Loading…
6
Appreciation post: the wadded-up lens tissue in a repair is not a dust guard, stop telling people that
I keep seeing guys on repair forums say a balled-up tissue inside a lens is a moisture absorber some techs add on purpose. That is not true and it drives me up a wall. What it really is, nine times out of ten, is a lazy shortcut to hold a loose element or shim in place while the housing goes back together, and the tech forgets to pull it. I know because I have opened 14 lenses from auction lots in the past 6 months and found that little paper surprise in five of them, including a 50mm I picked up in Columbus for $22. One of those had a hazy rear element that was just tissue dust baked onto the glass, and a basic wet clean brought it right back. If you are new to this, please stop letting that myth talk you out of a simple fix. Has anyone here pulled a lens apart and found something weirder than a tissue sitting where it should not be?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
verap527d ago
The "moisture absorber" line is the one that gets me too, since a dry tissue in a sealed barrel is doing basically nothing for moisture anyway. I found a folded up business card in a Vivitar once, jammed behind the rear group, and it turns out the guy used it as a shim to fix a focus ring that was slipping. Pulled it out, cleaned the haze, and the lens worked fine, so yeah, the myth survives because guys would rather repeat it than open the thing up.
3