Manual Focus Forum

dazedgonebye · 2005-10-07 15:20:39

If the cops dragged me in right now, the CSI's would not have to look far to find incriminating evidence of my crime. The corpse can be found in a kitchen trash bag...but his one good eye is in my shirt pocket.
It's an ugly story really, the story of a man, not particularly mechanically inclined, curios to see the inside of a lens.
With all good intentions, with all the appropriate tools and even with a few precautions, I disassembled a Lenitar 135mm preset, t-mount lens last night. The lens came to me "free" with a "needs repair" spotmatic (why do I buy this stuff?). The middle element of the lens had specks on it that were almost the size of grains of sand. This looked to be a good candidate for my mad experimentation. So, I removed the lens ring with no problems and began to remove the many very very small screws. I removed screws then removed focusing and aperture rings. I broke the thing down every way I could. I retained all the tiny parts in a bin and even worked in a baking pan (to catch anything that tried to get away). In the end though, the lens resisted my best efforts to get to the dirty element.
I worked for 2 hours at that thing...using everything short of a hammer (though I did briefly considered using one) and I was unable to get the damn thing apart.
With tired red eyes and more than a little frustration, I finally gave up. Off it went in to the kitchen can...only its front element, and the m42 t-mount remains.

Buze, now do you understand why I so freely sent those 50mm 1.4 super-taks to you? No lens should be left to my tender mercies.

davidfig · 2005-10-07 15:29:33

Wait officer, we can help him. Please don't take him away. With a few pictures, maybe we can figure out the puzzle.

Darn. get those parts back. Take real close and near shots of the lens and let us look at it virtually.

Last edited by davidfig (2005-10-07 15:30:15)

dazedgonebye · 2005-10-07 15:32:19

Thanks for the offer David, but there's no way in hell I'd get those parts from the kitchen trash. Those screws were tiny!
No, I give up. It was a cheap, ugly, dirty lens...and I killed it.

buze · 2005-10-07 16:09:38

LOL what a cruel story. Well I gave up on my helios too, sometime mecanical parts judt get the best of you

Rest in pieces, poor little lens

riton · 2005-10-07 17:09:35

dazedgonebye wrote:
The lens came to me "free" with a "needs repair" spotmatic (why do I buy this stuff?).

Not sure it will bring some warmth in your heart, but I do these kind of things too sometimes. And when I'm in front of the stuff, I wonder why...

We all have weaknesses

foxbat · 2005-10-07 17:20:09

Don't worry about it, I trashed a 50mm tessar last week.

buze · 2005-10-07 17:25:22

Bah, you beginners, you know nothing about the art of cruelty to lens ! : D

Thats the mount of a mint Flektogon 35mm f2.4 in Pentacon Bayonet. It went on the sacrifice table for The Greater Good (ie, developing the Kadapter)

davidfig · 2005-10-07 18:26:47

dazedgonebye wrote:
Thanks for the offer David, but there's no way in hell I'd get those parts from the kitchen trash. Those screws were tiny!
No, I give up. It was a cheap, ugly, dirty lens...and I killed it.

I do have to say that I read with interest. like a mini novel, it was great. Except I didn't like the ending.

One thing you should have done was keep all the tiny parts. May have been able to use them later. If I get a trashed takumar, I will disassemble it and keep all those tiny parts. So far I have been lucky. I also do not bid on ill focused lenses for sale.

davidfig · 2005-10-07 18:29:01

buze wrote:
Bah, you beginners, you know nothing about the art of cruelty to lens ! : D

Thats the mount of a mint Flektogon 35mm f2.4 in Pentacon Bayonet. It went on the sacrifice table for The Greater Good (ie, developing the Kadapter)

Buze, could one take the bayonet off and make screw holes in the m42-eos adaptor to make it work?

Last edited by davidfig (2005-10-07 18:29:30)

BottomBracket · 2005-10-07 18:37:35

Lol, great story. I haven't had the guts to open up any of my lenses yet - perhaps I will when I get a cheap fixie off Ebay.

Olaf · 2005-10-07 19:36:51

Yeah... And while you're all LOL, the poor thing is lieing in the can...

Poor bastard! It wasn't his fault!

buze · 2005-10-07 19:46:23

davidfig wrote:
buze wrote:
Bah, you beginners, you know nothing about the art of cruelty to lens ! : D

Thats the mount of a mint Flektogon 35mm f2.4 in Pentacon Bayonet. It went on the sacrifice table for The Greater Good (ie, developing the Kadapter)

http://oomz.net/scaled/l/IMG_2368s.JPG
Buze, could one take the bayonet off and make screw holes in the m42-eos adaptor to make it work?

Actualy I had that flat mount soldered (with soft tin solder) to a M42 adapter and it worked just fine, that was my first heavy handed try at using these bayonet lens

Ballen Photo · 2005-10-07 21:55:55

Olaf wrote:
Yeah... And while you're all LOL, the poor thing is lieing in the can...

Poor bastard! It wasn't his fault!

What a DASTERDLY DEED! Hmm, I'll try to remember this when I think about taking a lens apart.
-Bruce

buze · 2005-10-07 21:58:19

Yeah, servicing requires patience, determination, strenght, ingeniuty, patience again, some cleverness, some more patience and a very large spanner

dazedgonebye · 2005-10-07 21:59:28

buze wrote:
Yeah, servicing requires patience, determination, strenght, ingeniuty, patience again, some cleverness, some more patience and a very large spanner

Of those qualities, I'm missing more than just the spanner.

misterjover · 2005-10-08 04:18:34

I'm sorry to hear about this tragedy. I have done something similar to a 200mm Chinon f/3.5 lens. It currently serves as the most expensive pen-holder on my desk.

GummieBear · 2005-10-11 18:55:27

dazedgonebye,

I could have written this piece, LOL. My very nice Vivitar Series 1 35-85mm f2.8 screw mount lens was working, but has a bit of oil inside, so I thought, how hard could it be to remove the elements and clean it? Well, I was very good at taking it apart, but it now after cleaning it, all the parts refuse to play nice and now the lens will not zoom with a full range. Only from 35mm to 55mm!

This is just one of the few lenses I took apart and each time I told myself, I could do better than the last time, but always ended up with the same, non-functional piece of metal and glass. Some day, I will learn my lesson and admit that I am mechanically challenged.

Last edited by GummieBear (2005-10-11 18:56:32)

BottomBracket · 2005-10-11 20:34:24

I would imagine that zooms would be harder to service than primes.

Manual Focus Forum

#1 2005-10-07 15:20:39

Confessions of a Lens Killer

#2 2005-10-07 15:29:33

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#3 2005-10-07 15:32:19

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#4 2005-10-07 16:09:38

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#5 2005-10-07 17:09:35

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

dazedgonebye wrote:

#6 2005-10-07 17:20:09

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#7 2005-10-07 17:25:22

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#8 2005-10-07 18:26:47

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

dazedgonebye wrote:

#9 2005-10-07 18:29:01

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

buze wrote:

#10 2005-10-07 18:37:35

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#11 2005-10-07 19:36:51

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#12 2005-10-07 19:46:23

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

davidfig wrote:

buze wrote:

#13 2005-10-07 21:55:55

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

Olaf wrote:

#14 2005-10-07 21:58:19

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#15 2005-10-07 21:59:28

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

buze wrote:

#16 2005-10-08 04:18:34

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#17 2005-10-11 18:55:27

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

#18 2005-10-11 20:34:24

Re: Confessions of a Lens Killer

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