Thanks for this video, it helped me clean and re-lube one of these recently. A note on the focusing mechanism - I found it trickier to put back together than on my MD primes, but not so tricky that I had to send it to a professional. For anyone else who might have had my issue, at 11:09 you hold up the three piece focusing mechanism to the camera. The top brass piece screws into the bottom aluminum-colored piece. You can screw it in all the way when putting it back together but you don't want to. That will cause the focusing ring to collide with the mechanism when reassembled, and you won't be able to adjust the focus at all - it will feel stuck. Instead, you want to leave a small gap between the top brass piece and bottom aluminum piece - as shown at 11:09 - when screwing them together. You don't want to gap to be too big though, you want enough length on it so you can focus to infinity.
Just bought a couple of Minolta prime lenses for my GH4 and am amazed how sharp these old lenses can be. Your videos are great and very helpful. Thanks for pumping out some good stuff.
I finally decided to clean mine after a year of procrastinating. I bought a dirty copy that was almost impossible to turn the aperture and was somehow hindered if the focus was too far forward or back. It was full of gunk but now its nice and clean minus the focus. I dont know how I messed up another lens' focus, even though I marked it up and placed exactly where I untwisted it. Until I get the courage to fix this focus, it'll do for now. Paid $5 so it wont be a crazy loss if i dont get it right
Hey man, have you ever taken apart any Konica Hexanon lenses? I'm looking to take apart a Hexanon AR 57mm F1.4 and coming up short on finding some info to disassemble it. If you know of any resources or could point me in the right direction i'd greatly appreciate it.
My fother has one of this lens. I tried to make a proper repair as you did in the video. But still the aperture is broken somehow. it does not change , and it stacks. I guess that this lens of mine is broken too many years. I will give it a try again but i think something is wrong with the spring or the mechanism of the aperture. Thanks for the video.
Hi there, I've recently purchased the 55 1.7, and I'm adapting it to a Fuji. The adapter, however, engages the aperture lever which prevents the aperture from stopping down. Do you know if it's possible to file down the lever, so that it no longer engages with the adapter? Are there any risks to doing this, other than the fact that it's irreversible? Thanks so much!
Matt, i have bought ( in the newbie haste to have more lenses ) a Soligor f: 75-205mm 1:3.5 ZOOM& Macro lens , but when i got it much to my dissapointment, it has some dust inside and i can't seem to open it and clean it. Do you have any suggestion how to approach this? the name ring seem to be stuck and has no indents to open it with a twist wrench
Hey !! My 55mm can open and close fully via the little lever but on camera I can only open up via the aperture ring and cannot close back up via the aperture ring. Any idea what I may need to fix or clean so it can open and close fully via the aperture ring
I am also having this same problem! I followed the video, cleaned the spring mechanism and got a lot of black junk out of the sticky spring, but still have no luck. Did you ever figure this out mynameis?
Thanks, I have the MC1 version with stiff focusing and sticky aperture sitting on the project shelf. It has some minor differences though. What spanner do you use? It looks for stable than mine.
Here's a video for the MCI version of this lens: th-cam.com/video/9FXdstVVQ2M/w-d-xo.html I have two sets of spanners: a set from SK Grimes ( www.skgrimes.com/products/spanner-wrench ) and a set from Neewer ( www.amazon.com/Neewer-Professional-pointed-Spanner-Repairing/dp/B00J5F6O92/ ). Of the two, the SK Grimes feel far better to work with, but the ones from Neewer are probably the better tools.
David Beeken yeah, sorry for the misdirection, I mean I have removed the back optic but I wanna open it and clean the inside of the optic which is not shown in this video. Thnks for helping me
Thanks for this video, it helped me clean and re-lube one of these recently. A note on the focusing mechanism - I found it trickier to put back together than on my MD primes, but not so tricky that I had to send it to a professional. For anyone else who might have had my issue, at 11:09 you hold up the three piece focusing mechanism to the camera. The top brass piece screws into the bottom aluminum-colored piece. You can screw it in all the way when putting it back together but you don't want to. That will cause the focusing ring to collide with the mechanism when reassembled, and you won't be able to adjust the focus at all - it will feel stuck. Instead, you want to leave a small gap between the top brass piece and bottom aluminum piece - as shown at 11:09 - when screwing them together. You don't want to gap to be too big though, you want enough length on it so you can focus to infinity.
Just bought a couple of Minolta prime lenses for my GH4 and am amazed how sharp these old lenses can be. Your videos are great and very helpful. Thanks for pumping out some good stuff.
I finally decided to clean mine after a year of procrastinating. I bought a dirty copy that was almost impossible to turn the aperture and was somehow hindered if the focus was too far forward or back. It was full of gunk but now its nice and clean minus the focus. I dont know how I messed up another lens' focus, even though I marked it up and placed exactly where I untwisted it. Until I get the courage to fix this focus, it'll do for now. Paid $5 so it wont be a crazy loss if i dont get it right
What a fantastic and very helpful video. I will using this to repair my lens as the aperture blades are sticky.
This is amazing. Thanks for doing these!
Hey cool i've been shooting with this lens the last few months. Loving its size, bokeh and especially image color.
Thanks a lot😊😊😊.
Hey man, have you ever taken apart any Konica Hexanon lenses? I'm looking to take apart a Hexanon AR 57mm F1.4 and coming up short on finding some info to disassemble it. If you know of any resources or could point me in the right direction i'd greatly appreciate it.
My fother has one of this lens. I tried to make a proper repair as you did in the video. But still the aperture is broken somehow. it does not change , and it stacks. I guess that this lens of mine is broken too many years. I will give it a try again but i think something is wrong with the spring or the mechanism of the aperture. Thanks for the video.
thanks a lot. I wouldn have done it without your video :)
Hi there, I've recently purchased the 55 1.7, and I'm adapting it to a Fuji. The adapter, however, engages the aperture lever which prevents the aperture from stopping down. Do you know if it's possible to file down the lever, so that it no longer engages with the adapter? Are there any risks to doing this, other than the fact that it's irreversible? Thanks so much!
Hi, did you have any idea how disassembly the elements on minolta af 100mm f2.8?
Matt, i have bought ( in the newbie haste to have more lenses ) a Soligor f: 75-205mm 1:3.5 ZOOM& Macro lens , but when i got it much to my dissapointment, it has some dust inside and i can't seem to open it and clean it. Do you have any suggestion how to approach this? the name ring seem to be stuck and has no indents to open it with a twist wrench
Hey !!
My 55mm can open and close fully via the little lever but on camera I can only open up via the aperture ring and cannot close back up via the aperture ring. Any idea what I may need to fix or clean so it can open and close fully via the aperture ring
I am also having this same problem! I followed the video, cleaned the spring mechanism and got a lot of black junk out of the sticky spring, but still have no luck. Did you ever figure this out mynameis?
Joshua Bachand I haven’t even been able to open mine up yet since I haven’t got the tools yet. Oh man definitely seems odd I hope you figure it out.
Thanks, I have the MC1 version with stiff focusing and sticky aperture sitting on the project shelf. It has some minor differences though.
What spanner do you use? It looks for stable than mine.
Here's a video for the MCI version of this lens: th-cam.com/video/9FXdstVVQ2M/w-d-xo.html
I have two sets of spanners: a set from SK Grimes ( www.skgrimes.com/products/spanner-wrench ) and a set from Neewer ( www.amazon.com/Neewer-Professional-pointed-Spanner-Repairing/dp/B00J5F6O92/ ). Of the two, the SK Grimes feel far better to work with, but the ones from Neewer are probably the better tools.
can you show me how to remove the back optic to clean the inside of the lens
Just look at 3.30min -5.00min
David Beeken yeah, sorry for the misdirection, I mean I have removed the back optic but I wanna open it and clean the inside of the optic which is not shown in this video. Thnks for helping me
disassemble vivitar 50mm f1.7 pls