Your 1968 lens has no spare parts.
It can still be fixed.
I open, clean, adjust and return — sharp again — manual and cine lenses, including the electronic ones the manufacturer no longer supports. I also do the mechanical work on digital and cine bodies. And what stopped being made forty years ago, I design and make.
Five things, done properly
I don't repair «all brands». I repair what I know how to repair, and what I don't, I say before you ship me anything.
Full lens service
What the trade calls a CLA: clean, lubricate, adjust.
From 110 €Collimation, infinity and centring
When the lens is clean but the image still doesn't add up.
From 60 €Front element polishing
Scratches and damaged coating. Spherical surfaces only.
From 90 €Digital and cine camera bodies
Mechanical work and cleaning. No film, no board-level electronics.
From 55 €Custom-made parts
CAD, filament and resin printing. What isn't made any more.
From 30 €From your shelf to the bench, in four steps
Tell me what's wrong
On WhatsApp, with photos if you can. Or use the estimator and get a price range before the gear leaves your house.
The gear reaches the bench
Drop it off by appointment or send it by courier. The shipping page has how to pack it, what it costs and how to insure it.
A written estimate
In 3 to 7 working days. With the fault found, the bench hours and the price. Valid 30 days. Say no and it comes back untouched.
Repair and return
With a report of what was done and 3 months of warranty covering labour, parts and transport.
Not everything can be fixed, and saying so early is part of the job
Almost every workshop claims to repair everything. Publishing the list of what I won't touch saves you a shipment, and saves me an hour of admin.
- Film cameras. No film shutters, meters, light seals or advance mechanisms. Not my field, and there are workshops that do it very well.
- Board-level electronics in digital bodies. Those boards aren't sold loose and can't be cloned. Charging you to try would be theft.
- Applying a new coating to an element. I can remove a damaged coating and polish the surface, but re-coating needs a vacuum plant. The element ends up clear and uncoated, and that has to be said beforehand.
- Aspherical surfaces. They cannot be polished without destroying their shape. If the scratch is on an aspherical surface, the answer is no.
- Lenses with encrypted firmware from makers who publish nothing. It can be attempted, but that's agreed beforehand.
- Video, binoculars, projectors and drones. Not my field, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
A bench, a microscope and a lot of patience
I'm Santi. I work alone, in Madrid, and only on what I know how to do. I started by fixing my own lenses because the official service centre kept replying that that model is no longer supported — the sentence that sends half of the good glass made in the twentieth century to the bin.
There is little mystery to this and a lot of method: open without breaking, clean with the right solvent, measure what has moved, and return it adjusted and documented. The interesting part is that almost none of it is truly broken — it gets dirty, the grease dries out, and a sixty-year-old cement lets go. And that does get fixed.
What's coming in a few months
I'd rather show you something half-built than announce it as if it already existed. These five are in progress, each with its real status.
Laser engraving and cutting
Machine bought, awaiting delivery
Doublet re-cementing
Chemistry and oven ready · needs the centring machine to verify it
Optical centring machine
In development
Optical test bench
Designed, not built
Rehousing to cine mounts
Under study
What I get asked every week
How much does a full lens service cost?
It depends on two things, and neither is the brand: the focal length and the state of the grease. A 50 mm stored dry costs considerably less than a zoom that has sat unused for thirty years with crystallised lubricant. The estimator gives you the range in a minute, and it's built from real published trade rates.
All prices on this site are shown excluding VAT, and the estimator also shows the figure with 21 % applied so there are no surprises.
Is the estimate free?
If you bring the gear to the workshop, yes: I look at it in front of you and tell you what I see.
If you ship it and then decline the estimate, there's a €25 inspection fee plus return postage. If you accept, those €25 come off the total. That is what it costs to open it, look, and close it again.
How long does it take?
The estimate, 3 to 7 working days from arrival. The repair, 2 to 30 working days depending on the job: cleaning a sensor filter is an afternoon, and polishing a front element is several days because the abrasive is stepped down in stages and each one has to be checked.
There is a priority service for a surcharge, and the lead time is written into the estimate.
Can you get all the dust out?
Nearly all of it, not all. I don't have a laminar-flow cabinet: I work with still air, clean surfaces and the shortest possible open time, but a particle or two may remain on reassembly. I'd rather tell you now than justify it later.
The good news is that internal dust almost never shows in the image. What does show is fungus, haze and a deteriorated front element.
What warranty does the work carry?
Three months from handover, covering labour, parts and transport. That's the minimum set by Spanish Royal Decree 58/1988, and I don't add small print to it. If something I touched fails again inside that period, it comes back to the bench at no cost.
The warranty is transferable: if you sell the lens within the period, it travels with it. The buyer only needs the job reference number.
Do you work on cameras?
On digital and cine bodies, and only on the mechanical and the cleaning: screen hinges, buttons that have stopped responding through dirt, connectors, and bodies that have filled up with dust inside. Also dirt or oil on the sensor's protective filter, which sometimes means opening the body.
I don't work on film cameras, and I don't do board-level electronics either. If that's your fault, you'll know on day one and pay nothing.
I'm outside Spain. Can I send it to you?
Yes, though customs makes it slower and more expensive outside the EU — write to me first and we'll work out whether it's worth it. Inside Spain and the EU it's routine: the shipping page covers packing, cost and insurance.
Got something sitting in a drawer?
Tell me what's wrong with it and I'll tell you whether it can be fixed. If it can't, I'll say that too, and it won't have cost you anything.