can lens marks be polished out ?

DAVEG · Joined: 08 Sep 2013 Posts: 110

I bought a 35mm OLYMPUS m.zuiko it has a slight mark on the front lens can these be polished out as I have not got it yet I was hoping to get some ideas from any one who has managed to successfully polish the odd mark out. Unless it's best leaving well alone as it might not impact on IQ but if I can remove it all the better. Sad

kendo1 · Joined: 07 Dec 2012 Posts: 171 Location: Edinburgh

I'd leave it alone, you'll probably do more damage to it trying to rectify the problem.
It's very unlikely it will affect performance anyway.

56 DIN · Expire: 2021-11-18

how deep is the mark and how fine is the surface of the lens?
if the mark is only in the coating, you polish away the coating and you´re done with a fine lens having some percent less transmission and maybe reflections if you use a filter - not really worthwhile
if the mark is in the glass it is probably multiple times deeper than the standards of surface deviation of modern lenses - this perfect radius shouldn´t be destroyed intentionally
just leave it like it is

DAVEG · Joined: 08 Sep 2013 Posts: 110

yeah don't know how bad it is till i get it but if it niggles me I will just move it on , if however it does not impact on IQ then I will keep it ,it's a 2.8 35mm so may be useful focal range 70mm on my digi cam.

Ray Parkhurst · Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:02 pm Post subject:

I have multiple copies of a certain lens type that have different levels of damage. One has bad internal fungal damage between elements. One has significant internal separation (about 40% of the lens area), another has a lot of bad chips and scratches on outer surfaces, a couple have heavy haze, and I also have a couple pristine copies. They all produce virtually the same image quality! The lens with 40% internal separation, and the ones with heavy haze, have very slightly lower contrast, but otherwise are the same as the others. Most folks shy away from lenses with even a small scratch or coating mark, but in reality those things make no difference to image quality or use. Such a small percentage of light passes through those regions that there is no perceptible overall effect. All that can happen is that light hitting a scratch or chip or coating mark is scattered to other areas of film or to pixels it should not be going to, and thus lowering the local contrast. The biggest bargains out there are lenses with small imperfections that no one else wants, and thus you can get for a fraction of their true value. I leave the perfect lenses to collectors, who ironically don't care about image quality anyway!

kuuan · Expire: 2014-12-26

twinquartz · Expire: 2013-10-29

Yes, it can be polished out -- but the optical properties of the
surface/lens will suffer.

Remember, "to polish" is just a milder version of "to grind".
Google for astronomy lens polish and you will find compounds
which are suitable for optical grade work.

DAVEG · Joined: 08 Sep 2013 Posts: 110

I must admit I got for £20 so relly can't complain too much especially for a Olympus zuiko wolud have had to £50 -£60 with no imperfections .
Also a while back I bought a 50mm for a £5 cos it had a bit of fungus but photos were still bloody good and for no money sometimes I think I worry too much, besides can't acheive perfection ever even what I regard as a decent photo (PRINZ GALAXY TEST DAY )
others would differ but I take thes photo's to please me and my family , so one man's good photo may very well be another mans poor photo. Same I suspect goes for lenses. Cool

DAVEG · Joined: 08 Sep 2013 Posts: 110

Had a previous Prinz Galaxy 400mm with milky rear I was unimpressed when seller said it was perfect got refund woman said I could have so moved iton and bought my new one with the proceeds result. Some people now shit all about lens qaulity . Laughing

gmonkman1 · Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 6:12 pm Post subject:

Hello:

A friend of mine had a sigma 10-20 that he was getting real frustrated with.
He showed me a bad scrape that happened while he had the camera on a neck strap
and the front element hit a rock surface. Said he was getting tired of photoshopping
out the blur that it caused. So he asked me if I wanted it. I couldn`t say no.
The problem was that it was leaving a blur in the pictures that I took so I used a
black marker to fill it in. Didn`t work...the grey blur turned to a black blur.
Then I got the idea of polishing with a cotton cloth and a wee bit of toothpaste. That
worked a little bit by taking off the edges and making the blur smaller but it was still
there. That blur would always be at the 3 o`clock position in horizontal scenes.
After thinking about the projection circle having more unused space on the top and
the bottom at a horizontal position , I removed the front element and turned it
to the 12o`clock position. Yay....it worked but I have to be careful of strong front
light.
I believe this may work with any bad scratches and a variety of lenses.

have a good day

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

You mentioned I believe tha the mark or marks is on the front element, yes? If so, just leave it alone. Don't worry about it. It will have no effect on your photos unless it's a fisheye, which I don't think it is.

I've often told the story here about my Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED-if with the big chunk of glass missing from the front element. The whole lens looked like it had been through the SoCal press corps wars. But it operated perfectly and despite that big huge gouge out of the front element, it took perfect, very sharp photos. In fact, it was one of the sharpest lenses I've ever owned.

DR.JUAN · Joined: 08 Feb 2013 Posts: 661

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DAVEG · Joined: 08 Sep 2013 Posts: 110

Got refund was not happy so no longer a problem, case closed Very Happy

significantimagery · Joined: 20 Apr 2013 Posts: 75 Location: Kansas City

I just received a lens today that was advertised with SCRATCHES upper case in the auction title.

I had looked at the photos and determined the scratches didn't look like too big of a deal to me. I could live with that and was happy to purchase this lens for almost half of the regular going price...for this minor imperfection.

Here's what it looked like:

Guess what...there were NO scratches on this lens! The fine circular lines were certainly marks from cleaning the lens...and they did appear to look like light scratches... but with a breath on the lens and some slight pressure on a cleaning cloth with my finger nail, the marks are all completely gone!

That's not going to work every time of course...certainly not for "real" scratches.

I thought I would share this story in this thread because if it's not an obvious scratch...you never know, maybe it isn't. Might just be dirty...

I bought this lens from a seller who regularly sells vintage camera lenses...he must've assumed they must be scratches or just didn't try very hard to clean the lens and didn't want to risk making the scratches worse.

Chances are you are a member of this forum, so if you sold this to me, thank you! Very Happy

SkvLTD · Joined: 19 Apr 2013 Posts: 198

But hey, at least everyone has tried something instead of trashing potentially useable pieces of equipment.