When TLS receives any lens either for service or rehousing, it will undergo a brief assessment to record the condition of the lens as it arrived. This allows TLS to have a record of the lens condition on arrival, while allowing a chance to feedback to the customer, any serious defects we feel they should know about. We’re aware that sometimes a lens is purchased and shipped directly to us, without the client seeing it first. Therefore, they are relying on our judgement and expertise to determine if the lens is acceptable. We are also able to offer a more detailed, written assessment for a fee. This is especially useful when we are required to act as an intermediary between seller and buyer.

Lens Service initial assessment

If you’re sending your lens into TLS for a service, the brief assessment will show on the quote that you receive. Therefore, you will be able to see the condition of the lens as it arrived at TLS as well as any faults that we’ve detected. If we’re able to rectify the faults, you’ll see these as options within the quote. Generally, the assessment will include notes on the condition of front element; rear element; mechanical operation; image; internal condition; iris blades; external condition; damaged/missing parts; servo (if applicable). This assessment will only include anything that is obvious to see from the externals of the lens without any disassembly. For more details, please request a written assessment to be performed (additional fee will be applied).

Rehousing initial assessment

When TLS receives your lenses for rehousing, a similar assessment is done. However, you will not find this listed on the quote you receive. This is to prevent the quote becoming too ‘busy’ and difficult to understand. Therefore, when the assessments are done, the technician will highlight any faults/defects they feel should be fed back to the customer. The office team will then transfer these notes into the email that is sent through with the official quote attached. If there is any additional work recommended (such as edge-blacking, de-yellowing or splitting and re-cementing a doublet) this will be added to the quote at this stage.

As this brief assessment is done without disassembling the lens, it’s not always possible to tell the internal condition of the original metalwork around the optical cell(s). Therefore, on rare occasions we may need to re-quote once the work begins. If the lens has been modified previously, this can cause complications with our rehousing process. In this case, we will always feedback to the customer and let them know the options available, as well as any additional charges that may be required.

As we are rehousing more lenses with added optics now (such as the Canon Rangefinder-X series and the Canon FD-X series), we would urge you to check the quote is correct and the lenses have been assigned to the right place. While we do our best with communication, sometimes mistakes or assumptions can be made. As an example, we’ll look at the 18mm FD-X. If you’re to send in a set of Canon FD lenses with two 24mm’s, one to be made into an 18mm FD-X with the Angenieux wide angle adaptor, we need to know which 24mm is to be used for this lens. We’d also advise checking the quote to make sure that you’ve not been quoted for just two 24mm’s if your intentions haven't been clearly communicated to the office team. If you’ve sent two examples of one lens, we’re also able to offer our advice as to which one would be best to rehouse.

The initial assessment for rehousing is included in the price of the rehousing. However, if you send in multiples of each focal length, there will be an additional charge for assessing lenses that we do not rehouse and return to the customer unworked. Assessing the lenses, even briefly, can take a considerable amount of time from a skilled technician. Therefore, we’re unable to offer free assessments for every lens that is sent into us.

Our assessments, although brief, are carried out by skilled technicians with years of experience working with lenses. We also use critical conditions to check the lenses. This includes using bright desk lamps, projection and collimation alongside x4 magnification to detect imperfections. This can lead to an assessment showing up defects that you’ve never noticed before. Initially it may be a surprise to see that your lens had so many scratches/blemishes or other defects noted. However, please be aware we’re working mainly with vintage lenses, none of which will be in perfect ‘mint’ condition. This is important as some are put off when reading our assessments and feel they need to search for a better example of the lens, even though it is typical of the conditions we’re used to. As a reaction to this, TLS have started to state if the lenses are in typical condition or if we feel a replacement needs to be sourced.

With the assessment complete and our recommendations given, we aim for you to be satisfied with the service you’ve received. If you’d like to discuss the assessment process further, please get in touch with us at sales@truelens.co.uk or calling our office on +44 (0)1455 848411.