About being too picky about lenses...

[Spyderman]

Would you buy a lens with cleaning marks and scratches ? I wouldn't. But what if you already have one (or two) like that ? Then don't be affraid to use it.

These shots were taken with a not-very-nice-looking Industar-22 collapsible, on Fomapan 100 (sorry for the contrast, i'm without my CRT screen for a while, with only crappy laptop LCD, and these pics are only resized scans)

Sharp. Surprisingly sharp... And surprisingly nice bokeh too.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57918&stc=1&d=1207502660

The second shot is only for illustration of what the cleaning marks and scratches do: Leica glow :D
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=57919&stc=1&d=1207502660

[myoptic3]

I'll bet that if you put on a yellow filter (for B&W) you would eliminate that flare. Or a hood. I have a Nikon 35 70 2.8 zoom that has lots of scratches and nicks on the front element and the pictures from it look EXACTLY like the ones from the mint one I had. If the problems are on the rear element you will possibly see image degradation. It is amazing how badly a lens has to be messed up to show up in your prints.

[swoop]

I've got a 40 nokton with some surface scratches on the front and it still does a great job. It's my "I don't know which lens to bring so I'll grab this one" lens.

[gliderbee]

I think I agree with the TS.

This is the first picture I made this weekend with a "new" (you know what I mean) Industar-26m (a 52/2.8 mm) on a FED-2, HP5+, developed in Rodinal 1+50, and of course some curves, etc ... in PS.

I'm surprised it didn't have much problems (maybe the fingers ?) with the strong backlight situation. I think it's rather good, but since I'm quite new to scanning, I would like to hear your comments about it.

http://home.scarlet.be/~sejmw/Belgiumdigital/sized_klein.JPG

[steverett]

I think this might amuse you:

http://www.deansphotographica.com/deans_of_idaho/old_stuff_pages/dirtylenstest/dirtylenstest.html

[Spyderman]

Thanks for the link. I once saw that page, but then later couldn't find it. This, and the famous picture of a C/Y mount Zeiss Planar with the bug inside of it show pretty clearly how bad a lens can be and still produce amazing results.

My Industar looks like a pretty sharp lens, and I quite like the "Leica glow" it produces. I'll probably be using it for some "vintage looking" effects. I've alredy made a hood for it (out of thick black cardboard) so the hood should help control the flare a bit in situations where I don't want flare.

[Brian Sweeney]

Internal Haze will effect a lens much more than cleaning marks.

I just learned to get over it, and will grab a lens with cleaning marks on it at a good price.

[Spyderman]

Thanks Brian to pointing that out. I'll avoid hazy lenses in the future...

BTW: If anyone's interested, I'm attaching a crop from the first picture. All I can say is Wow!