Dealing with a cloudy lens

[John Conway]

I have a few lenses that i picked up cheap. One lens is cloudy and the other has minor coating issues on the front element. I'm curious about the cloudy lens. Can the lens be taken apart and cleaned? And what actually causes cloudiness in a lens?

[E. von Hoegh]

Can it be taken apart and cleaned? probably, it depends on the lens, and where the cloudiness is located. Haze is caused by lubricants and or internal paint outgassing, poor storage conditions, ageing of the balsam, there can be many causes.

Pics would be helpful

[Louis Pacilla]

It depends on the design of the lens. Haze can be in glue like in a Dagor or Protar VII. Or haze can be on the inner glass surface in a air space like a Tessar front group or Petzvals rear group. Sometimes they can be remedied by either regluing the Dagor/Protar or taking air spaced group apart and cleaning inner elements of the Tessar/Petzval

[lenser]

If you can get to the air glass surface that is hazy, I've had a diluted mix of water and household bleach recommended to me that did work well on an old and very cloudy 65mm Mamiya twin lens set. I've also been told that regular rubbing alcohol works well. Both are gently applied with q-tips and need to be followed by a swabbing with distilled water to remove any residues. I used compressed air to be certain of total drying before re-assembling the cells.

[Bob Salomon]

If you find the cure let us know. I have a beautiful Carl Zeiss Opton Sonnar 50mm 2.0 T that is perfect in every way except for a cloudy front element. Two different highly experienced camera repair techs could not even slightly improve it!
At 4X magnification it somewhat resembles the moon. At 10X it looks just like the moon's surface, complete with craters. At 28X it looks like a blanket of snow flakes all intertwined. But at no magnification does it resemble a fungus. Nor does it look like scratches. So I guess an adhesive layer directly behind the front element is gone.

Anyone need a Carl Zeiss paperweight from the 50s?

[Carsten Wolff]

If you find the cure let us know. I have a beautiful Carl Zeiss Opton Sonnar 50mm 2.0 T that is perfect in every way except for a cloudy front element. Two different highly experienced camera repair techs could not even slightly improve it!
At 4X magnification it somewhat resembles the moon. At 10X it looks just like the moon's surface, complete with craters. At 28X it looks like a blanket of snow flakes all intertwined. But at no magnification does it resemble a fungus. Nor does it look like scratches. So I guess an adhesive layer directly behind the front element is gone.

Anyone need a Carl Zeiss paperweight from the 50s?

I'd seriously take it, Bob :)
Carsten

[Bob Salomon]

Carsten,
You can. Have it but do you have someone in the US I can ship it to?