Well, this weekend I made the mistake of shining a small flash light through some of my most choice pieces of AIS glass. I has shocked at the amount of dust inside some of my lenses (in this case I think ignorance is bliss).
Have any of you sent older MF glass in for cleaning? If so, where and how much did it cost? Thanks.
I recently sent my Nikkor 28mm f2 AIS in to Nikon (Canada) to have it cleaned due to a fungus problem. They completely dismantled, cleaned, lubed and adjusted it for $170 plus tax; a little pricey, but they did a great job and the lens now looks and performs like new.
When I was experiencing some floaters and flashing lights in my eyes I visited an ophthalmologist who examined my eyes. He then showed me two diagrams, one of the eye of an eighteen year old and the second of the eye of a person sixty. Needless to say I was shocked at the difference and some part of my brain resisted with the suggestion that it couldn't possibly happen to me. But the floaters disappeared and the flashing lights left as well. I still don't need glasses and my eyesight is keen enough that I shoot exclusively with MF lenses and a standard focusing screen in the viewfinder of my D700.
I'm of the opinion that if there is not fungus in my lenses, I intend to leave them alone. I've heard it said that often the greatest damage to old lenses comes from cleaning them. I don't know that from first hand experience but I'm inclined to leave well enough alone. I did shine a light through a recently purchased 40 year old 55 f/1.2 SC AI'd and sure enough there was quite a bit of dust inside... but the lens performs beautifully for me. I did ask a camera technician at a local camera store whether he did CLAs and he said yes. He also said it would be around $80. But I'm not planning on taking any of my lenses in. I'd rather just shoot with them. It would be foolish of me to expect any lens that has been around for decades to be in pristine condition and I don't believe that is necessary.
It's been a while since I used the manual focus lenses, but a local shop that works on Nikons should be able to clean a lens and re-lube if necessary. I used to do that about every five years.
My question is what product can be used to bring back the original shine to the black metal/plastic exterior of our lenses? Perhaps a micro cloth with a bit of pledge? What is recommended?
I'm curious- has anyone had a lens cleaned and had it come back mis-focusing? (If it is disassembled) it can't be easy to get all those pieces of glass back in the right place.
