looks like a hair inside lens of RC

[d_ross]

I have just got a little RC, and notice there is what looks like a hair inside the lens. I've cleaned a few lenses like this in the past but never on an Olympus, can anyone point me to instructions for doing this ? I like the look and feel of the camera and can't believe how small it is compared to the Konica Auto S2 I've been using up until now.

Thanks if anyone can help

 

[d_ross]

During further cleaning I discovered the hair was in between the shutter and rear element, so was very easy to remove. However I discovered that under magnification the front element looks like an Ice rink after a game of hockey! I put a roll of film through it anyway, and I am really surprised how little if any these scratches seem to effect the image. Great little camera to use, and looking at the negatives it seems like a really nice lens despite all the scratches.

 

[vidgamer]

There's a post by someone (elsewhere on the web) where the guy purposefully puts all of these marks on the lens and then takes photos, and until it's very severe, it seems to make no difference. This was only testing the front of the lens. So, while I share many people's paranoia about keeping things clean, perhaps it only needs to be but so clean. I got a 'new' used camera and it looks really good until I look backwards through the lens, where everything is magnified! I just tell myself to not be so obsessive about it because it'll probably look perfectly fine.

 

[Al Kaplan]

There's a British photographer, David Hamilton, noted for his dreamy ethereal photos of girls. He actually uses sandpaper on his lenses!

 

[John Hermanson]

Which would mean that the tiny hair inside had little affect on the image too. If you ever want to replace the front element, I have new ones for $20 + S&H. John

 

[d_ross]

thanks John, I'll shoot a few rolls and see what effects there are in different situations first. Is it an easy fix to replace the front element?

 

[Joao]

there's an article somewhere on thre net that a bloke shows pics from a lens (modern i think ) that he says has marks on the front, the pics are good, some show some slight signs of softness, than at the end he shows a pic of the actual lens, it is splintered into go knows how many pieces...

Probably one of these links
http://dirtylenstest.notlong.com
http://lensscratches.notlong.com
Some visible lens flaws do not really affect image in most cases; they do certainly decrease the commercial value of the lens.
regards
Joao

 

[vidgamer]

As for me, those links weren't the website that I saw, but those are good too! This other guy took a perfectly fine (but cheap, old, surely nothing valuable) lens (that may have already had a flaw, I don't recall), and subjected it to increasing damage, and challenged the viewer to tell the difference. It was quite amazing. It wasn't obviously bad until the lens was really banged up! The jist of it is that minor scratches were basically undetectable. Even so, I prefer my flaws to at least be outside the center of the lens. :-/

But yeah, resale is low. But I bought a cheapo "bargain" grade lens once that has slight scratch marks way out to the side, and I have no qualms about using it. It's a fine lens for what it is.

However, since all of this testing is on the front element, that still begs the question of what if there's something on the rear element (perhaps on the inside, like in this new camera I got)? That is bothering me a bit, still.

 

[vidgamer]

It makes you wonder if you should try to look for lenses that are just slightly scratched, if they are cheap enough. 🙂 If you're on a budget, you might find something that works fine for the intended purpose, but costs far less. (From those links, I'm still not going to get something shattered, but if you can avoid sun flare, it's impressive how clear it looks.)

While browsing for lenses (this is getting a bit unrelated to this forum's topic, but it's in the spirit of the thread), I noticed a lens that I normally wouldn't be interested in (because its value has been hyped-up in recent years), but at a scratch-and-dent price, it would be worth trying... Yeah, if money were no object it'd be different, but I'm cheap.

 

[d_ross]

that bad lens test makes mine look mint 🙂 good to see as it makes me feel better about using the RC!