35 Summicron ASPH - Oily blades

[sjgslack]

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Hello Everyone.

Here's a technical question for the hive mind...

My 35/2 ASPH has some oil on the blades (see image).  Not a lot, but a bit.  The lens is not old, maybe 5 years or so.

I don't care what the oil will do to the value, as I don't plan to sell it, but obviously I do care if it's going to do damage.

Does anyone have the technical knowledge to know whether this much oil is likely to cause damage?  I've heard for example that some of the newer lenses have teflon coated blades that can be damaged by the oil.

Any opinions gratefully received!

 

Silas

 

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[earleygallery]

Personally I wouldn’t worry about that.

I had very oily blades on a Summicron R and someone suggested that I keep the lens stored with the aperture wide open which worked and the oil disappeared. 

Try it.

[sjgslack]

7 minutes ago, earleygallery said:

Personally I wouldn’t worry about that.

I had very oily blades on a Summicron R and someone suggested that I keep the lens stored with the aperture wide open which worked and the oil disappeared. 

Try it.

Ah!  Thanks for the tip.  I’ll try doing that and see what happens.

 

Silas

 

[wda]

What you see is not untypical.  Keeping the blades wide open helps to disperse the smears. That has been my experience with older lenses.

[Gobert]

Lenses should always be stored “wide open”. I thought that is common knowledge.

[sjgslack]

23 minutes ago, Gobert said:

Lenses should always be stored “wide open”. I thought that is common knowledge.

I'd never heard that before.  You learn something new every day!

[Gobert]

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And on infinity.....

[a5m]

6 hours ago, Gobert said:

Lenses should always be stored “wide open”. I thought that is common knowledge.

 

6 hours ago, Gobert said:

And on infinity.....

And upside down...

Or at least I think they are. That’s how they mostly come in the boxes from Leica.

[Gobert]

2 hours ago, a5m said:

 

And upside down...

Or at least I think they are. That’s how they mostly come in the boxes from Leica.

What is upside down? Stored on the front or at the back?

[a5m]

1 minute ago, Gobert said:

What is upside down? Stored on the front or at the back?

Stored with the front facing down and the mount facing upwards.

[Gobert]

I never do that.

[chasdfg]

I suspect large amounts of oil may "condense" on lens elements in the right conditions (or wrong?), though this is more the case for old lenses. Larger quantities (i.e. not what you have) may drip onto lens elements if the aperture is opened and closed. The latter I might have experienced with 1 lens I had, but it was a minuscule droplet which hung around until CLA...I never pinpointed what it was but because my lens had oily blades that was the likely cause in my mind as the droplet was in the middle of the element directly below the blades. Also note that more oil may appear in warmer environments as well. 

Of the lenses with oily blades, both of them were relatively new lenses too (50APO and 50lux Asph). I didn't send them for cleaning until I had multiple lenses to send in. In other words, it's not a huge deal.

I now store my lenses wide open at infinity. I do know the lenses are facing downwards in the Leica pouches but I store them front facing up because the lens is more stable that way.

[sjgslack]

Thanks for all the input.  I think I'm going to just store the lens wide open and not worry about it.