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- Jan 16, 2006
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- 5,903
I am catching up on some old photos in Lightroom and thought some might be interested in this series of shots from early this year. My M42-mount Carl Zeiss 135mm F3.5 lens had sticky aperture blade - it wasn't keeping me from using the lens (since I usually had it wide open or close), but it was annoying. I found a tutorial online and proceeded to start tearing it down in order to clean the blades, and in the process, do some general cleaning, too.
The lens before surgery...
First step is to remove the mount.
...and pretty much keep taking parts off until you're down to almost nothing.
Here you can see some of the helicals for the focusing. The grease was a little dried up, I cleaned it all out with a toothbrush and elbow grease and applied fresh grease, and it went from the focus ring feeling pretty good to wonderfully smooth.
At this point, pretty much all the body of the lens is gone, the main assembly is the glass and the aperture.
That's the rear element in the lower right here, with the aperture assembly facing the camera.
The front element is off and we're almost down to the bare aperture assembly.
After all that, here's what the whole mess looks like:
Here are the blades themselves...
...and here they are taking a bath.
It took a few soaks and drying cycles before I was satisfied with the movement of the blades, but they came back to life nicely. Assembly was pretty much the reverse of disassembly, though getting infinity focus just right is a bit of a fiddle. The lens now works great, with terrific IQ, a really nice focus feel, and snappy aperture blades. All in all, it was kind of a fun little project and interesting to see just what is hiding inside these lenses we use.
Now, to see if I can pick up a few junk lenses and swap on an M42 or K mount and bring them back to life...
The lens before surgery...
First step is to remove the mount.
...and pretty much keep taking parts off until you're down to almost nothing.
Here you can see some of the helicals for the focusing. The grease was a little dried up, I cleaned it all out with a toothbrush and elbow grease and applied fresh grease, and it went from the focus ring feeling pretty good to wonderfully smooth.
At this point, pretty much all the body of the lens is gone, the main assembly is the glass and the aperture.
That's the rear element in the lower right here, with the aperture assembly facing the camera.
The front element is off and we're almost down to the bare aperture assembly.
After all that, here's what the whole mess looks like:
Here are the blades themselves...
...and here they are taking a bath.
It took a few soaks and drying cycles before I was satisfied with the movement of the blades, but they came back to life nicely. Assembly was pretty much the reverse of disassembly, though getting infinity focus just right is a bit of a fiddle. The lens now works great, with terrific IQ, a really nice focus feel, and snappy aperture blades. All in all, it was kind of a fun little project and interesting to see just what is hiding inside these lenses we use.
Now, to see if I can pick up a few junk lenses and swap on an M42 or K mount and bring them back to life...
