Cleaning a fogged lens

[Guest malland]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I have a DR Summicron-50 that I like lot, but this lens has some fogging. Can professional cleaning of the lens clear or reduce the fogging? The lens still performs well, or could the look benefit from the fogging as in the following picture (at f/2.0 on the Ricoh GRX M-Module, taken in awful mixed fluorescent/tungsten lighting):

 

 

 

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Paris au rythme de Basquiat

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Mitch,

 

The foggy blurry pictures of the impressionists & the like 100 or so years ago was a style & technique which developed when some painters began to realize they could not equal the work of photographers of their day. In the first 1/2 of the 20th Century photographers who were turning to smaller film formats used similar rationalizations to explain their lack of parity w/ larger film formats. I teach a whole class about this topic altho it is primarily to people interested in paintings rather than a group of photographers like the people here.

 

It would probably be better to have your lens cleaned properly & if you wish put something on the OUTSIDE of a filter which can be attached to the now clean lens to reproduce what you have now.

 

As far as I know there are no filters you can buy that will do the reverse.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[jamesk8752]

In most cases, cleaning of the internal lens elements is possible, and will eliminate the fogging, increasing image sharpness and contrast. I've had several older Leica lenses (Summaron 35/3.5 and Summicron 50/2) serviced with excellent results.

 

However, in some cases the surfaces of the elements may have been damaged (etched) by the condensed material which causes the haze. Another possible issue is that the coating of the internal element surfaces of older lenses is often very fragile, and may flake off in the cleaning process, necessitating complete removal. You need to discuss this with your lens serviceman prior to having the work done.

 

Regards, Jim

[Guest malland]

Michael and Jim, thanks. That's very helpful. I'll have the lens cleaned.

 

Michael, very interesting. Photography did a lot for painting in the 19th century.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

Paris au rythme de Basquiat

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Again Mitch,

 

Depends on your perspective.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[bill]

Mitch, I did a "self-clean" on my 90mm collapsible Elmar. This lens can be picked up cheaply because it is prone to fogging and that is what I did. It took a bit of work to get at the offending element but it was well worth it.

 

Regards,

 

Bill