One of the lesser joys of a lens collector's life is to receive a tracking number and then follow your magnificent new lens as it move across country to your door. Then after the doorbell sounds and the UPS or Fedex guy has disappeared back into his/her truck you have the even greater joy of pulling out your beat up jackknife and cutting open the package. Then you savor that final joy holding and look thru and testing that pristine piece of glass and metal and thinking how you will brag that "I stole a ----- when I only paid $-.--" to the envious other collectors you know online.
And if you have two lens arriving from different parts of the country on the same day--heaven.
The first to arrive was a Osawa 70--220mm f4.5 macro zoom that set me back $18.75 ($6.oo for the lens, the rest shipping).
If I bragged about this find in certain forums someone will come back and say, "Why did you waste $6.00 on a no-name brand like OSAWA!!" They are the ones who buy only super expensive Nikon glass and refuse to admit that you can find excellent glass mounted in no-name metal. Like I did when I bought an excellent Osawa 300mm-a lens that deserves its own post.
Anyway back to the 70-220mm. When I looked down this lens I muttered "Oh Sugar!" Or maybe I snarled "Oh S..." My purchase had grown enough haze and fungus to mess up a dozen lens!! Even worse when I twisted a few rings the front lens unscrewed from its helix.
So what will I do with my less than perfect lens.
*** This post was interrupted by the arrival of a Soligar 85-205mm f3.8. First impressions-pristine glass except for a minor coating scuff. Soft at f3.8 but sharpen up as I close down the iris--not unexpected with a lens this old.***
What to do--take it apart of course. Following the good lens-taker-parter's advice. Document each step--note book and photo. Tape down each tiny screw and piece on a piece of paper. Mark how everything lines up. And as you do each step think about how you will put it back together.
Something I've already started. But since this post has been interrupted several more times and just refused to auto save I will cut it short. More tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment