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Smontaggio di un'ottica cinematografica per la manutenzione completa

Lens servicing and repair

Every manual lens picks up friction and small inaccuracies with use: rings that lose their smoothness, dust on the internal elements, collimation drifting by a few tenths. Small deviations that, on set, decide whether a shot is sharp or has to be done again.

We strip the lens down completely: every optical element cleaned, focus and iris mechanisms re-lubricated, collimation checked and corrected on the bench. The lens goes back to working with the smoothness and precision it was designed for.

A full service usually takes 2–3 working days, with exact timings confirmed when we quote.

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How every job starts

Before anything is opened, the lens is documented and understood.

  1. Inspection of the glass and the general condition. Against the light, element by element.
  2. Photographs of every side of the lens. They are the record of the condition it arrived in, and they are shared with you.
  3. Diagnosis. The problem is mechanical, optical, or it concerns the iris, which sits between the two. Everything else follows from this: the kind of work, the timings and the quote.

You don't need to be able to tell us what's wrong with the lens. Just describe what happens to you on set — a stiff ring, a corner that won't come into focus, an iris that clicks through nothing — and we'll do the diagnosis.

Mechanical work: three levels

Telling the levels apart is what makes it possible to give an honest time and an honest cost, instead of one all-covering quote that says nothing.

Level 1 — Adjustments without a full strip-down

Loose screws on the mount, just underneath it, or on the outer rings. Collimation correction belongs here too, when it doesn't require opening the lens.

These are quick jobs: 2-3 hours of work.

Level 2 — Full overhaul and re-greasing

This is routine servicing proper — the work that should be done periodically on a lens that earns its living.

The lens is separated into its two main bodies, mechanical and optical. The mechanical part is completely disassembled, cleaned of old grease and deposits with specific solvents, re-greased and reassembled.

It is the job that gives a ring back the smoothness it was designed with — if you can't tell when it's needed, we explained it in Worn helicoid or stiff focus ring.

About one day of work per lens.

Level 3 — Structural repair

Here the problem comes from a breakage, a fall, or a strip-down done badly by someone else. The mechanical part has to be opened entirely, and the solution depends on what is found.

Broken part. It is redrawn and remade in metal or in a suitable material, then fitted and tested.

Helicoid damaged by a fall. It is disassembled, and we judge whether re-seating the existing helicoids is enough, whether they have to be made from scratch, or whether the part can be recovered from a donor lens.

Wrong reassembly. This is the longest case and the least visible from outside. The helicoids of a manual lens have several thread starts and can be screwed together in wrong combinations that seem to work until you look at the scale. Finding the right one means screwing it in, reassembling the whole lens, testing — and if it isn't the one, taking it apart and starting again. That repeats until the combination comes good.

Timings vary, depending on the complexity of the lens and of the problem. They are confirmed in the quote, after the diagnosis.

Optical work

Internal cleaning: fungus, mould and haze

The optical group is opened as far as the element concerned — no further, because every surface opened needlessly is one more risk. The element is cleaned with products compatible with its coating, refitted, and checked against the appearance of aberrations.

With fungus there is a distinction that can only be made once the lens is open: if the fungus lives on top of the anti-reflective coating, cleaning genuinely solves it; if the coating has already been etched, the mark stays. We check this at the diagnosis stage and tell you before going ahead.

Optical alignment and collimation

This is what separates a clean from a serious repair. A lens stripped and reassembled without checking the alignment leaves the workshop with one problem in place of another.

On cine lenses, alignment is done on a projector. The sequence is: optical alignment, collimation check, then an alignment check again at the close.

What collimation is and why it matters we covered at length in Cinema lens collimation: what it is and why it matters; if instead you want to work out whether your lens needs it, the symptoms to look for on the monitor are in Is your lens decentred?.

Iris and blades

It sits halfway between mechanics and optics, and it has a procedure of its own.

The optical group is opened as far as the iris. If the problem is oil on the blades, or blades overlapping or out of their seats, they are taken out one by one, cleaned and put back in position.

The check is visual and leaves no room for interpretation: with the iris closed down, the shape must be a regular circle. If an irregular shape comes out, the order of the blades is wrong and has to be rebuilt back to the original sequence.

If the blades are broken, either the set is recovered from a donor lens or they are remade from scratch: CAD drawing, laser cutting and welding of the pins.

The lenses we work on

Every manual lens, from any era.

Among the brands we work on: Cooke — we took the repair training at their head office — Zeiss, Angénieux, RED, Canon, Fuji and many others.

The list isn't a limit. We work from experience and with a proven procedure, not by following the manufacturer's service manuals: if the lens is manual, it can be done.

Type
Cine, photographic, CCTV
Coverage
From 16 mm to 65 mm
Construction
Primes and zooms, spherical and anamorphic

What we don't do

Saying so up front saves us both a pointless quote.

  • Electronic or automatic lenses, including those with internal autofocus motors
  • Still cameras, neither film nor digital
  • Motion picture cameras, neither film nor digital

We work on manual lenses and only on those. For bespoke components — mounts, rigs, parts that don't exist on the market — there is Custom solution.

Turnaround

The times below are bench times: they count the actual work on the lens, not shipping and not waiting in the queue.

Level 1 — adjustments
2-3 hours
Level 2 — full overhaul
About 1 day per lens
Level 3 — structural repair
Variable, confirmed in the quote
Optical work
Depends on the element involved

Delivery time is a different thing

Bench time isn't the time you wait. From the moment the lens arrives to the moment it leaves, the average is 5-7 working days, because the queue and the final checks are added to the work itself.

We give you the exact time in the quote, after the diagnosis.

Shipping and delivery

Shipping both ways and insurance are at the customer's expense.

We provide packing instructions before you ship: a badly packed lens takes more damage in transit than in ten years on set. How it's done we wrote up in How to ship a cinema lens for repair.

You can also drop the lens off and collect it by hand at the workshop, by appointment.

Warranty

The warranty covers the components we make ourselves — custom mounts and bespoke parts.

It does not cover repairs, because on a lens that has already taken damage, or forty years of use, the work puts back into service what is there — without being able to answer for what gives out afterwards.

Servicing and repair

Estimate the cost of the work

Pick the tier your lens belongs to and the work it needs. The figure is indicative: the firm quote follows the diagnosis on the bench.

It does not account for shipping or VAT.

01 Lens tier

Cinema flagship

Cooke S4 and S7, Zeiss Master and Ultra Prime, ARRI Signature, Leica Summilux-C, Panavision, Angénieux.

02 Work required

Tier A

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indicative estimate · VAT and parts excluded

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Indicative figures, labour only — spare parts not included.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know what's wrong with my lens before writing to you?

No. Describe what happens on set — a stiff ring, a corner that won't come into focus, a sluggish iris — and we'll take care of the diagnosis.
Can fungus always be removed?

It depends on the stage, and the stage is only visible once the lens is open. If the fungus sits on top of the anti-reflective coating, cleaning solves it; if the coating has already been etched, the mark stays. We tell you before going ahead.
What happens if a part no longer exists?

We redraw it and have it remade in a suitable material, or we recover it from a donor lens. The same goes for iris blades, which we cut by laser from a CAD drawing.
Do you repair autofocus lenses?

No. We work only on manual lenses, with no motors or internal electronics.
Can I bring the lens in person?

Yes, by appointment. Otherwise we'll give you packing instructions for shipping.

A lens that needs putting right?

Send us the model and a description of the problem. We reply within 24 hours.

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