[ismaelg]

Hello,

While not exactly dead, this Pentacon 50/1.8 came with a body I bought and it seems it hasn't been used in decades. Dirty, slow blades, considerable dust inside but no fungus.




Came apart with no drama. The diaphragm is working fine. It was the actuator pin that was slow. Cleaned it. Rear and middle glass were cleaned from the back. The filter thread has some minor dents so I could not take the front apart, but it was not needed so I did not bothered with that. Maybe later I may need to play with it some more. The outside was cleaned as it was pretty dirty. The engraved numbers really pop after a good clean.







Ready to see the light again. Focus is smooth. Aperture as well. Dry tested on a M42 body and it looks good. Can't wait to get a chance to test it.


Thanks,
Ismael

[UncleVanya]

So glad to see so many people bringing lenses back from the brink of death as well as dead.

[ramseybuckeye]

I just got this lens and seen a little fungus around the edges of the front element, so I decided to try cleaning it, which I already made a thread of it before I know this thread existed. But I had not done the testing yet, until tonight. It would not autofocus on anything past a few feet., did I just rescue a dud? Because I never put the lens on a camera before taking it apart and cleaning it, did not want to chance spreading fungus. Ended up that would have been OK, it was confined to the front element, and appeared to be no longer among the living fungi. Anyway back to the focus, I must have put the focus ring in wrong somehow. I have another copy of the same lens, so I compared them. Not much difference, but it appeared the infinity mark was a hair off, and when at the other end of the focus throw, it looked like the inner barrel did not protrude exactly the same. The only thing I could figure out was that I had put the screws to hold down the optic assembly on the focus ring gasket, and vice versa. That was where I had to stop and restart another day, and the screws were slightly different. So I got the tools back out and went to work. These were very easy to get to, I did not have to use the spanner or remove the optic assembly. I was lucky, that was the problem. I did a quick dot tune check, the autofocus through the viewfinder was perfect. Then I did a series of random shots with autofocus using live view on a tripod. I'll try to take some handheld using the viewfinder tomorrow during daylight. I also realized that I didn't do in wide open shots to see what the bokeh looks like, hopefully tomorrow. Here's a couple of those test shots (all jpgs straight out of camera), the rest are on Flickr:

Focus on center of clock:


Focus on the closest part of shell:


Focus on Fester the Cat's eyes


Focus right in center of hat:


Focus on closest chair:

[ramseybuckeye]

Here are some handheld shots using the viewfinder, autofocus seems to be working fine.






They need to replace these signs sincer they seem to fade really fast.

[ismaelg]

Beautiful! The 50-1.7 is my favorite lens formula.

[ismaelg]

Hello again!

While not dead by any means, I got this original Takumar 55 f2.2 Preset for my 1957 Asahi Pentax "AP". This lens was made between 1957 and 1959. So it is at least 61 years old (as of 9/25/2020).

As received:






Did not take it apart other than the front name plate as the glass looks good.

After:








Beautiful 10 blades diaphragm


Welcome home Mr. Takumar! Welcome home!


Yes, it will be used soon...

Thanks,

[ismaelg]

Hello,

Many years ago, somebody gave me 2 Miranda camera bodies and 2 or 3 lenses. One of the bodies worked, the other did not. But the lenses were... well, see for yourself:

50mm f1.4





and 50mm f1.8





The f1.4 in process


After:
50mm f1.4






After:
50mm f1.8





Testing the camera (Miranda Autosensorex EE) Pretty sure it was the f1.4 (I think)




wide open


Now I wonder, where are these? This was about 9 years ago (2011). Gotta check on these.

Thanks,

[Thagomizer]

Hello,

Many years ago, somebody gave me 2 Miranda camera bodies and 2 or 3 lenses. One of the bodies worked, the other did not. But the lenses were... well, see for yourself:

50mm f1.4





and 50mm f1.8







The f1.4 in process


After:
50mm f1.4






After:
50mm f1.8





Testing the camera (Miranda Autosensorex EE) Pretty sure it was the f1.4 (I think)




wide open


Now I wonder, where are these? This was about 9 years ago (2011). Gotta check on these.

Thanks,

Nice restorations!

---------- Post added 11-19-20 at 11:39 PM ----------

Hello again!

While not dead by any means, I got this original Takumar 55 f2.2 Preset for my 1957 Asahi Pentax "AP". This lens was made between 1957 and 1959. So it is at least 61 years old (as of 9/25/2020).

As received:






Did not take it apart other than the front name plate as the glass looks good.

After:








Beautiful 10 blades diaphragm


Welcome home Mr. Takumar! Welcome home!


Yes, it will be used soon...

Thanks,

A worthy effort!

[FotoPete]

yes Minolta Lens are delicate

I have a 58/1.4 (I think version I) with haze in one of the middle elements. I tried to clean and already took a small swatch of coating off testing an area on the edge with alcohol soaked q-tip! What do you recommend? Diluting the alcohol?

[niceshot]

I have a 58/1.4 (I think version I) with haze in one of the middle elements. I tried to clean and already took a small swatch of coating off testing an area on the edge with alcohol soaked q-tip! What do you recommend? Diluting the alcohol?

YOU can try removing the element and wash in soap and water. do it at your own risk. It has worked for me

[UncleVanya]

Hello,

Many years ago, somebody gave me 2 Miranda camera bodies and 2 or 3 lenses. One of the bodies worked, the other did not. But the lenses were... well, see for yourself:

Impressive transformation indeed.

[ismaelg]

Hello,

Not exactly dead, but just a quickie job: I received this K mount lens with 2 others in a camera bundle from eBay. The lens is a Focal MC (Multi Coated) 135mm f2.8. Focal was the K-Mart house brand if I'm not mistaken. You can find this exact same lens in a gazillion different brands. These lenses are not bad at all. Solidly built and a good chunk of glass. Some lenses had the serial number starting with the year of manufacturing. Not sure if that is the case here but it starts with 84, which sounds about right.
Dusty, dirty, wobbly, wear marks and evidence of abuse to the filter treads. Appears to have dust inside the front element and what appears to be a faint start to fungus.





Did not take pictures during surgery as this was a quick job. But the name ring, front element and built in hood came out with no drama.
Front element cleaned out nice. Second element was cleaned in place. A good cleanup job and it went together without any fuzz.






Looks good!


Slapped it into the K100D Super (the workhorse that documents everything in my workbench)






I was trying to focus on the 6 but the K100DS is not the friendliest for critical focusing. I'll try it later in the K-01


Not bad for less than 2 hours of work.

Thanks,

[hjoseph7]

A fun thought occurred to me. We should post pictures made with and of lenses that were damaged and repaired, lenses that once were dead, but are back in use. We should also give these lenses stories to honor their return from the junkheap.

The idea occurred after a pair of former customers of my SDM conversion service mentioned using the lenses again. But I don't want to limit this to failed sdm, any lens that gathered dust until it was repaired is game.

Thematically, any or all of the following would be great:

Post a picture made of the lens maybe before and after if the damage was visible.
Post a shot made with the lens after repair.
Post the story of the demise and rebirth.

I had a few old manual lenses that were so stiff to focus that I thought I might have to send them in to get CLAD($125+).
That's until I decided to use this stuff: https://www.homedepot.com/p/WD-40-SPECIALIST-10-oz-White-Lithium-Grease-300240/205115708

I was hesitant at first, but I managed to save about 6 premium legacy manual lenses using this stuff.
First of all, I got to say "GUYS PLEASE DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME !!!" The reason why I say that is because I don't want to receive any death-threats if something goes wrong.

Anyway, all I did was to spray this stuff ( 3-4 sprays) in between the crack where the aperture-ring meets the DOF scale. Then I put the lens upside down(face/lens down) and let it sit there for about an hour.
After about an hour, I turned the focusing ring about 5-10 times and BOOM !! I had a brand new lens.Silky smooth like it was brand new ! No oil hit the aperture blades as far as I can tell(thank god).

I tested all 6 lenses like this and they all worked fine. The lenses I fixed were Nikkors(3), Takumar(1) and Mamiya(2) manual lenses, not sure if the same results would happen with other lenses ?

I'll post pictures when i get a chance...

[UncleVanya]

Hello,

Not exactly dead, but just a quickie job: I received this K mount lens with 2 others in a camera bundle from eBay. The lens is a Focal MC (Multi Coated) 135mm f2.8. Focal was the K-Mart house brand if I'm not mistaken. You can find this exact same lens in a gazillion different brands. These lenses are not bad at all. Solidly built and a good chunk of glass. Some lenses had the serial number starting with the year of manufacturing. Not sure if that is the case here but it starts with 84, which sounds about right.
Dusty, dirty, wobbly, wear marks and evidence of abuse to the filter treads. Appears to have dust inside the front element and what appears to be a faint start to fungus.





Did not take pictures during surgery as this was a quick job. But the name ring, front element and built in hood came out with no drama.
Front element cleaned out nice. Second element was cleaned in place. A good cleanup job and it went together without any fuzz.






Looks good!


Slapped it into the K100D Super (the workhorse that documents everything in my workbench)






I was trying to focus on the 6 but the K100DS is not the friendliest for critical focusing. I'll try it later in the K-01


Not bad for less than 2 hours of work.

Thanks,

Great story and I look forward to seeing more images from that lens.

[ismaelg]

Hello,

Here is a rather funny one:
On the same bundle with the 135 posted above, I got this 2X Teleconverter. I've never been a fan of teleconverters. This one is really cheap. It was dirty, very wobbly and loose and the auto aperture lever was not working.
Took me less than 5 seconds to diagnose the source of the wobbliness: All screws were loose! Took it apart within 30 more seconds. The auto aperture lever screws were also loose. Tighten them up, reassembled and spent a whopping 2 more minutes cleaning it.
Then, I tried to restore the rubbed off letters with a tiny little paint brush but that will take more time

Before:




After:




Teleconverters need to be really (I mean REALLY) good to preserve image quality.

As a reference, here is a shot without it, a bit closer of course.


Sharpness is still acceptable, but contrast is gone.


Surprisingly, it reacted very well to post process


Just a fun exercise.

Thanks,