What to do with a scratched 50mm lens

trican

Hi all,

I bought some old photography gear recently. This includes a 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens, that contains alot of scratches on both the front and rear glass. It still works, but when I compare it to my 50mm AF 1.4 lens, its not nearly as sharp and hasn't as much contrast.

Yet I can't see myself using it and I'd hate to put it in the bin - would there be any point in putting it on Adverts/Ebay for lets say €15?

Tallon

How bad are we talking? can you psot some pics

Fajitas!

You could put it on Adverts, or you could always play around with scratching the lens more and having a soft focus lens.

AnCatDubh

You can get away with scratches - depending on their size etc.. Put it up for sale on adverts. Be clear that it has scratches. Post an image of it with scratches visible if possible, and post a separate image taken with the scratched lens showing the actual output so that people can pixel peep if they want.

I'd say let it go for sale.

CabanSail

The scratches on the front element are not as much of an issue as those on the rear one. There will be some image degradation, but maybe not as much as you would imagine as they are not on the focus.



Stolen Borrowed from another forum, scratches are a bit more serious than dust but the point is the same.

In any event it's highly unlikely that dust on a lens element would be visible in the final picture. There's an old anecdote about an astronomer asking an optical scientist to make him a new telescope. Seeing little bubbles in the glass, the stargazer was concerned that it would affect the quality of his view. Optical bloke said not to worry... On using his new telescope, the astronomer was amazed at the quality and finally agreed that the bubbles in the glass had no effect. "Oh", says the optical bloke, "so you didn't notice the dozen postage stamps I stuck on the lens then?"...

It will be a good spare for someone at €15.

trican

Thanks for the informative reply's - I gotta say I was surprised by the lens. When I looked at it first I thought the scratches were very bad, but having taken a few shots and compared to my other 50mm lens I was surprised the end results weren't that bad.

Anyway Ill upload it to adverts.ie this evening and see if anyone wants it. Btw I forgot to mention that its a manual focus lens, Series E type.

DaireQuinlan

trican wrote: »

Hi all,

I bought some old photography gear recently. This includes a 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens, that contains alot of scratches on both the front and rear glass. It still works, but when I compare it to my 50mm AF 1.4 lens, its not nearly as sharp and hasn't as much contrast.

That could also be because it's a series E. The series E nikons were their low budget consumer lenses of the day. Build quality wasn't as good, and QA allegedly wasn't as stringent as the Nikkors. Also, some of the 50mm E lenses weren't multi-coated which might account for it a bit again.

trican

Took a couple of pictures with the lens:


firstly this is the scratching:

front:



back:



back close up:




Picture with new 50mm 1.4 AF lens




Same picture with the scratched lens



Both sample photos were taken at f/5.6 using a shutter speed of 1/6sec

Dragan

Personally i would consider myself to have a lens to experiment with, and i'd abuse the **** out of it in various ways to see what affect any of them would have...if any.

trican

I've been thinking it mightn't be a bad lens for nights out - hell it can't get anymore scratched!

Taking up a point Daire made - I'm not sure the difference between the two pictures can be explained just from the scratches?

DaireQuinlan

trican wrote: »

I've been thinking it mightn't be a bad lens for nights out - hell it can't get anymore scratched!

Taking up a point Daire made - I'm not sure the difference between the two pictures can be explained just from the scratches?

haha, I dunno, I wouldn't have said so before I saw the sheer scratchedness of it Thats one messed up rear element !

Nforce

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

haha, I dunno, I wouldn't have said so before I saw the sheer scratchedness of it Thats one messed up rear element !

Looks like someone took a brillo pad to it :pac:

SaturnV

Why not try a reversing ring, and mount it backwards on a longer lens. I once mounted an old olympus 50 onto a nikon 300, and got the most ridiculous close focusing macro lens! Too excessive to be actually useful (it was like a microscope!), but easy and fun nonetheless. It works quite well with a more sensible focal length, like an 85mm or so. I don't know how the scratches would effect this.

You can make a reversing ring by gluing two cokin adaptor rings back to back. Costs a couple of quid.

Hagar

I'd be more worried about all the short dated film you're sitting on. :D

trican

SaturnV wrote: »

Why not try a reversing ring, and mount it backwards on a longer lens.

Thats a pretty cool idea! I already have one cokin A adaptor ring.

I'd be more worried about all the short dated film you're sitting on.

lol - not to worry, its the freebie Unicare film. Have sacrificed a couple of these rolls already practicing how to load a development tank.

Mycroft H

look what this lens took




The said lens - a cracked zeiss planer




The link http://www.certo6.com/gallery/planar.html

Op try over expose with the dud 50. It looks underexposed to me. Could work nice if you over expose by maybe 2 stops


Or look at this one




and a photo



and the link http://forum.mflenses.com/for-scratch-free-lens-lovers-t10359.html

that results there could be to do with the sharpness of the minolta mc rokkors. They were superb lenses.

Ghost Train

Does look kind of bad, taking both shots at the same shutter speed would make the f1.8 shot look darker

The shot does lack contrast but does look sharp and balanced