minor scratches on lens

Does anyone know if Nikon will repair minor scratches on a lens? I think I have a tiny really light surface

scratch on the rear element. The scratch seems to be on the coating only and it like 2mm long. I took pictures

with the lens under different conditions and I didn't see any problems on the images...

 

Thanks

 

John

You'd be surprised how bad a scratch or blemish can be before it noticeably affects your images. I'd say leave it alone!

what Alex said.

 

once I had a 20-35mm 2.8 with a HORRIBLE HUGE scrap in the rear element, and I bought the rear element from Nikon for $64. So if you are really finiky about that little scratch (depending on what lens you have) most likely Nikon can change the rear element. Doubt a scratch can be fixable.

>"Does anyone know if Nikon will repair minor scratches on a lens?"

 

If they could, it would not make economic sense for all but the most exotic of optics. They would need to dissassemble the lens, remove that element, send it to Japan (or Thailand), remove the existing coating, recoat, return to the local Nikon distributor, reassemble, test ... you see where this ($$$) is going?

 

Nikon can certainly replace a scratched element if it is a recent or current product, but for a "tiny really light surface scratch", that is unlikely to accomplish anything except lighten your wallet.

Thanks guys. It's on my 28mm f2.8 AIS Lens. I don't even know who it got there... Oh well, I will just leave it...

 

One question, if I bring the lens in for maintenance service, what does Nikon do? Would they send me a note saying that the lens has a scratches on the glass or they don't bother?

Early in my career I used to work for a catalogue house. I was one of five photographers who shot dozens of products

during an 8 to 12 hour day, six days a week. We shot with Hasselblad cameras that were beaten to death. All of the

lenses in the studio were scratched in many places, on both ends from reckless handling and cleaning. Admittedly, most

of these scratches were more coating marks than actual scratches down to glass, but there were a few of those too. We

shot everything on transparency film, and the images we produced were not noticeably adversely affected by these very

ugly lenses. Quite amazing to me at the time.

My brand new AF-S 24-70mm has a coating rub mark on it. I went to exchange and noticed the other lens at the shop had a 1.5cm long scratch at the edge. All BRAND NEW lenses. How disappointing of Nikon QC.

The degree a scratched lens bothers you can be directly proportional to what you paid for it and how large it is. A

used clean 28 mm f/2.8 AIS can be purchased fairly cheap if your realy fond of that lens type but frankly I wouldn't

bother as your description of the scratch sounds like it will have no bearing on image quality what so ever. If you feel

you must get another lens, consider either the 28 f/2.8 AIS version with CRC allowing focus down to 8" or get the

legendary 28 f/2 AI or AIS.