JDMvW

<div></div>

<p>Fit?<br /> Yeah.<br /> Unless it's a screw-in hood, of course, it's the outside diameter that matters. The screw-in filter diameter may only be a rough measure of that.</p> <p>Vignette?<br /> That's the question. At one time or another there's been discussion here of getting "tighter" hoods for the DX use of "FX" lenses. I think DIY is the only solution to that problem, but remember that on many models the viewfinder does not show 100%, so vignetting may not be visible in the viewfinder, but might show up in the image.</p>

<p>From that same "smoking house" camera I can confirm that Febreze™ works pretty well for the odor. As with everything of this kind, moderation is advised.</p>

<p>No, but I replaced them with other copies of them on eBay. :(</p>

1979 partial solar eclipse shadows<div></div>

<p>I once bought a camera and lens from what was described as a "smoking house." What I found out when I got it was that was literally true. Apparently a house fire. Alcohol and naphtha (what else?) took it off the tars quite well. That's used <em>separately</em>, not as a witches brew, BTW. The camera worked as well as it ever had once it was clean.<br /> Like sp, and the father in <em>My Fat Greek Wedding</em>, I find Windex™-like stuff with ammonia works as a last ditch effort.</p>

<p>In my town the camera shop processing is actually cheaper than Walgreens - usually better too.</p> <p>Their main disadvantage is that they are not open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<br> When it's Sunday afternoon late, and you just got to get that post up on P.net, it's awful handy to have the Walgreens. :|</p>

<p>My apologies, Joseph. I was assuming you were just trying to stir things up.</p> <p>As for your question</p> <blockquote> <p>Is this an advantage? I'm very interested in what others here think about this.</p> </blockquote> <p>The short answer is yes. <br /> A longer answer gets into the points about being set up for future developments (which have been manifold since 1987) which do seem to have given Canon some advantages in bringing newer technology to market. All, I think or nearly all, EF lenses made since 1987 still work on any Canon camera body. Only the EF-S lenses are restricted to the APS-C bodies, but the APS-C bodies will take all EF lenses, period. I think a comparison to the changes made in Nikon F lenses over the same period, 1987 to date will be instructive - start at the list of lens compatibility on various Nikon bodies at http://www.nikonians.org/reviews?alias=nikon-slr-camera-and-lens-compatibility .</p> <p>I do still love Nikons too, but some of the tools I need in my work (such as the TS-E 17mm lens) have shaped my current choices, just as that PC-Nikkor 35mm lens shaped my choices back in 1971.</p> <p> </p>

<p><strong>Zenit S ( ?????-C )</strong></p> <p>An early “Leica” SLR<br /><br />1955-1961<br /><br />Kadlubek Kamera-Katalog Nr. KRA0500<br /><br />Type: PM3235. <br />“Very common version of Zenit-C with new standardized shutter sequence: 1/30s, 1/60s, 1/125s, 1/250s, 1/500s + B.”<br />( http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?568663372 )<br /><br />Mine is serial No. 599580xx (which is said to mean it’s from 1959)<br /><br />Industar-50 3.5/5cm Russian Tessar Lens for M39 Zenit N580633xx<br />Kadlubek Nr. RUS3460<br /><br />Since I had gone to the trouble to get a Zenit-M39 lens to adapt to my Start SLR ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00c7Ga ), the temptation to acquire an early Soviet Zenit camera, became, well, you know.<br /><br />I found both the lens and a Zenit-S (?????-C in Cyrillic). The camera is often called a Zenit-C, but the “C” here is “S” for synchronization. <br /><br />The early Zenits are especially interesting since they are very heavily based on the rangefinder Zorki camera, which itself is essentially identical to the earlier Leica rangefinders. <br /><br />I hardly need to go into vast detail on the camera in this regard, since it is so well covered in a number of posts.<br /><br />Among the most interesting of these is our own Rick Oleson’s essay at <br /> http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-9.html <br /><br />This might have been what Leitz would have done, had they decided to make their own SLR in 1955 or so. So the Zenit is kind of an “alternate history” camera, as Oleson points out.<br /><br /><br />Other discussions can be found at <br /><br /> http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?568663372 <br /> http://www.eyescoffee.com/collectcamera/zenits/index.php <br /> http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zenit-S <br /><br />Manuals are available at several sites, including<br /><br /> http://www.zenitcamera.com/mans/zenit-s/zenit-s-eng.html</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Chicago - A Center of Photography - 1940</strong><br /><br />Once upon a time, America had really two major cities. New York, of course, and then the “Second City”, Chicago.<br /><br />This was as true for cameras and photographic gear as for restaurants, museums, and other cultural establishments.<br /><br />For example, one of the classical photographic magazines, <em>Popular Photography</em>, had its original offices in Chicago, Illinois.</p><div></div>

<h1>Taxona - noch einmal</h1> <p><br /><br />It's not that I don't have a number of cameras that I haven't posted on before, but one thing or another has led me back to classics that I like.<br /><br />I had previously (2008) posted a brief account of the Taxona ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00R6tH ) but hadn't yet reached the present "form" of my reporting. Just the other day I posted this one in a "Someday" post here on CMC, and that was what stimulated me to go out with it this last weekend.<br /><br />So.<br />Here is the 1952-3 VEB Zeiss Ikon Taxona<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p>The <em>What the Duck</em> cartoon on Sunday, October 6, 2013 was<br> http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FfUMMN9xfngmCju6kvaXBg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI5NTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz02MDA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/wtd131006.jpg <br> (it asks whether the gift of a film camera is a present or a punishment)</p> <p>If you don't follow the strip, it often, but not always, hits the target or close to it.</p> <p>Yahoo presentation of the strip at http://news.yahoo.com/comics/w-t-duck-slideshow/ </p>

<p><strong>Images from</strong><br /> <strong>Spiratone Minitel-M 500mm f/8 </strong><br /> <strong>Quantaray 500mm f/8 Mirror<br /></strong><br /> <em>Background</em><br /> <br />In another post recently ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00c1BM ), I had presented a Spiratone Mintel-M 500mm. I think this was the last incarnation of the rather long series of Spiratone mirror lenses starting with their import of a variety of the Soviet MTO 500mm Matsukov lens ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00bVwA ). <br /><br />Now, the Spiratone Minitel-M looks almost identical to the still-available new lenses from Korea variously sold as Quantaray and other import names -- I think Vivitar, Bower, Opteka, and Samyang are essentially the same lens. These sell new for USD 85-140 or so.<br /><br />The Spiratone Mintel-M is sold for about the same prices as the new ones.<br /><br /><em>So which should you get?</em> <br /><br />I thought it would be instructive to present a side-by-side comparison of the two. I posted a few days ago on another example of the Spiratone lens than the one used here and Gene M wanted to see images at ISO 200 of my infamous water tower test image. <br /><br />These are shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II body on a very solid tripod with a remote release, although I did not lock up the mirror. This is a test of how most people would use these lenses, after all. I did focus bracketing on these and chose the sharpest, so far as I could tell, although objectively there was little difference from one image to the next. I had lot of practice with manual focus years ago and haven't entirely lost the touch. The tripod head was a Manfrotto 393 'gimbal' head.<br /><br /><br />Here is the Spiratone Minitel-M showing the full sized image:</p><div></div>

<p>The other day I had tested a Canon T50 camera and had a spectacular failure (4 negatives on a roll of 24). So when I wanted to check out the Jupiter-8 lens so kindly sent to me by Kris Bochenek, I went back to an old favorite location where I had not shot for a long time.<br /> I decided to take the pictures with my whole "library" of LTM normal lenses:<br> <br /> Jupiter-8 5cm f/2 from Kris (Thanks so much).<br />Industar-61 52mm f/2.8 FED 4b<br />Industar-26M 5cm f/2.8 FED-2<br />Canon 50mm f/1.8 from Japan on eBay</p> <p><br /> I shot all of these on my 'new' Canon VL2 rangefinder, a camera I am coming to like more and more the more I use it.<br /> The location was a set of Illinois Central steam locomotive coaling towers that are actually quite famous, as a Google™ of "Illinois Central Coaling Towers Carbondale" will reveal.<br /><br />I had shot these a few years back as a part of a "Hopper in Carbondale" project (no pun intended).</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p><strong>Shift and Swing Bellows</strong><br /><br /><br />Of course, I got here by a devious route. I try to pick up old Spiratone gear, and one item I kind of wanted was a bellows unit with shift and tilt that was called the Bellowsmat.</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Some background first </strong><br />This is one of the those cameras that I have frequently referred to as basically unlikely to still work and impossible to find someone who can service.<br />The other day, I dug out this one to look at it in response to a post about unworkable cameras - a sort of Triste Camerique ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00bmk2 )<br /><br />I looked at it again, and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. As it was, it was clearly impossible to load film into it without exposing it. So I puttered and finally figured out that there had to be shutter leaves in the lens assembly (this was a unique Pentacon SLR with a leaf shutter, back to that later). They were not visible, but I thought - it doesn't work anyway and am I not the Lord Naphtha, King of the Mild Solvents, Spirit of the Petroleum Wastes?<br /><br />So I splashed (actually, carefully) a little naphtha (aka, more expensively, as Ronsonol) into the area immediately behind the lens, proper, mount and worked the camera a little - <br />LO! The edge of the shutter blades popped out a little. A few more drops of solvent and suddenly the shutter popped into place, covered with dirt and solvent. I carefully wiped it off, worked it some more, and it started to close consistently after triggering the shutter (see below). I continued to work it, cleaning it as I went, and then left it to dry overnight.<br /><br />Is, is , it alive? (Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad).<br> <br />YES, IT'S <em><strong>ALIVE</strong></em>, BWA-HA-HA.<br /><br />So what follows is a report about the Pentina and how it is supposed to work (the match-needle metering is, of course, deader than a doornail unless somebody knows of a meter magic similar to naphtha for the mechanical parts)'<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Pentina </strong><br />first models 1961<br /><br /><br />When it arrived, I looked up some details about the model and the like on Dr. Mike Otto's fantastic (to a DDR-camera enthusiast) web page ( http://www.praktica-collector.de/ ).<br /><br />My model is the one shown at http://www.praktica-collector.de/114_Pentina.htm .<br /><br />But it was clear that no shutter was working, in the lens or out of it. So I accepted the widespread (as far as DDR cameras go) stories about repairmen fleeing in terror when they saw someone bringing in one of these. <br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Cameras in Movies, Part <em>n</em>+1</strong><br /> Over the years. Photo.net has seen a posts on cameras seen in movies.<br />For example, <br /><br />the Exakta in <em>Rear Window</em> ( multiple discussions at http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00VBtt , http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/009F9p etc)<br /><br />the camera used by <em>Alfie</em> in the eponymous film ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00JcwH ) <br /><br />the use of the Stereo Realist in the big bug movie <em>Them</em> ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00YCII ) <br /><br />the probable, as I now think, use of a Ricoh Mirai in the 1989 version of <em>Batman</em> ( http://www.photo.net/modern-film-cameras-forum/00Yk4S ).<br /><br />There may even have been a prior discussion of <em>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</em> ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/ ), but if so, it is lost in the long list of titles of close-up photos of tigers, flowers, and such.<br /><br />Any how, as the <em>Rear Window</em> list shows, topics never grow beyond the possibility of recall.<br /><br />Sooo, here are a few examples of cameras in the <em>CE3K</em> movie, in this case all pretty much in the Classic Manual mode, as would be expected of a 1977 movie.<br /><br />Not too far into the latest edit, comes the recovery of the lost steamer Cotopaxi in the Gobi Desert:<br /><br />As the UN party moves closer to the site, some men in a truck prepare their cameras, then a photographer in a helicopter shows one of the few cases in the movies of a Nikon "twist" or "shuffle" - the wrist twitch still noted in veteran Nikon photographers when they mount a lens:<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Sun 85-210mm f/4.5 lens (Spiratone)</strong><br /><br />Kadlubek Nr SUN0441<br /><br /><br />It's surely no secret by now that I am a little interested in Spiratone gear.<br /><br />After I'd got too old to enjoy the Johnson Smith ads (X-ray glasses, remember) on the backs of comic books, and started to get more seriously into photography, the Spiratone ads with hundreds of gadgets and such were a treat with each issue of one of the photo magazines. Unlike Johnson Smith, things were usually very good, too.</p><div></div>

<div></div>

<p><strong>Zoomar Sport-Reflectar 500mm f/5.6</strong><br />A sad story with a slightly not-so-sad ending<br /><br /><br />Kadlubek Nr. ZOM0110<br />(w/ interchangeable Nikon F mount)<br />dates: late 1950s to 1972? Variant ("20 inch") of it listed in Modern Photography's Lens list for 1961.<br />Serial Nr. 278-0380<br /><br />Length: 24cm long with hood collapsed, 30cm long with it deployed.<br />Diameter: 12+cm in diameter<br />Mass: 3.17 kg (7.0 lbs) ! ! !<br /><br /><strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />I pride myself on being a user-collector, so I make a strong effort to get working equipment. Recently, a friend of mine has been clearing out his house, and he gave me the Miranda cameras I posted on a while back.<br /><br />But as he dug deeper, he came up with a interesting sounding lens -- a Zoomar Sport-Reflectar 500mm f/5.6. I looked it up on eBay for him and was surprised to see prices being asked for this lens in the $1,500 to $3,000 range. Of course, as anyone who frequents these dives knows, much can be asked but few are sold. There were a few sales in the hundreds of dollars though. I told him about that and suggested that he might want sell that one. He didn't want to bother, but asked me to take a look at the lens.<br /><br />When I did, it was very clear, or rather unclear, that the lens was badly "fungused", and would probably be worth very little. So it sat for some weeks, but Sunday morning at the coffee shop he asked what I would give him for the lens. <br /><br />Here was my dilemma. The lens was unlikely to be usable. On the other hand, I had recently bought an equally unusable Biotar in M40 mount, even posted on it. <br />Would a likely shelf-queen be an interesting addition to the piles of mirror lenses I've already accumulated (e.g., http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00RaKy )? After all, I also own some old East German cameras of which there can't be more than a few examples that are still working, anywhere in the world (Pentina, anyone?).<br /><br />So I made my friend an offer that was probably too much, but he made a higher counter offer. I told him, I'd have to think about it, but later on, he said, OK to my original suggestion. <br /><br />So now I am the owner of a Zoomar Sport-Refllectar 500mm f/5.6. Proud? Maybe.<br /><br /><strong>The Lens</strong><br /><br />Marc may have better luck than I did, but I couldn't locate any Kilfitt or Zoomar ads or reviews, and as noted above, the first mention of it I found was a 20" Zoomar Reflectar in a 1961 lens list. It has been speculated that production may have ceased in the early 1970s.<br /><br /><em>Modern Photography</em> September, 1961:</p> <blockquote> <p><br /><br />20-in. f/5.6 Reflectar. Zoomar, U.S.A. Mirror<br />optics, for single-lens reflexes, reflex housings,<br />$550, basic price. Fitting, cost of reflex<br />housing extra . Consult mfr.</p> </blockquote> <p><br /><br />There is a little information out there on this lens, for example:<br /><br />http://www.pentaconsix.com/zm500.htm <br />http://www.cameraquest.com/kilzoom.htm <br />http://www.kevincameras.com/gallery/v/modified_len/kilfitt/2780368/ <br /><br />http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kilfitt <br /><br />I got out some fungicide, and after cleaning off the powder from the deteriorated foam in the case and the external fungus, confirmed that, indeed, the interior of the lens was also "infected", at least the meniscus lens on the front, and perhaps on the mirror surfaces. The dial installed, built-in rear filters also are 'clouded', but the clear one is fairly clean. If the front-silvered mirrors are also affected (and I think they are), that would probably be it for this lens as a user, but I will wait to crack it open later. There are screws on the back that allow, I suppose, the filters in the dial to be changed or removed. The front bezel has notches for a spanner, though I don't have any that large (about 120mm across).<br /><br />In looking over current offerings of this lens on eBay, at least some of them seem to be in similar condition, so perhaps the really pricy ones are clean? <br /><br />So, after cleaning the exterior surfaces, metal and glass, I reassembled the Nikon mount that was with it (there was another mount of some kind that I can't identify - perhaps for use as a spotting scope?). I very briefly attached it to my Nikon F2, verified that it would focus to infinity, but also verified that optical quality was definitely compromised.<br /><br />Here is the lens on my Nikon F2:<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Spiratone 300mm f/5.6 Mirror Mintel®-S</strong><br /><br />Kadlubeks Objectiv-Katalog does not list Spiratone lenses, but this may be the same lens as the Soligor SOL0350 300mm f/5.6 lens. <br />There were variants on the Minitel® form- a Mintel-T and this Mintel-S, at least.<br /><br />Most of the "house" brands tended to go with the same suppliers at any given time.<br /><br /><strong>Preface</strong><br /><br />Needless to say, this is yet another of my chain of posts on catadioptric (mirror) lenses and also on Spiratone gear.<br /><br />I had intended to do my 'new' Russian MTO 500mm f/8 lens, but that will need more effort than my flu-(w)racked body is capable of at this time (I am on the mend, though). Especially since the Russian lens will have to be done on a film body and with tripods and all.<br /><br /><br />However, it is over 70° F here today, and so I stepped outside my door and took some snap shots. This lens is definitely in the "Classic Manual" era, and it is the lens that is the issue. I shot these on a Canon 5D mkii "full-frame" body. The images are completely unedited as they came out off the CF card.<br /><br /><strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />I had been bidding on the Spiratone (and a few other) 300mm catadioptric lenses for some time now. Never won. So I finally zeroed in on one and went all out. As has been the case before, this lens typically goes for more than most 500mm mirror lenses. However, this time I got one for only a little more than I paid for my Reflex-Nikkor 500mm f/8.<br /><br />Why was this one so sought after?<br /><br />•<strong>Collector demand</strong>?<br />I don't think that the 'critical mass' has yet been achieved in those trying to accumulate the Spiratone legacy, although that might be comforting to my heirs were it true.<br /><br />•<strong>Small Size</strong>?<br />Even the 500mm versions are relatively "hand-holding" lenses, but the '300' is even more compact and small (326 grams without adapter). I am sure that is part of the attraction.<br /><br />and the issue I was most interested in<br /><br />•<strong>Is it good enough that it is still wanted as a shooter</strong>?<br />You can judge for yourself below. There are other sample shots at places all over the internet, such as http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/8109623540/albums/spiratone-300mm-reflex-lens . A 1973 notice is in <em>Popular Mechanics</em> of November 1973 ( http://books.google.com/books?id=ldQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=Spiratone+300mm&source=bl&ots=7RlVj1-IGY&sig=mjzY9EVdkVizJj0RcuXN3XM_iYw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4G1DUaXFNZbj4AOhwID4Cg&ved=0CPIBEOgBMBo#v=onepage&q=Spiratone%20300mm&f=false )<br /><br /><strong>The Lens</strong><br /><br />Here is an ad for the Mintel-S as offered by Spiratone in Modern Photography in December, 1983.<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p>Spiratone and Spiratone Colorflow™ polarizing filters<br /><br /><strong> Preface</strong><br /><br />I pondered where to post this, but I think the greatest interest in it as an historical discussion will probably be here on CMC although there would have been a number of other possible forums.<br /><br /><strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />Some of you may have noticed that I comment frequently on the products of Spiratone, a New York City firm founded by Fred Spira in 1941 as a film development business in the bathroom of his parent's apartment in Manhattan ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/arts/14spira.html , also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Spira ).<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>The "Fool Shoot Camera"</strong><br /><br />The story is fairly simple. Autoexposure of cameras was already well underway. Only auto focus remained as the last achievement in making film cameras completely automatic. <br /><br />Or as Google Translation put it from a Chinese language article on the camera: "The fool shoot camera" (a translation of Jimmy Yen's page). <br /><br />Fool shoot indeed. This was what the old-timers characterized as the ultimate degeneration of photography. First it was dry plates, and then everything went to hell thereafter. <br /><br />"The Horror, the horror" (Colonel Kurtz).<br /><br />So an American company named Honeywell worked on the problem and came up with something called the Honeywell Visitronic autofocus system. Unlike some efforts to have autofocus by infrared or sound echoes ("active" systems), this system basically measure contrast in the light from the camera, which culminated in sharpest contrast at the point of optimum focus. (see "Electronic Focus for Cameras", by N. Stauffer and D. Wilwerding March, Scientific Honeyweller, Volume 3, No. 1 March 1982 - quoted in Camerapedia)<br />http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Konica_C35_AF. There is also an article about this from Popular Mechanics of May 1976 ( books.google.com/books?id=ReIDAAAAMBAJ )</p> <p><br />The Konica company was the first to use this principle (now pretty much universal) in late 1977. Another early adopter was the Minolta company, but unfortunately for them, without acknowledging the debt. According to one on-line article Leica invented the system -</p> <blockquote> <p>"However, the head honchos of the company believed that their customers knew how to focus and preferred focusing themselves, so they decided to sell the patent rights to Minolta." ( http://www.petapixel.com/2011/04/15/leica-first-invented-autofocus-but-didnt-see-its-value/ ).</p> </blockquote> <p>But, in fact, any confidence that they had covered themselves thereby was misplaced.</p> <blockquote> <p>(1991: Minolta's autofocus design was found to infringe on the patents of Honeywell, a U.S. corporation. After protracted litigation, in 1991 Minolta was ordered to pay Honeywell damages, penalties, trial costs, and other expenses in a final amount of $127.6-million<br> (source: NY Times - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolta ).</p> </blockquote> <p>So here is the Konica C35 AF</p> <div></div>

<p>CanoScan 9000F vs. CanoScan FS 4000US<br /><br />In a recent query about how the CanoScan 9000F flatbed film scanner compared to other scanners, the OP (Al N. at http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00b9Qj ) asked for comparisons and actual examples. I started to answer, but the answer grew into what would have been a annexation of the original post, so I decided to do a new post, instead.<br /><br />All I personally have to compare the 9000F with in terms of film scanners is my ancient CanoScan FS4000US which I operate on an equally ancient 400 Mhz PowerPC G4 (the infamous and rare Yikes! machine using a super SCSI interface and VueScan software. The speed of the scanner is fine, but the SCSI interface is rather slow. I have detailed my scanning adventures before at http://www.photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00arR1 .<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Canon A-1 - a "professional camera" in the A series.</strong><br /><br />April 1978<br> FD mount<br> Kadlubek Nr.CAN0650 <br /><br />w/ FD 28mm f/2.8<br /><br />The eBay ad was fairly explicit-<br /><br /></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Canon A-1 SLR Film Camera w/ Canon FD 28mm 1:2.8 Lens & Case Parts/Repair</strong><br /><br />This Canon A-1 SLR film camera is in good, used cosmetic condition. It shows scuffs/scratches/dust/dirt due to normal use and storage. The lens is clear and free from scratches but does not zoom smoothly. The film chamber door is difficult to open. It is being sold as-is for parts/repair as we were unable to fully test it due to lack of batteries. Please not that the camera/lens may need additional repair that we are unaware of.<br /><br /></p> </blockquote> <p>Emboldened by a history of success in reanimating old East German cameras, especially Exaktas, I put in a low bid on this, and found out that the other 6 bidders were even more cheapskates that I was. I suspected that a prime lens would not, in any case. "zoom smoothly" but suspected rightly that the focus was scratchy.<br /><br />Well, I won for the price of around two pizzas ($27). I figured that even a non-functioning one that looked nice would be a good shelf queen and that if the lens was salvageable it lone would be a nice wide angle for my other FD-mount cameras (AE-1 Program, T70, T80, T90).<br /><br /><br />When it came, the obvious first flaw was that the lens bezel was broken, but there was no other sign of any damage, except that turning the focus ring felt like there was a pint of sand in the lens grooves. I tried blowing out the lens with a 'rocket' blower from the back, shook it vigorously, blew in air from the front, worked it, and either got the grit out, or pulverized it into lubricant because the lens became smoother, the more I worked it. <br /><br /><br /></p><div></div>