Wee scratch on my CPL

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apodo

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The spot at the top, the lighter bits to the right is just dirt.

img_6387.jpg


Looks worse to the naked eye as it is immediately noticable. It looks like a small silver spot, as if a drop of solder. On the other (camera) side it shows as a dark spot.

Is it ruined or too small to have any effect that far from the sensor? Or do I need to do a hundred thousand test shots in every light condition and aperture to find out when it can be used? Will need to buy some new batteries for that!

Moral to the story for me is not to just buy one filter and use stepping rings when my main walkabout lens has a smaller thread. With a hood on I can take the camera in and out of my bag (in a padded compartment) without fiddling with lens caps. But the hood will not fit with the larger filter apparently risking the above.

Michael.
 
Have you rubbed you nail lightly across it to see if it is prominant and just a stuck on bit of something or other or is it inbedded?
 
Might not be able to see it on the pics, my tokina lens which I bought second hand had a scratch on the front element, it has never showed up on any pics. Take a few test shots on see if it shows.
 
If the spot on the lens is very small it should have no noticeable effect because it is normally out of focus. The only possibility of detecting it is if the lens is stopped right down to it's smallest aperture. If you can't see it on your images then don't worry about it.

In the past some optical glasses were very hard to make and often had tiny bubbles in them but were still used in some of the most expensive lenses. I had a 1960's 55mm pre AI 55mm f3.5 Micro Nikkor with a tiny bubble in one of the elements and that produced superb results and close-up photography is far more demanding on lenses than general photography.

These days glass technology seems to have moved on so you don't see bubbles in elements anymore. However if marks or bubbles are tiny they don't significantly affect the image, although marks would affect the secondhand value of the lens!

DaveW
 
siejones said:
Have you rubbed you nail lightly across it to see if it is prominant and just a stuck on bit of something or other or is it inbedded?
Click to expand...

By the end of this post someone is going to look very stupid!

I did originally do as you suggested and it definitely felly indented rather than raised. It also made a lot of marks which my lens pen cleaned up with the scratch remaining. This after previously giving it a good rubbing to see if that helped.

But I have tried again and, erm, well, it left the same mess behind but this time the lens pen removed them again and more!

There is still a scratch there, and it shows through on the other side as a clear patch now which is what I would have expected, but much smaller to the extent I am not worried about it showing. I think something must have got stuck in it which is why it took the extra effort to make it shift.

Sorry to have bothered you all and thanks for the replies. Still plan to get a smaller 72mm one for my 17-70 though just so I can use the hood with it.

Michael.
 
You can buy screw in hoods I think. Maybe not ideal, but worth considering.
 
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