Hello. I have a nice set of screwmount lens and camera. Allmost every (never clean never touch) LTM lens I see have a "fog" or fungus on the glass, so as the cameras most of them have a very faint image beem splitter/half mirror. My question is : is there a way to keep them free of those anoying things while they are not in use? Thank you for your replys. Carlos.

-- Carlos Borges (borg_karl_borg@hotmail.com), February 15, 2002

Answers

I think you should visit www.cameraquest.com , you can find info on the fog and faintness of your gear. I have a IIIf and my summitar has the same problem, other than that its almost mint. so a cleaning can only help me both in photos and re-sale. the fog is natural and very common in the 50 and 60 lenses, a viewfinder/rangefinder cleaning is probably needed. a good tech can do this and can also be found in these pages. IE: Don, Sherry, etc. other tan keeping the caps on and in a dry moderate temp environment, there is no way to avoid these problems ENJOY

-- mike (thearea19@aol.com), February 15, 2002.

The fog you see is different from fungus, which resembles spiderwebs or frost patterns. There's also a greater likelihood the fog can be cleaned off whereas fungus often etches the glass beyond repair. That's the good news. The bad news is that a dim rangefinder on an LTM usually signifies the mirror has faded and needs resilvering or replacement. This is more common on post-war LTM's than the early ones. My 1937 IIIa still has a bright rangefinder, my 1950 IIIf has had it's mirror replaced in the early 1970's and it's not the brightest even now. John Maddox (LR Leica Repair in Greenville, SC) does a bang-up job of re-doing LTM's for a very reasonable fee...be prepared to wait and wait, though.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), February 15, 2002.

In the U.S., John Van Stelten's Focal Point Lens Inc. specializes in repair & restoration of lenses (www.focalpointlens.com).

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@cris.com), February 15, 2002.