Pekka Buttler, June–September 2020 (Updated 11/2025)
If you’re one of the increasing number of people, who have become enamoured with using older lenses (what JAPB generally refers to as legacy lenses) on modern digital cameras (whether dSLR’s or mILC’s), you probably spend a lot of time scouring garage sales, classifieds and auction sites.
But the sad truth is that many legacy lenses are decades – sometimes closer to a century – old, and that however excellent their build quality originally was, many of these lenses evidence both the signs of wear and tear, as well as – deplorably – neglect.
Therefore, it is imperative that people who scour the world for a good deal on vintage lenses, know how to ascertain the condition of a lens on first sight as well as possible, and – should the lens evidence a malady – understand the ramifications of that malady.
Most importantly, lenses are surprisingly resistant to many kinds of maladies, and while some (but far from all) maladies will affect image quality, and while some (but, again, far from all) maladies affect lens usability and utility, all maladies have a direct impact on lens resale value1.
To this end, JAPB publishes a series of articles describing the most typical issues legacy lenses may have, including ways to identify these maladies, ways to ascertain the seriousness of said issues, as well as recommendations on what needs to be done. Furthermore, see the JAPB guide on how to ascertain a lens’ condition in only a couple of minutes.
Please note, that these articles are intended for legacy lenses, and do thus not touch upon problems and issues specific to state-of-the-art lenses. Therefore there are a number of topics that will not be covered, specifically: auto-focus; optical image stabilisation and lens electronics in general. That said, even state-of-the-art lenses are liable to evidence the same issues legacy lenses suffer, and this guide can therefore help anyone who buys used lenses (but is comprehensive only for legacy lenses).
The series:
- Oil on the aperture blades (‘oily blades’)
- Lens fungus
- Haze
- Element separation
- Control ring malfunction
- Lens surface defects
- Dust & debris inside lens
- Miscellaneous defects
See also:
How to ascertain a lens’ condition in only a few minutes
P.S. The list above is based on my experience with roughly 700 legacy lenses, and while reasonably well-researched, I do admit to not knowing it all. Therefore, I welcome your views, suggestions and all kinds of comments.
- Or at least, they should have an impact on resale value, because the cost of repair or the loss of value due to not having been repaired should be part of the equation.
Whereas Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) slogan “Ending is better than mending” may – back then – have been a warning to society about the future results of increasing consumerism, it has become a sad fact in the sense that there are many kinds of products that are not mended simply because there are too few proficient repairpeople.
Importantly, camera and lens repair are among those walks of life where repair is too often economically not a rational choice. Hence one should understand that ↩︎