I often get plenty of dust behind the rear element of my Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G lens. While for the most part it does not affect my images, after my last trip to Utah, I ended up with a large dust particle that somehow made it into the lens. Nikon only removes dust from lenses if you pay for the service, because the normal lens warranty does not cover dust removal. I did not feel like waiting for a couple of weeks and paying a hefty sum to get mine cleaned, so I decided to do it myself. In this video, I will show you how to remove dust from the rear element of the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G lens in less than 5 minutes.
WARNING: Opening your lens will void your warranty if Nikon finds out you did it. This video is NOT for beginners. Do not attempt this if you have a couple of small dust specks in your lens. See my “what to do with dust inside lenses” article for more information.
DISCLAIMER: I take ZERO responsibility for any potential damage that you might cause as a result of opening the rear lens element. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Now for the brave souls that decide to do this: the process is actually fairly simple. Start out in a clean, dust-free room. All you need to do is remove three screws from the rear wall of the lens mount, then gently lift the rear lens element and use a rocket blower to remove the dust from it. You can also remove the dust from the next lens element that sits inside the lens. Just zoom out to 24mm so that the element moves down towards the rear, then blow off the dust from it using the same rocket blower. Be very careful during the process and make sure not to touch any lens parts or lens elements from the inside. When using the blower, keep a safe distance, so that you do not accidentally hit anything. Do NOT try to blow off the dust with your breath or canned air – use Giotto’s Rocket Blower instead. When putting the screws back, don’t over-tighten them.
Here is the video with full details:
haha what an adventurous soul! a single element removed! now do the rest of it. the screws are JIS, not phillips so use the right driver. pull the grips up to expose the screws, remove the name plate and front elements then really disassemble the lens and clean the elements. a silly little blower wont remove dust that’s caked onto the lens or grease and grime. isopropyl alcohol and microfibre pads will do it. it’s solid glass, dont worry you cant ruin it unless you try to clean it with sand paper or coat the lenses in lint from a tissue. if you’re really strapped, get a pack of sensor cleaning pads and use them. it will cost an entire dollar for a sealed swab to clean all the elements.
Hi All
I just want to add a little advice for those who have already opened up the rear of a lens and those who are may be reading this article as they have a intention to open up the rear of a lens.
The small lens screws are easy to DAMAGE by stripping the heads when the “correct fit” screw driver is being used.
It is possible that certain screws are tightened better than others or a loctite type compound is being used.
A remedy to overcome the tightness and make the screw easier to undo is quite simple and requires applying a little heat to the screw head in a controlled manner. A soldering iron is ideal for this, for those without access to one, there are 8W USB ones available from the Internet for $5. A small outlay when compared to the frustration caused by a few stripped screw heads.
I write this from personal experience, when attempting to fit a chip to a AIS lens
Hello Nasim,
I see this is an older post but hoped you might still be around to answer a quick query? My daughter’s Fuji FinePix S4000 (*fixed lens) always took sort of “soft” images, which we chalked up to the model. Recently, I had a look at it with a flashlight & there’s a LOT of dust inside the lens? Now, though the camera is a couple of years old, it isn’t used much- she mainly likes to take photos of friends at sleepovers & parties, etc. So, we’re talking about 15- 20 times a year maybe. Not dusty environments by any stretch.
Fuji wants me to pay to ship it in & “wait for a quote”. If there’s a way to open it to flush the dust out, I’m happy to do so myself. I do IT work for a living & have a clean room I use to open hard drives.
Cheers!
Hello nasim,
Thank you for this little tutorial, I presently own a Nikon 28-80 on a dx d3200 n use another marumi 58mm .5x wide convertor….
Although I successfully completed and closing it back agan…success , now clicking fine.
A
I wanted to ask , I got the 28-80 as a used lens , although am never able to get pictures without grain as 3200 doesn’t have a focus funtion inbuilt . Is there n e technique I can use to get lesser grain in pictures.I reside in India, and I am a practicing industrial designer.
Thanks
Hi Nasim, thank you for sharing this video on how to remove dust from the 24-70mm. Could you please tell me if you have tried the same process with the 70-200 2.8 VRII? I wonder what the best way is to clean the rear element of that lens?
Thanks for the video, Nasim.
I received an almost pristine Canon FD 85-300mm f/4.5 lens today, bought on ebay. I paid a paltry $127.50 for it, probably due to the seller describing the presence of noticeable haze on the rear element. I took it out to shoot some bird video with my GH2 and got very nice footage, but couldn’t get the haze issue out of my head…it’s not s’posed to be there and I didn’t want to spend more on getting it cleaned professionally than I paid for the lens itself!
I took apart a couple old, cheap, beat-up prime lenses recently and they worked fine when I was done, so I set out to clean the haze off my lovely “new” zoom. I took picures and video every step of the way, just in case I spaced out a set of screws, the re-positioning of a part or the order of reassembly.
WARNING: When disassembling a lens you will likely need to remove lens elements that usually require a spanning wrench. This will be a test of your nerve and willingness to take the risk for this DIY repair. I’m sure most of us don’t have such tools and don’t intend on buying them…so if you do it carefully enough there should be no issues. Look carefully at what you’re needing to do and TAKE YOUR TIME! Rushing this, especially as a noobie, will probably lead you into a regretable mistake. If you try to tap the piece loose you can momentarily lose control of your tool (probably a straight blade screwdriver) and you could scratch/gouge glass or bugger up the spanning slots. There are usually 2 spanning slots opposing one another, They are there so equal pressure can be applied while turning the threaded element loose/tightening it. This is where creativity/resourcefullness, utmost care and patience will be rewarded Also, not all threaded lens mounts/elements will will be lefty loosey, righty tighty. Just a heads-up there, too.
The haze was in-between a paired element(lens group?) in the middle of this long lens. Disassembly of the lens was a fairly complex process and special care was taken to place all the tiny screws and small parts into a container or onto a magnetic tray, which I heard about after-the-fact.
It required carefully tapping apart these 2 mated pieces of glass with a wooden wedge, cleaning off the haze very thoroughly, cleaning all lens surfaces, holding the 2 glass pieces, inner surface to inner surface, very close together and using canned air to blow all the dust out between the 2 glass elements before aligning them snugly together by taping the edges, and regluing the edges with Python Glue, which is a good glass bonding glue, (but probably isn’t what a lens tech would use)
When the glue fully dried, removed the tape, put the lens back together and looked inside with a bright light. The lens elements, of course, have some dust, but overall are very clean.
It was fun doing it myself and I saved a lot of $$$, but it took a few hours, really…I was being VERY anal, because I really like this metal vintage lens, built to last a few lifetimes and bought for a fraction of the price of one in excellent condition. This one is now also in excellent condition.
I’m curious, Nasim, why didn’t you clean the glass element(s?) you removed from the back of the lens in the video when you had the chance? Yes, you blew off the dust, but after time a thin film of airborne “stuff” is likely to accumulate? Just wondering.
Thanks again.
Larry
Nazim, do you have an instructional on removing dust from the front element? Thanks.
A zillion thanks for the tutorial. I had a little curlicue of dust inside my lens that always showed up on images with a lot of undetailed backgrounds–sky, bare walls, etc–and I had no idea what to do until I came across this video. Five minutes and I was done! Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Hi Nazim
I just purchased a Nikkor prime lens 105mm f/2.5 AI and I can see a dark speck on the rear element inside.
I am trying this out once I find a small enough philip screwdriver!! lol is that a special screwdriver?
1 more question; can I brush it off should the dust particles be stubborn to be removed?
Thanks in advance ;)
Hi Nasim
Great video!
Btw I have a similar dust situation but this time inside the 85mm 1.4 G
Just wondering, will I be able to use some of the step in the video to clean the inside element?
cheers
Alvin