Blotchy lens coating???

I just received a Roleiflex 2.8 E2 in the mail, I bought it from a pretty reputable seller I

have used before. My issue is the taking lens has a slight "blotchy" look to it, I would

think it's a coating issue as it looks like it's on the front exterior of the lens. You can

only see it when the camera is held just right and it doesn't appear when a bright

light source is shone through it, anyone ever seen this or know what it is? It doesn't

look like fungus.

 

Todd

here is a scan of the lens, you can see in the reflection of the light the stuff I'm

talking about. I can see a finger print on the left. Any ideas, can it be cleaned?

 

I will shoot it to see if the image is affected, proably will be fine.

 

Todd<div></div>

Try cleaning it gently with a microfiber lens cleaning cloth and a good grade of lens cleaning fluid. I use SuperKote, as recommended and sold by SKGrimes.

 

Those rainbows, if not artifacts of the lighting you used or the equipment you used to take the digital photo of the front of the lens, are very troubling. If they're visible when the lens is illuminated by daylight or an incandescent bulb (hot wire, NOT fluorescent), they're Newton's rings and indicate separation.

Looks like the last person to clean it didn't do that great a job. Best to leave well enough alone. Improper cleaning can scratch the coating. Cleaning a lens without damage and without leaving drying blotches is a skill. Many of us who do a lot of field work put on a high quality multicoated 1x filter so the surface that gets dirty isn't a really expensive one. Much safer to clean a filter and throw it away if it gets scratched.

Finger prints and salt spray are the two most common culprits.

As well as saliva droplets when one blows the dust off a lens surface!

If it's any consolation, the lens on my Rolleiflex 2.8E looks alot worse than that (which is why the otherwise Excellent condition fully working camera cost me under $200). In any case, despite the ugliness of the coating, the image quality is excellent (although the lens is a bit more susceptible to flare than some others) and in general, it's a perfectly functional camera.

I had a similar looking mark on a cheap minolta camera/lens I got at a local auction a few years back. Took fine pictures as long as you weren't in the sun. It wouldn't budge with a lens cloth and in desperation I finally wetted a cloth with windex and it wiped right off.

 

I'm sure there are probably better cleaners then windex for a Rollei though.

 

Alan

Yes, there are better cleaners. Try opticlean

http://www.opticlean.com/ or use collodion. But be careful not to get them on painted surfaces as they are also very efficient in removing paint. These are the only two methods that do not scratch the surface of a lens. These are very commonly used by astronomers. I use either opticlean or collodion on very old lenses which I have bought with layers of dirt on them. If I would try any other method of removing layers of sand and dirt, the lenses would immediately be ruined.

Take some pictures with it! The 50 Elmar of my first Leica (back in the early forties) had a 'bloom' that looked like someone had poured acid on the front element. I still have some of the slides it made and they will hold their own with anything I'm doing now. I have a hunch that smucge is nothing more than a greasy thumb print and a 'Lens Pen' is the answer. I had a Leica polarizer that had something on it that defied all common treatments. The Lens Pen removed it with no trouble at all. If that won't do it then a qualified techie should be consulted.

However if there is even the smallest amount of anything that might scratch the lens even the lenspen will ruin it. I have tested the lenspen quite alot and I don't like the results.

If one is a photographer; then shoot some images. If one is a collector; then worry; and never shoot any images :) :)

I actually do both, collect them and then shoot with them. But none the less, I don't like scratches on lenses, especially those that are caused with careless cleaning with cloth, etc. and also adding the corroding affects of breathing all kinds of chemicals and bacteria onto lenses that will damage them eventually. A while ago I bought a camera dating to around 1910 and included with it was the instruction manual that said clean the lenses as often as possible with your shirt or sleeve and I could already guess the result...the lens elements were scratched so badly that they were of no use. So many cameras that are sold on ebay are sold because their owners have scratched the lenses and now want to get rid of it. Funny enough the worst cases of scratching are often on TLR's and usually on their rear elements, so that it cannot be seen in any picture the seller sends you. And when you ask for the seller to look thru the lens against a light source, they stop responding to your questions.... There seems to be all too many myths about lens cleaning around, that some bogus things start to be accepted as truth just because they are on the internet and people who have ruined their lenses deny it and say that it doesn't matter, yet are trying to sell the camera away to some other fool.

Oh and by the way Kelly, shooting doesn't cause scratches, fungus or fingerprints that have etched onto glass surfaces, only bad handling does. :) Anyway I'm glad to get this said, I have so many times wanted to write this every time there is a discussion about scratches, but have always decided not to because it will most likely cause quite a lot of problems, but I trust the people in this group to be openminded although I may not always be.

Todd - I would say that what you have can be one of two things. Either the lens surface is contaminated with an oily residue (which could even be the result of fingermarks) and which will clean off with a good lens cleaner and lens tissue, or the coating is slightly oxidised in which case there will be no noticable effect, or even a slight beneficial effect. In either case, no problem.

Thanks guys, I'm going to shoot it today and check the results.

 

Todd

Is it in the front element? I believe this is the cemented group in the Planar. Better hope that its not separation as its not cheap to fix.

I hesitate getting into discussions about lens cleaning since everybody, expert and tyro alike has their own pet methods. I suppose the only really safe method is to do nothing at all and send the lens to a professsional. Actually I seldom have to resort to cleaning because I keep a UV filter on all my lenses, but even that is controversial. My pet hate is lens tissue. No matter how good it is I am convinced that most damage to coatings as well as actual scratches is the result of overkill with tissue. Proper use of the Lens Pen assumes that the brush has been used to remove all dust particals. BTW I lied about "all" my lenses -- my old Foth Derby that I got in '39 or '40 has never had a filter and it is pristine as anything Frank has described. Nevertheless, it is much more productive to clean protective filters than 'pristine' lenses!

Im sending it back to the seller, great guy! We've worked out another deal.

 

Thanks all,

 

Todd