marks'. Come on! A scratch is a scratch. And "will not affect photos" - ways whom? All damage will affect the resulting photo - the real question is to what degree it will do so. As seen in your lovely photo above, the damage may not be detectable - some even prefer a particular lens for a ineffable quality it imparts to the negative - extreme cases would be the Holga/Diana folks.

Like the airport security who insist that x-rays don't damage film that is less than 800 ISO. They do, it's a scientific fact. All film is damaged by x-rays. The statement would be more accurate if they said it will damage film, but the damage will probably be undetectable. I hate those kinds of sneaky lies.

But that's another rant.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
As seen in your lovely photo above, the damage may not be detectable - some even prefer a particular lens for a ineffable quality it imparts to the negative - extreme cases would be the Holga/Diana folks.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much, Bill

I'm one of those Holga/Diana types, part time. I really do enjoy the uncertainty of the process. And, of course, to use them inside I need to indulge in my penchant for the extreme push.
 
$150 seems really high for a lens CLA. Brian Sweeney has quoted prices for lens CLAs by Essex for around or less than $100. I would give them and KEH a call to check their prices.

http://www.essexcamera.com/
http://www.keh.com/hmpg/index.cfm

I also had a lens service done by Sherry Krouter of Golden Touch Camera Repair in NY. It was very reasonably priced and done within a couple weeks. I can look up her number too if you wish.

Oh, and yes, that is a super portrait.
 
Merciful, that IS a nice portrait for sure. I have a Nikkor 50mm f/2 LTM lens that looks awful with all of the scratches on the front element. It came that way on a Sears Tower RF many years ago. It's takes surprisingly good pictures!

Walker
 
S.K. Grimes does great work in regards to machining and the like. They make a variety of products for the large format community. They can mount/remount lenses on new boards, mount/remount lenses on different shutters.

However, I didn't realize that they could take apart lenses for cleaning. I'm surprised.

Another technician who is highly respected is Don Goldberg... aka DAG. You can google his name and get the appropriate information on him. Furthermore, if you email him... he's really quick to get back to you. So, give him a try!

Cheers
 
DAG will do it for US$50, or $90 including an overhaul of the focusing system. He answered my email within a couple of hours: on a Sunday.
 
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