A Leslie Wong Blog

Dubrow’s Cafeteria, 515 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY, circa 1983

On my drives from New York City to the Catskills to go fishing on the Beaverkill River, I always took Route 17, because it was a little more interesting.

Off the George Washington Bridge, I’d take Route 4 in New Jersey and then NJ 17 near the Garden State Plaza. Once I crossed back into New York near Suffern, the surroundings started to change from urban to rural.

On Route 17 in Southfields, New York, was The Red Apple Rest. I probably first went by there in the late 70’s. I took this photograph around 1979. The Red Apple Rest closed in 2006.

Josepth Berger at the NY Times wrote about the Red Apple Rest’s location: “What made the Red Apple so essential a summertime port of call was not so much its food as its location. Before the New York State Thruway opened in 1956, the ride up to the mountains along the old Route 17 could take four or five hours and the Red Apple Rest was almost exactly halfway. While there were three or four other pit stops, the Red Apple, watched over by its founder, Reuben Freed, became the place to go.”

I went outside tonight and saw an unusual sight (for Pacific Grove, at this time of year), the waxing gibbous Moon. It’s usually overcast here, but with the Basin Complex fire still raging in Big Sur, the current weather conditions: Smoke.

Nikon D70, Nikkor 300mm f:4.5, 1/45 sec @ f8

Nikon introduced the new D700 SLR, their second digital camera with an FX format CMOS image sensor. The sensor is 23.9 x 36mm, almost the same size as 35mm film camera.

Why do photographers want a 35mm film sized sensor? The lenses on the FX format cameras don’t have the 1.5x crop factor of the DX sensor cameras, so you can spend a lot more money getting wide angle lenses. For example, this AF NIKKOR 14mm f/2.8D ED lens on the D700 is going to be the equivalent of a 21mm lens on a DX format sensor camera.

Priced at $2,999.95 USD, the Nikon D700 is a little more attainable than the Nikon D3 at $4,999.95 USD, I guess.

With all the improvements over a few short years, the Nikon D700 is at least 10 times better than my D70.

Nikon D700 (Nikon USA) press release.

Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan.

I found this photograph by Bernice Abbott (1898-1991) at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery, whose image database was “developed to provide free and open online access to thousands of images from the original and rare holdings of The Library”. You can even order prints.

In the late 80’s, I ate at the last Automat in Manhattan at 42nd and Third and by then it was tired. I like the more advanced technology of Kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) anyway. You don’t have to get up to retrieve your food – kinda like dim sum without people.

5:44 PM PDT

[Added February 27, 2010]: After looking at the 77 page repair manual for this lens, I don’t recommend that you attempt this repair yourself. Lens optical equipment, a wave output analyzer and other specialized tools are used in the repair of this lens. If you attempt this repair yourself, you will likely never get the lens working like new.

I somehow managed to get lucky and was able diagnose the problem with my lens and repair it, with the auto-focusing, manual focusing, manual zoom and auto exposure all working again. You may not be so lucky, read the comments. I am not sure how my repaired lens would compare in resolution and sharpness with a new lens.

[Added April 30, 2009]: If you don’t feel confident doing this repair yourself, I recommend you send your lens to a Nikon Repair facility. Remember, if you are unable to repair it yourself, you will have a paperweight, a lens that might not autofocus or at least a more costly repair if you send it to Nikon.

[Original post]: Our Nikon D70 came with a “kit” lens, the relatively highly regarded AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED.

After a couple of years of non-professional use, the zoom ring suddenly became balky. Sometimes it would get stuck between 24-50mm, occasionally, it would zoom all the way to 70mm. It felt like there was something jamming the zoom mechanism, so I tried blowing Dust-Off in from the front and rear, hoping that would dislodge the offending chaff. That didn’t work.

It didn’t make much sense to me to send in for repair a mostly plastic lens that costs $350 USD new or used on eBay for $175 USD. Besides, I probably wouldn’t buy another 18-70mm lens. The Nikon AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED or the Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED would be my first choices.

I started at the rear of the lens and removed the screws holding the bayonet mount to the lens. The fact that there are a row of electrical contacts made me think that it was likely that the patient wouldn’t survive the surgery.

Under the bayonet ring there was a circular printed circuit board with various flex connectors encircling it. I pried all of the connectors free and unscrewed the rear element.

I eventually stripped the lens to the point where I could see the zoom mechanism and how one of the three screws mounted every 120 degrees around the body of the lens was loose. The nylon foot that it screwed into was now rattling around inside the lens. When it dropped out, I inserted it back into it’s groove and used nail polish on the screw threads to hopefully keep it from vibrating loose again. The lens was assembled with some sort of thread locker on the screw but it still managed to vibrate loose.

As they say in the auto shop manuals, reassembly is the reverse of disassembly. The first time I put it back together, the zoom worked fine, but the camera didn’t auto-focus. After taking the lens apart again, I saw that the focusing prong was connected to the drive mechanism. Another hour later, it was working.

Remember, don’t try this at home.

Since it’s fall, the late afternoon sun now streams in through the windows onto my face. I have to wear my New York Yankees cap like 50 Cent to keep the sun out of my eyes.

I used my Macintrash’s built in camera and Photo Booth to make the piture. I don’t know what’s up with the Warhol effect.