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Cleaning your Leica lens


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I suffer MAJOR depression. I hav managed to gat a small scratch on my 21mm LUX from the BW filter when screwing it on. ITS NEW  only a week or so, utter disaster. 

 

What shall I d0?

 

It seams the Series VII filter touched front element when attached under hood and screwed on and made a small scratch. Im literally cant sleep and I'm so sad. 

 

Advice? No visual effect on pictures. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

@Q116 - M10

 

As I see it, you have two options -

 

1:  Sell your 21 Summilux for whatever you can get out of it then use that money to purchase a minty new 21 'lux, paying the difference out of your own pocket, or

2:  Accept the fact that these things happen, learn to live with it and learn to enjoy using your 21 Summilux again.  After all, the real issue is that there is no image degradation; your lens is not pristine like it was the first day you took it out of the black leather case, but it is still an outstanding lens that is fully capable of producing outstanding images. 

 

That first scratch is not at all easy for we Leica connoisseurs to live with, but it's not the end of the world - even when it is a scratch on the front element of our favorite lens.  Don't let this one small flaw on your 21 'lux take the joy out of photography and out of your life.  We tread this planet for a limited amount of time; it would be a shame for this adversity to continue to make you miserable.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I suffer MAJOR depression. I hav managed to gat a small scratch on my 21mm LUX from the BW filter when screwing it on. ITS NEW  only a week or so, utter disaster. 

 

What shall I d0?

 

It seams the Series VII filter touched front element when attached under hood and screwed on and made a small scratch. Im literally cant sleep and I'm so sad. 

 

Advice? No visual effect on pictures. 

 

 

When I bought my 50mm Summarit 2.5 (new from Leica store) I was told that it came with a one year guarantee against accidental damage. In fact I was told, "if you're going to drop the camera drop it on the lens" (tongue in cheek obviously) hopefully this will be the case for you also.

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When I bought my 50mm Summarit 2.5 (new from Leica store) I was told that it came with a one year guarantee against accidental damage. In fact I was told, "if you're going to drop the camera drop it on the lens" (tongue in cheek obviously) hopefully this will be the case for you also.

You're referring to the Leica Passport scheme. Leica ceased providing this, in the UK at least, about a year ago. It undertook to replace items where accidental damage had caused loss of function, as I understood it. So a bit of cosmetic damage to a lens barrel, for example, wouldn't have been covered. Not sure about a small scratch to a front or rear element.

 

Apparently it was, unsurprisingly, too expensive to underwrite. A shame really, as for me it was always a big selling point when buying new Leica items. And it could be transferred to a new owner (if the item was sold within a year, clearly).

 

Not sure about other parts of the world.

 

Hope your 21 'lux is sorted out one way or another.

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I suffer MAJOR depression. I hav managed to gat a small scratch on my 21mm LUX from the BW filter when screwing it on. ITS NEW  only a week or so, utter disaster. 

 

What shall I d0?

 

It seams the Series VII filter touched front element when attached under hood and screwed on and made a small scratch. Im literally cant sleep and I'm so sad. 

 

Advice? No visual effect on pictures. 

Shrug and move on. The performance is in no way impaired and you only lopped a few hundred quid off the resale value. So don't sell it.

Actually you could drag a diamond ring all the way across the front element and you still couldn't see any quality loss.

It is a superb tool to be used. As you do, and you should, it will acquire more honourable battle scars over the years.

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+1

But no experiments with diamond rings please. Think of the possibility to introduce flaring.

 

For Q116-M10. What kind of filter did you try to use?

Filters are old-fashioned, only pola- or ND-filters should be used. LR and PS functions are better.

 

My 180mm needs series filters. This type of filters seem to be not easy to use either.

Jan

 

PS: Astro filters are useful too.

Edited by jankap
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Flare can be prevented by filling the scratch with a black sharpie ;)

I have always been opposed to the use of UV filters for protection, but since B+W have introduced the 007 series of nano-coated protection filters I am all in favour.

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Whatever else, the Passport scheme, which was unique for the UK was curtailed years ago and has now been discontinued.

It's a shame that some of the unique extras seem to be going. Passport gone and I believe you now get an Adobe Lightroom cc membership for a number of months rather than the stand alone version.

 

www.robertpoolephotography.com

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Flare can be prevented by filling the scratch with a black sharpie ;)

I have always been opposed to the use of UV filters for protection, but since B+W have introduced the 007 series of nano-coated protection filters I am all in favour.

Reminded me of this old article...

 

https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/06/good-times-with-bad-filters/

 

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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