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Monday, March 23, 2009

Cleaning from fungus: Zeiss Biometar 80 f/2.8 ...

Having a spare P6-to-Pentax-K adapter, i decided to give a try to this lens, but, when ready to go shooting, i noticed the evil traces on the front element (the picture on Flickr has a note showing where the filaments are):

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So, time for the rescue team to act again ...
To access the front element, at first the name ring must be removed. The classic sink cap helps a lot ...

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Name ring removed, now time for the front element retaining ring.

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Note that there are more rings inside the lens, only the inner one needs to be removed ...

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The retaining ring of the front element is unscrewed.

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Be careful: the front lens is loose now, although it may be necessary to reverse the lens and shake it a bit to let it drop in your hand.

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Now, the cold cream comes to play. I used Avene's one simply because it is widely available in France: you can use the Pond's one, or whatever you find in the beauty case of your wife/sister/mother (better to ask first, in such a case) ...

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Using the fingers, the cream is spread across the whole lens, and set to dry for about an hour ...

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After about an hour, use some q-tips with a few drops of Zippo fluid to remove the cream ...

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... and repeat the last two steps on the outer side of the lens, to remove the eventual cleaning marks ...

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Last, use some optical fluid on a micro-fiber cloth to clean again the lens.

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Now, store somewhere the front element, and start the cleaning process on the inner element. It easily unscrews from the lens body using the now classic cap ...

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The inner element may be easily remooved from the support by simply unscrewing the rear part. Here are the two lenses of the second element glued together ...

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... and after the cold cream application ...

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After an hour, repeat the cleaning steps with the Zippo fluid first and the optical liquid after, and reassemble the lens. As you can see, the evil fungus is no longer here ...

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Now, the Biometar is ready for its next mission ;-) ...

12 comments:

  1. Fantastic post. I will try to clean a Pancolar 1.8/50. Do you know where can I find the sink cap?

    Congratulations again

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, thanks for spending your time here and commenting ...

    I bought my sink cap in an hardware store quite common here in France, Castorama, which sells almost everything required to build or repair your home. I don't know where you live, but i think that you should find it in an home supplies store without problems ...

    Thanks again for spending your time here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. hi i am from indonesia, can you send me sink cap picture for czj pancolar 50/1.8 ..how can i find that one in my country...wirsha@yahoo.com

    thanks,

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi wirsha,

    The cap is manufactured by Wirquin Innovation. It is in their drainage catalog, labelled as "Universal Plug". Nevertheless,, i don't know if there are resellers in your country ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi, cool and complete post!
    Do you have some info and tips for disassemble czj 180/2.8?
    Do you think this lens is similar to 80/2.8?
    The aperture blades of 180 are locked at 2.8 and there are some small fungus on the glass.
    Many thanks for all!
    J

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi,

    I'm afraid i have no info about cleaning the Sonnar 180/2.8 ... Mine is quite clean ...

    Sorry for being of no help ...

    Thanks for spending your time here and commenting ...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Extremely helpful.
    I have a new Pentax 200mm that seems to have fungus under the glass. a bit nervous about this but your instructions are very clear.
    thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Anonymous,

    Thanks for your kind comments ...

    I have never serviced a Pentax 200, but maybe this link could be helpful ...

    Best wishes for your lens ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi!

    How do you remove the glass behind the aperture blades at the very back?

    Thanks

    Ieuan!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi, sorry for the late reply ...

    When i serviced this lens, it wasn't necessary to remove the rear lens as it was clean. Actually, i don't have the lens with me right now, but i will check in the next few days and will reply to this thread ...

    ReplyDelete