Vivitar 28-200mm -- hazy/foggy lens

[cannondale0815]

Hi there! This is my first post (thanks David for activating my account).

I recently borrowed my father's old Vivitar 28-200mm lens that was in use in his old Minolta (I believe the 7000 model). I wanted to use this lens with my Alpha 300, but discovered a lot of fog/haze when looking through it. I googled a bit and found out that this could be fungus.

Any suggestions as to how to disassemble it in an attempt to find/clean the affected element?

Here are some more details about the lens:
- Vivitar 28-200mm 1:3.5-5.6
- Serial No. 777***** (I believe that means that it is a Kobori made lens)

Any help appreciated!

-Jan

[Birma]

Hi Jan - welcome to the forum. My understanding is that it is very difficult to totally eradicate the spores that cause the fungus once you have them in a lens. I am sure someone with more expertise will be along shortly . Good luck with the Vivitar, and if you can't sort it out then you may be able to find a reasonable replacement on eBay.

[David Kilpatrick]

Welcome - thanks for using a name I could identify as not a spammer, always helps for fast activations.

It could just be atmospheric film on a lens of that age. Get some Paterson or Jessops lens cleaner and microfibre cloth, and gently wet clean the outer front and rear lens elements. Then hold the lens up to a light, look through while moving the aperture lever at the back (spring pressure) to keep it open. If you see thread-like strands in a bluish or whitish hazy layer, that could be fungus.

The bad news is that in a lens of this age, the fungus would be expensive to clean unless you dismantle it yourself and use the same solution; it might be affecting the balsam glue between compound elements, in which case you can't get to it at all.

David

[Greg Beetham]

I have an old Tamron lens with a fogged up doublet, (two elements glued together), the fungus is in the glue between the two elements, so it's virtually a write off as far as I can see...unless there is a way of un-gluing, cleaning and re-assembling them back to the original optical spacing etc.
As David pointed out that could be the problem with your Vivitar as well...unfortunately.
Greg

[cannondale0815]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I will give the cleaning as described by David a shot and see if this helps. Will report back afterwards.

If not, I am already toying with the idea of buying the Sony SAL18250 18-250mm lens as an all-in-one solution. Did a lot of reading here and elsewhere and it seems that this is a good quality lens for its price, with the normal trade-offs a lens of this range has of course. Or the slightly cheaper (and related) Tamron 18-250mm. I've been reading that the Sony version of this lens seems to be faster in focusing on Alpha bodies, so might just go for the Sony instead of Tamron.

-Jan

[Juanito200]

Be sure to keep it away from your other lenses. I've been told it can spread. (If it is fungus)
John