can i fix a scratch on a camera lens or is it done for? can't see the scratch in photos?

Question

I appear to have knocked my new lens and there is a fairly obvious mark evn though I can not see it on the LCD playback. Is this fixable or have I just made a v expensive mistake?

Answer 1

A scratch on the lens will not affect sharpness of pictures, it will introduce a little flare when bright objects are in shot and reduce contrast a tiny bit. You don't say what the camera is, but a professional fix could cost as much as a new mid range camera. Whatever you do don't try to fix it yourself, the best you can do is to make it worse. I think your best plan is to just carry on using it until you get round to an upgrade, and be more careful next time

Answer 2

Camera Lens Scratch Repair

Answer 3

the warranty will not cover accidental damage, your household content insurance may, even if it happened away from your home, usually subject to a pre-arranged excess.

The person who gave the advice about buying another lens, defrauding the shop and them bumping the faulty item on Ebay is giving you very stupid advice.

The folk in the camera shop would take the lens out the box and demo it, check it first, if you ask them not to do this then they won't take liability. The serial number of the lens will be stamped on the card in the box and maybe even on the box itself. If you've scratched the lens there may be other user marks that give the game away so, don't take that guys advice, the shop will have you done for fraud!

Next time you buy expensive fragile lenses, protect it with a skylight filter (value £20) and maybe even take out the accidental damage cover (or check you home contents policy) don't try to rip off a camera shop, think of Earl and Karma man.

If's its not affecting your photos then fuggedabahdid

Answer 4

Just because you cannot see it on the LCD, doesn't mean that you won't be able to see the effects of it when you download the photo. It won't look like a scratch in the pictures, as it will be very out of focus, but it will reduce the sharpness of the image somewhat.

How much this bothers you depends on the size of the scratch and how particular you are about image quality.

Keep the camera, and use it for a knock-around one, while you shop for a newer and better model. It's always handy to have a camera in your glove-compartment, or your backback. Now you have one. :)

Answer 5

You'd have to ask an expert. If it doesn't show on the pictures, I'd just give it a good clean and forget about the scratch.

Answer 6

The only solution is to have the lens professionally re-ground. Its an extremely difficult process to re-grind it yourself because of the precision engineering that goes into making the lens.
This often is not a viable option so i fear living with the scratch and using photshop to edit out any visible lines, is the only option.

Answer 7

if u can't see the scratch in photos leave it or get someone that knows about cameras and can fix em to sort it out

Answer 8

If it doesn't affect your pictures then I would do nothing. Most new lenses have special coatings on them so I wouldn't try to do any polishing to try and get the scratch out. If the scratch does affect your pics then you just made a very expensive mistake. This is why most photographers put a UV filter on their lenses.

Answer 9

the scratch is too close to focus on- most lenses with macro capabilities will only focus a cm or so to the lens. You would have to be focusing in macro closer than a cm to see the distortion, but the distortion is there even though you cant see it when you are focusing a few feet to infinity in most shots.

If this is for consumer usage, just stop worrying about it, and keep shooting. If it's for pro use, the chances of your scratched lens ruining your shot are small.

Best advice if you are shooting pro is to put the cam on a tripod and tape a video test pattern target to the wall- they have multiple lines and gradients to show distortion along lens and chip surfaces.

Wanna be sneaky?
Buy the same lens at a major retailer, then come back less than ten minutes later to show them the scratch you just found on your lens...ebay or craigslist the extra lens.

Answer 10

If you have damaged the lens can you not claim under your house contents insurance? I dropped a digital camera in to the water and was able to do this.