My poor pre-war sonnar.....

[former member]

I'm convinced that my 1936 5cm f1.5 Sonnar is from the test batch of coated Zeiss lenses. All of the surfaces are coated, the lens had never been opened. The lens had a lot of internal haze, which cleaned up well. I did not notice the coating until the lens was disassembled. It's in amazingly good shape for a 75 year old lens. I'm guessing that this lens passed it's long-term life-cycle testing with flying colors.

 

[goamules]

Old glass corroded into sand? Tiffany lamp glass corroded except where the lightbulb heated it? Er....Don't think so. There are many Roman era glass goblets and such that are centuries old, and still in perfect condition. There are many optical glass marine and astononomy telescopes 200 years old still being used.

 

[Steve M.]

Just wanted to mention John at Focal Point does fantastic work on lenses. He re cemented a rear element that was on a Super Ikonta IV I once owned, and disabled the aperture/shutter interlock (grrr) for me. That made the camera so much easier to shoot. He's also performed magic on old Summars I've sent him. Extremely professional work from his company.

One thing about lens separation. In addition to making sure that the camera isn't knocked about, you should watch out for major changes in temperatures, especially since winter is coming. Bringing a camera that's been out in freezing weather directly into a heated building can put the separation into the critical area. Bundle it up in a coat for a while before coming into heated places.

 

[roboflick]

Good job sending it to Henry. You will be very happy when you receive it from him. I use b and w filter 010 uv haze and a screw in 40.5 hood that I got from amazon for 6.99 all metal
Enjoy your lens it is a masterpiece. Especially wide open
Nik

 

[uhoh7]

Just came back. I'll get some close shots of the lens so you can see the repair: you can tell a bit.

Now here is something my nikkor 5cm 1.4 (which I love) simply cannot contemplate:

That's @ 5.6 The light is a bit diffuse--some cloud cover, so not quite straight sun.
Check center details: Full Size I also brought the Canon LTM 1.4 for comparision, I'll post those later. The Canon does not soften on the edges as this one does, but is no sharper in the center.

Indoors wide open:

same conditions so you can see sharpness:

full size

Seems pretty good 🙂

 

[gzuiko]

I'm impressed. So how did you happen to get your lens in and out of Henry Scherer's so quick? I thought he had a years long waiting list. My uncoated f1.5 is wonderful the way it is, but I wonder how nice it might be cleaned up inside.

Jim

 

[uhoh7]

He does lenses fast--someone else had mentioned this, so I emailed him. I have to say he was very patient and answered numerous questions through the process. He won't click on links in emails , though 🙂

Now, you can see a touch of I'm not sure what in the shape of the damage above, but much closer to the edge, so I could not say it's like new: I'll put up some pics when I have a chance to get some clear shots.

 

[uhoh7]

OK because some might consider such a lens repair here are some close pics.

now rotated a bit:

Below; it does seem the effected element is fully restored---compare to first shots way up there.

Blades are just short of wide open and the effected element or group is inboard of the aperture, i.e. bewteen the viewer and the blades visible in the upper half.
I have a few more but I think these tell the story.

I asked Henry:
On lens inspection I see just a slight half moon of light grey material in location where separation was before--covering much smaller area than original issue. This is only visible when I tilt the lens. This must be the space age stuff you talk about on your site 🙂

He replied:
"The grey material you see when you tilt the lens is actually lens edge blacking that is visible through the lens cement. The lens element surfaces are very highly curved and the lens cement is very transparent."

Anyway, tweety the cat likes it:

 

[former member]

I would not worry about it- but it is not a reflection of the lens blacking.

Maybe the glass ever so slightly discolored with the balsam.

It is not going to have any affect.

 

[uhoh7]

TY Brian
here two more samples from APS-C without PP from Raw. WB auto.

focus could be better but shown for color rendition and bokeh

overcast conditions

pull the blacks and i feel like I'm back in 1967 🙂

🙂

 

[gzuiko]

A few more from my "dog" lens. (uncoated f1.5 5cm Sonnar)

 

[dsymes]

This is one of those questions that I suspect Brian would have had a very good answer for, but I'm hoping other "regulars" can chip in with suggestions.

I have a 5cm f/1.5 CJZ sonnar, SN 267xxxx, which I'm taking apart in order to clean oli off the aperture blades, clean, and also to blacken the outside or the front triplet. The front retaining ring came off quite easily, but the one holding the triplet is not moving even with a significant amount of force. I don't want to mar the slots, so was thinking that a small amount of lubricant (kerosene? napetha? WD40?) applied with a toothpick might reduce the friction required to remove it, but I'm a little leary of using WD40. Any suggestions?

The lens is in very good shape but does have some very fine cleaning marks on both the front and rear elements. Were the coatings on these early "T" sonnars softer than post-war coatings?

Thanks,
dsymes