Zenobia 10 years in the drawer

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pettit

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I bought a Zenobia 645 folder at least 10 years ago on ebay. i have never used it due to the haze/fungus/whatever on the rear lens element. I just scanned some negs i shot in it this year and well....not too bad. does anyone know of a way to clean the crud off the lens? i read one guy polished his with toothpaste.??
I made a post about this and have other pics from this zenobia outing on my website if anyone would like to see...http://www.ronniepettit.com/
zenobia-1.jpg
 
I certainly never would use Toothpaste to remove fungus ! Toothpaste (the normal ones, not the fancy stuff) however is a nice medium for fine polishing of metal parts.

A nice artice about Fungi on lenses can be found here :
http://www.mypentax.com/Fungus.html

You will find several cleaning tips on that webpage.

I occasionaly used Ponds Cold Cream and sometimes this works ! However when the
fungi did their etching stuff it's too late. The lens needs to be re-polished then and maybe
that's where the toothpaste came in the story.

Succes !
 
Hello Pettit, I was the guy who cleaned the rear lens of a Zenobia with toothpaste.
But only then when I tried everything to clean a kind of gummy stuff and black spots on the lens.
After the toothpaste cleaning (with a cotton tip) the rear lens was clear as a marble.
It was a matter of a camera which couldn't be used or a camera that I finally could take some pictures with.
I hope you will find a solution not to use toothpaste.
 
pettit said:
i read one guy polished his with toothpaste.??
Click to expand...

And he actually told people about that? He didn't scuff his toe and blush furiously while telling about it? This shouldn't have to be said, but you don't ever use an abrasive on a precision lens. You can use it on those yellowing plastic things on box cameras that show you where the camera is pointed, but that's it -- nothing to do with actually taking the photo. The best thing I've tried is a 50/50 mix of household ammonia and drugstore hydrogen peroxide. It just melts the stuff right off and won't harm anything. Leica even recommends it (dilluted to 10% strength) for cleaning fungus off of their old soft coated lenses. It's a lot easier to clean up when you're done than some of the other crap I've heard recommended too (cold cream, nose grease, shaving cream w/lanolin, and etcetera).

BTW, about half the time when people think their lenses are etched, it's because they haven't cleaned the fungus fibers off of the glass (they are really stubborn). The ammonia/peroxide mix gets it off with no problem.
 
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nice! thanks for the tips. i will try the amonia/peroxide first...then ramp up from there. i assume it is fungus. but, im not sure , maybe it is a seperation of the coating? it is on the inside of the rear element. i hope i can get it cleaned up since the shutter speeds seem to be close enough, i'd love t use it more.
 
Which lens and shutter configuration do you have?

Which lens and shutter configuration do you have?

I have about a half dozen of these Zenobias in the "hardly ever gonna get used" cupboard.

Most of the lenses or lens elements are clean and clear.

The lens elements came in Hesper Anastigmat and Neo Hesper, which I have been told are hardly distinguishable from one another. The shutters came in 3 variants. I have most of them. A couple of the bodies are disassembled and may not get back together again, so I have extra lenses/shutters. The D.O.C shutters were early and reputed to be less reliable. The other two variants got better press.

I may be able to help you out with clean elements if you are interested?

By the way, they are great little shooters and smaller, but a bit thicker, than a voigtlander Perkeo (but the Perkeo is 6X6, vs the 645 of the Zenobia)

Lars
 
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excellent

excellent

Hey Kuzano... the current lens on my zenobia is the hespar anastigmat 75/3.5 with the d.o.c. rapid shutter.
 
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Found a nice later Zenobia lens and shutter.

Found a nice later Zenobia lens and shutter.

pettit said:
Hey Kuzano... the current lens on my zenobia is the hespar anastigmat 75/3.5 with the d.o.c. rapid shutter.
Click to expand...

Looked through my Zenobia stash and found a nice later lens (Neo Hesper in a Daiichi Rapid shutter). I PM'd you on the lens shutter and condition.

Lars.
 
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