Now how did that fit in?

This morning I prepared my pog website update for Sunday.

Then I started reading the OM10 manual and cleaned the camera. When I took the lens off to clean it, there was a big bit of black stuff inside it (like a small flake of paint or plastic that had peeled off. So I started to take the lens apart to clean it.

After lunch I carried on with my lens cleansing operation, but realized that actually the dirt appeared to be nearer the front of the lens than the back (which is what I was dismantling). Looking carefully at the front of the lens, I saw two small slots that looked like you were meant to put tweezers in them to be able to unscrew the front.

After doing some googling, it did appear that the front of the lens could be unscrewed. However, when I picked up the lens I noticed an aperture blade was now loose inside the lens. Oh dear...

After a bit I managed to get the front of the lens open and take all the aperture blades out, then fit them, and put the different bits together again. Putting each bit together again too me ages as I always couldn't remember how bits fitted together.

Pretty sure the aperture's not meant to look like that

Dismantled lens

Putting the aperture back together

By the end of the afternoon, I had managed to successfully put the lens back together again. There were a couple of issues though. One was that the DOF preview button would stay stuck down (and the aperture stay closed) when the rear of the lens was screwed on tightly.

The other issue was that a couple of bits had fallen out of the lens while I was taking it apart. They were used for the aperture click stops, so I thought Never mind, I'll get a stepless aperture lens as a bonus. But when the lens was mounted on the camera, the aperture would always drift to f/16.

So I had to undo the lens again, put the aperture click bits back (very fiddly), then put the lens back together again. At least if I want a stepless aperture 50mm lens in the future I know how to get one.

In the evening I watched An Idiot Abroad, David Roberts, and did an Island lap with Mauser and Bo.