scratched lens help

Paul Llewellyn

Paul Llewellyn

Well-known member
I am looking around for lenses to use with my SGBlade and have found a Nikon 135mm f2 lens which has light scratches on the rear element. Can anyone help me with judging whether these will be detrimental to the end image.

Cheers!
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Rear element scratches are more serious than ones on the front - they are closer to the film plane (gg) and might create image (affect certain parts of the frame, in contrast to front element scratches which would rather result in flares and subtle resolution loss over entire frame). You probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference, particularly when using DOF adapter, but my advice is: don't buy it unless it's a real bargain. Whenever there's something wrong with your footage you'll keep asking yourself whether it's because of the scratches or not...
 
Can you try it out before you buy it?
I have scratches on some of my second hand lenses and would say they don't affect in focus areas. But the circles of confusion in your bokeh will probably have small lines in them, i guess, a similar thing happens on my lenses.
 
Thanks for your responses. They've helped.
I'm not able to try it beforehand as its an ebay listed item. I'll probably let this one go as I don't like the idea of not knowing how it will perform.
 
Yeah, I'd be far more worried about the horrific gouging damage all over the rest of the back of that lens, more so than the light scratches on the rear element! That's more than just wear from being mounted and dismounted a lot... what the heck happened to that lens?!

Duncan
 
I don't have experience with it, but was also told by a repairman that scratches on the rear element were the worst.
 
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