To clean a lens professionally is very difficult, I have cleaned more than
20 different Zuikos, some more than one time. For most of the lenses you
need to open from the front, you need a proper tool to prevent scratch of
the locking ring name plate. Remove the aperture ring and screw out the
front element group. For some wide angles you need to go into second group
before reaching the problem area.
In most cases there will be very fine dust left on the surface of lens
element. Most lens cleaning liquid leave residual, 75 0sopropyl alcohol is
no exception, I use it for the first cleaning and then do the final cleaning
with moisture from the mouth. Finally you need to remove the dust left by
the cleaning tissue and fall from the atmosphere, total removal of dust
seems impossible. I used compressed air a lot in the pass, which was made in
Japan but when it has changed to environmental friendly formula, it didn't
work any longer, some liquid residual is left on the lens surface after
cleaning. I have also tried some different types but no one works. If you
think you can do a perfect cleaning job, put them under a strong point light
source you will see.
Last year I have purchased a set of Opticlean, it clean the surface like
magic. Apply a thin layer of cleaning liquid, let it dry for few minutes and
remove the dried film, the lens surface is then cleaned without leaving any
dust. But removing the film is very very difficult. You need a sharp
tweezers to do the job, which has high potential to scratch the lens
surface. If the liquid get touching on the lens mounting ring (internal one)
then you will need more than half an hour remove them totally. Practically
it does not work for me in cleaning the Zuikos.
In average I spend around one hour to clean a fixed lens and three times
more for a Zoom, the dust just behind the front lens element is very rare,
it indicated that the lens has been serviced improperly. The lens cleaning
cost for the Olympus distributor in Hong Kong is around HKD350-450
(US$45-58) for a fixed lens. It is no surprise that it will be more
expensive in US. The price sometimes depends on the quality of cleaning. It
need lot of tools and patience to do the job properly.
C.H.Ling
-----Original Message-----
From: RobBurn@xxxxxxx <RobBurn@xxxxxxx>
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 1:43 AM
Subject: Re: [OM] Black flakes, again
>I'd be tempted to take the lens apart and clean it myself, Tom. It is
>probably on the inner surface of the one lense element. With the diaphram
>open you can reach it easily by going through from the mounting ring side.
>I've cleaned both dust and fungus (using denatured alcohol) from the front
>lens inner surface more than once. OTOH--I can't see any reason anyone
should
>ask more than $25-30 to CLA the lens.
>
>Robert
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