Kent, if you're careful, it's a very simple job to remove the front and rear lens cells from your shutter and get all the glass surfaces completely clean, inside and out There's no need to remove the shutter from the camera to do this. The two cells just unscrew from the shutter's face and back, in a normal counterclockwise manner.
The front cell has a single element. The rear cell has only two, and it's designed to be easily unscrewed into one large and one small brass component--each piece holding a single element.
If you don't have a conical rubber lens-wrench, then in order to gain sufficient traction under your fingertips to remove the cells and to disassemble the rear cell, you can wear a pair of disposable latex gloves, and/or cut a strip of wide rubber band (a clean, new one) and lay it around the rim--being careful of course, whatever you use, and however you do it, not to touch the glass.
Once you've removed the rear cell from the back of the shutter, examine (using a loupe, or a magnifying glass) its forward end--i.e., the smaller end that goes into the shutter. You'll see that the end-edge is knobbed--there are tiny bumps circling the rim, very close to the glass, and that about 1mm down the barrel there's a junction line, which separates the tip from the rest of the cell. This thin ribbed tip is the part that unscrews. You just need to grip the larger outside rim of the rear cell firmly (carefully) in one hand, and with the fingers of your other hand, twist the thin, knobbed tip counterclockwise.
A note of caution: between the thin, knobbed brass tip (which you must grip to unscrew) and the clear, concave, glass optical surface that it surrounds, there's a narrow "shoulder" of black-painted glass. It's hard to avoid putting pressure on this black-painted shoulder as you disassemble and reassemble the rear cell; but if you rub it too hard, the black paint will come off, which you don't want to happen. (If it does, you can always touch it up with black paint, of course.) In any event, you should carefully examine the cell under a loupe before you grip-and-twist; exercise care; and use the rubber lens-wrench, or latex gloves/piece of wide rubber band for traction.
Once you've got the front cell and the two rear-cell pieces in front of you on a paper towel, you can freely use liquid lens-cleaner--or Windex, or a water-detergent mix, or isopropyl alcohol, as needed--on the glass. (The glass is uncoated, so won't be harmed by these alternative solutions. And since you're dealing with single elements, meaning no cemented glass seams for moisture to wick into and cause subsequent problems, you can ignore the standard warnings about never allowing drops or pools of cleaning fluid to form on lens glass while cleaning.) The only other supplies you'll need are cotton swabs and lens tissues.
I have one of these. It's fun to use and makes excellent images.
, Sep 07, 2010; 10:20 p.m.
