Lens Repair / Clean reccomendations

Jakemico AE-1P

Jakemico AE-1P

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Hello All,

I wondered who comes highly recommended when it comes to cleaning a vintage lens?

I have googled around and requested some prices but was curious after being quoted £80ish for one of my lenses and just now being quoted £160ish for an 85mm 1.2L. Is it normal for the prices to vary dependent on lenses or likely they charge more for the 'pricier' lenses because they can?

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback!

Cheers
JC
 
Depends on how they price the work, I guess. If I had to guess on the cost of lens-cleaning, I'd low-ball it on a rate of about 30,- per hour and work upwards. Not just the time taken, but the complexity of the lens will be factors.
This is skilled, precision work and the cost reflects that. My 'lens cleaning guy' always looks much happier when I bring him older lenses than stuff with circuitry in, so that may also be a factor...
 
Arkady001 said:
Depends on how they price the work, I guess. If I had to guess on the cost of lens-cleaning, I'd low-ball it on a rate of about 30,- per hour and work upwards. Not just the time taken, but the complexity of the lens will be factors.
This is skilled, precision work and the cost reflects that. My 'lens cleaning guy' always looks much happier when I bring him older lenses than stuff with circuitry in, so that may also be a factor...
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Thanks Rob, that makes perfect sense. I'm happy to pay for expertise and experience, just curious as to the pricing factors but I guess no lens is the same. Is your lens guy available?
 
As far as I recall (they have been mentioned at TP?) there are two very well thought of craft repairers. One was in Sussex/Kent.....there other north of Watford :thinking:


Hopefully others with better memories or customer experience will chime in and recommend :)
 
Jakemico AE-1P said:
Thanks Rob, that makes perfect sense. I'm happy to pay for expertise and experience, just curious as to the pricing factors but I guess no lens is the same. Is your lens guy available?
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Well I'm in Germany (his shop is in Dortmund) so maybe not really useful for UK members
 
You'd better be more specific about what lenses you're referring to & what needs doing to them - otherwise how can anybody comment or advise?

For a widely-available manual focus lens, a standard service might be £50. The odd company, like Newton & Ellis, might quote quite a bit more!

Are you talking about a lens of historic value?
 
droj said:
You'd better be more specific about what lenses you're referring to & what needs doing to them - otherwise how can anybody comment or advise?

For a widely-available manual focus lens, a standard service might be £50. The odd company, like Newton & Ellis, might quote quite a bit more!

Are you talking about a lens of historic value?
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Well, I picked up a cheap FD 1.8 85mm lens which had a little fungal growth. This was quoted at around £80 to clean. I then in my infinite wisdom decided to purchase an FD 85mm f1.2 L which had some fungal growth. This lens was quoted at £180 to clean. Granted it is considerably more valuable but looking at the diagrams I could not see much difference, although I am no expert. The furthest from that in fact, which is why I came here to ask those that know. Perhaps as it has an Aspherical element and was Canons first ever lens to include their 'floating system' it may be far more difficult to disassemble and clean. Plus putting back together correctly.

Any recommendations are welcomed and equally any advice on who may be best to steer clear of from your own experiences. My thinking is to opt for a professional outlet with all the gear and pay a little extra. I would presume a "Fred in the shed" although very experienced and knowledgeable, may not have all the tools and anti-static whatnots on hand. But im always open to being proven wrong.

Thanks again all!
 
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you could buy an old Nikon-fit Tokina or similar and take it apart and practice - it is a skilled job, but if you take your time you never know - there are "how to" instructions on the web
 
Over on the Vintage Lenses thread, Don Clark Camera Repairs have been mentioned a few times as doing good work for reasonable prices (I've never used them personally):

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www.dccr.co.uk
I imagine something like a floating element design would indeed be more challenging to service.
 

Check this guy out.. He's cleaned & fixed a tokina lens for me and completely cleaned out my D700. This guy is awesome at his job. I was really happy with the jobs he done and his pricing is good too, I was surprised how low the prices were that he charged me.

You basically post out ur lens or camera.. He looks at it and gets back to you with a price. Oh and he's the official lens repairer and supplier to the BBC.
 
Regarding the price lens repairers charge for their work, I presume it is not just a question of undoing a few screws, quick dust then put it back together again. Lens alignment must surely require specialist equipment and that can't come cheap.
 
I have a service manual for one Nikon zoom (it's 97 pages long!). The rear lens group can be removed and replaced in a straightforward way, but they warn you that if you mess with others, you indeed need to do lens alignment afterwards. As it's a modern lens with a CPU, this requires both specialised hardware and software. It looks like there's even one sub-assembly that nobody outside the factory can put back together accurately if you're silly enough to take it apart.
 
Indeed, it takes me several minutes to collimate my reflecting telescope and there is just one standalone mirror held in by three adjusters. Add a lens, then another, then another...then add a zoom mechanism, electronics; makes my blood run cold even thinking about it.
 
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