Dust inside lens? Locked

Dear all, I was cheching my nikon 500 f4 the other day, cleaning the front glass and I put a flashlight lighting the inside and I found specks of dust inside... could that be possible? Which makes me wonder... arent they weather sealed? I travel 3/4 times a month with it by plane, could have pressurization in flight made something to it, like it does to any contained parcels of air inside any body? (eg. bottle of water)

BEST REGARDS!

I think most of us can live with a little dust inside lenses, when or if it becomes a problem, seek a resolution, if your going to clean it every time a few particles are inside its going to be expensive and spend a lot of time out of your possession.

griddi wrote:

mrgs1 wrote:

I think most of us can live with a little dust inside lenses, when or if it becomes a problem, seek a resolution, if your going to clean it every time a few particles are inside its going to be expensive and spend a lot of time out of your possession.

As I wrote, so far I never have noticed any little dust inside my lenses, but I am also extra careful, as I am sort of a perfectionist I am not so sure I would accept even just a little dust in my lenses, and so would have probably seek professional help :-D.......

Griddi......

The reply wasn't to you but original poster.

Cristianxb1983 wrote:

Dear all, I was cheching my nikon 500 f4 the other day, cleaning the front glass and I put a flashlight lighting the inside and I found specks of dust inside... could that be possible? Which makes me wonder... arent they weather sealed? I travel 3/4 times a month with it by plane, could have pressurization in flight made something to it, like it does to any contained parcels of air inside any body? (eg. bottle of water)

BEST REGARDS!

Some of the solutions suggested seem to assume the dust is on the outside surfaces of the lens, whereas from your comment it seems the dust is inside the lens body.

However, this is not  uncommon, and as FrancoD suggests, should not be a problem unless there has been a major ingress of dust.

If you have not noticed any IQ issues, , don't worry about it!

Ignore it, it doesn't matter and stop cleaning your lenses unless they are obviously filthy.  All you are likely to do is slowly accumulate damage from cleaning.  Unless you are using very wide lenses at small apertures marks on the lens elements are not visible.

Every lens I have will show some dust inside If I shine a flashlight through it and I don't care! whenI was a kid I was a perfectionist and it almost drove me insane. At 19 I had saved up to buy a Canon macro lens and took the train to downtown Chicago when there were several great camera stores and bought my prize. On inspection there there was a tiny spec of dust inside so back it went. I repeated this two more times at the expense of two hour round trips and the exasperation of the clerk who finally wrote final return on my worn reciept. Of course not once did I take a photo with the offending lenses as I was convinced the lens had to be perfect. I eventually convinced myself that this behavior was not healthy and stopped. Don't get me wrong, I still examine new purchases thoroughly but I don't sweat a minor cosmetic flaw; proper function is far more important.

FrancoD wrote:

Please take a look at what the pros think, never mind the rest...

https://petapixel.com/2015/06/10/we-found-a-fly-inside-a-weather-sealed-lens/

We gave him good advice don't worry about it! We had a cigarette packet wedged in a 500mm f4 hood and never showed up in photos displte blocking some of the front element. Never mind the rest! We do know what I'm talking about.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to post a reply. As someone mentioned here... I should stop being a perfectionist...After posting the thread I read and article about this and helped me relax a bit... Every lens even the brand new ones come with something inside... in particular the zoom lenses are the ones getting most of the dust inside because of this movement of air inside everytime you turn the focus ring. I will have to live with it...

Cristianxb1983 wrote:

Thanks to everyone who took the time to post a reply. As someone mentioned here... I should stop being a perfectionist...After posting the thread I read and article about this and helped me relax a bit... Every lens even the brand new ones come with something inside... in particular the zoom lenses are the ones getting most of the dust inside because of this movement of air inside everytime you turn the focus ring. I will have to live with it...

It's not that you should stop being a "perfectionist", it's just that a few specks of dust inside a lens will not affect image quality at all.

Have never believed those that claim dust inside or outside a lens on outside glass does not affect image quality. Indeed such may not significantly noticeably affect image quality though suspect dust does have subtle negative consequences. I have noticed some dust inside my new lenses going back decades. Recently noticed a big hair-like strand of dust in the center of my Sigma F2.8 DN lens, just on the inside of the sealed inner lens. No amount of shaking dislodged it but I was able to get it to jump off to the outside by using an anti static tool.

What bothers me is that lens manufacturers apparently still don't bother to set up work places that are reasonably dust free. Here in Silicon Valley semiconductor manufacturers many years ago figured out how to keep air in their sensitive work places dust free. My suspicion is lens manufacturers have not kept up with that technology simply because photographers don't complain.   A key reason is until recently for both camera and lens manufacturers there haven't been ways to provide public feedback so they could just ignore us.    But the Internet changes that.  I'll bet if people on sites like this discussed and complained about dust that they would all take notice.

FrancoD wrote:

I stuck a piece of tape on my lens. About 6x4mm, larger than some dust

then shot this :

it would not look any different without that piece of tape.

Given that we intentionally block most of the lens with its iris, a little bit of dust won't make any difference at all.  An impressive example of an image with the tape on the worst possible spot (on the front element) on the lens.

Natural variability in lens samples due to manufacturing tolerance makes a far, far greater difference than a speck or two of dust inside the lens can possibly make.