water bubbles in lens? anyone knows what is this and how to get rid of it


sunnycamera

Senior Member
Dec 8, 2010
2,330
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SG
my friends show me this,

what is that in lens, looks like moisture from ac room to outside, and trapped inside

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water bubbles? those look more like fungus to me..
 

I think it's not fungus, more like balsam cement problem. Balsam is the glue used to cement elements together in old lenses. I heard that bubbles indicate high quality lens.
 

fungus is spide web like, this one is dots not linked, not shown,
 

and the dots are so even amount the rear inner glass, I don't think fungus can get so even as it grows
 

Definitely not fungus. More like a foggy element or lens cement problem (which is also known as lens element separation). It happens to some old lenses. There is no cure for this other than changing the affected lens element. Normally this won't affect image quality much when it's still at its early stage. But eventually the whole lens element will become milky (or you can call it foggy).
 

thanks for the info
 

after some googling, i found it is the so-called "Haze" issue

http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=11606&view=next

The correct term for this is 'fog' or 'lens element separation' but not haze. Haze is normally just some moisture gets into the lens, which is very easy to clean. But fog is almost impossible to 'clean' (remove).

Anyway, it's just terms. When you see this in your lens, you know it's lens cement problem, not moisture or fungus.