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| OH NO!!! |
If
you are of a delicate disposition you should not be reading this
post. It shows pictures of unbelievable brutality towards a
camera lens. It had to be done so the lens could be cleaned we make
no apologies for the blunt force trauma needed to remove the filter.
Away
from the sensational introduction the facts are more prosaic. When I
have not used a camera for an extended period I generally give my
cameras a good clean; in the case of my Bronica SQAi this means
taking all the main components apart for checking. When I looked at
the lens I noticed that the UV filter on the front was slightly out
of round and there was a chip at the edge of the filter glass. I can
not remember how this damage happened but it must have been something
quite dramatic.
Most
of my film camera lenses have a protective filter on the front, an
expensive exercise now-a-days, as I have discovered. But not having
the filter there in the first place would have cost a new lens. So
you could say that it has been a good investment over the years. You
only have to drop it once to get a good return or in this case twice,
from what I remember?
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| O ugh that hurts!!! |
It
is quite surprising how brutal you need to be to remove a lens filter
that has become distorted. I tried to remove it by hand but was
unable to get a good enough grip to release it. So in came the
meanies - my name for the over-sized water pump pliers used. The pliers are about 400 mm long, they needed to be this size so the jaw
would extend to the 67 mm filter size with ease and not squeeze the
filter out of shape any more than what it was. With a gentle grip on
the filter and a small amount of pressure it unscrewed in a trice.
Allowing for a gentle grip leaving no marks on the lens or damaged
filter. Once the filter was free I checked for damage to the thread
on the lens and found none.
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| Ahhhh! that's better. |
With
the front element of the lens clean I attached the new filter. This
was a gentle soothing exercise for the lens after all that brute
force of earlier. All's well for the new season of picture making.
The
writer of this article would like to assure the readers that the
camera lens was not hurt in anyway and a stunt double was used for
the photos that accompany this post.
