I bought an summaron 3,5cm with "eyes" for my M3. The lens is optically in a fantastic condition and so the lens. The only thing which is a little bad is the slight fog in the "eyes". I saw on the back of the eyes that there are small screws, so is ti possible open it and clean it? I'm not a pro but perhabs I can save money when I do it for myself! Does anyone of you did that before or shouldn't I open it??

Thanks in advance! Chris

-- Christian Steger (gooneybird@gmx.net), January 25, 2002

Answers

I cleaned one of my f/2.8 Summaron lenses one time because of fogging. I simply unscrewed the back of the main eye-piece ocular and started to take elements out. I cleaned them with my normal lens cleaning products (of that time) and put it all back together again, reversing how everything came out.

It was never the same. Yes the view was bright and clear, but I must not have seated the elements back correctly. The view was distorted and not quite right. I disassembled and reassembled it a couple of more times, but it never improved. I could not detect any shimming or adjustment that I altered, but it just never went back to the way it was before I opened it up. Maybe my lens was unusual, but this is my experience with a self-help project that didn't work out.

Good luck.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), January 25, 2002.

Don't do it. Sherry Krauter told me it was a difficult job even for her to do. I have gotten quotes of $200 to clean the eyes-and both the Leica service techs I talked to were hesitant to even want to do it. Some of the elements are cemented in place and calibrated for that exact spot, and the whole assembly is put together inside with screws that are glued as well. The allignment of the whole finder is set in this way. I took mine apart and could never get the finder double image to line up ever again. I ended up selling the lens cheap "as is " to some fellow who said he preferred to zone focus the lens anyway.

This is a classic case where something looks relatively easy to do and is anything but.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), January 25, 2002.

I have the same lens, and a double stroke M3, I was wondering if I could just take the eyes off, and use the entire finder of the M3 as the "frame"...

Phillip

-- Phillip Silitschanu (speedin_saab@hotmail.com), January 25, 2002.

Philip, if you take the eyes off, the lens will not couple correctly with the rangefinder-not even close for that matter. You would have to scale focus it.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), January 25, 2002.

It's nice to read this in retrospect. I had a little mold in the big eye of my 35/3.5. Took it apart, cleaned it and put it back together. No problem from what I can see. I think I was lucky. Yeah, don't do it.

-- Alex Shishin (shishin@pp.iij4-u.or.jp), January 29, 2002.