Vivitar 19mm filter thread

For the past 5-6 years my only ultra wide angle lens has been a Vivitar 19mm lens, It's not very fast or sharp and has quite a strong vignette, however it is my only way to get Ultra Wide angle photos.

Anyway as you may be able to tell from the link I have used it for night photography, this means mounting an 80b or 82b filter on it so that there's no need for extreme amounts of colour correction in post which tends to make the photos look awful.


However I dropped it when trying to use it with CineStill in the London Underground and dented the filter thread, this lens would be quite expensive to replace for what it is and they're hard to get hold of and well, if I wanted to upgrade I'd want to sell it.

The guy at the camera repair shop is going to try and fix it but as I tried to bend it back myself I might have permanently damaged the threads.

The filter thread on these lenses remove really easily and the guy at the shop also said there are no spare parts for these, and I can't seem to find any broken ones for sale on eBay, anyway then I had an epiphany, are there any other Vivitar (or any other brand) that use that same part for the front filter thread, any other lens presumably one that I could buy more cheaply?

I have a 90mm Super Angulon that had some dints in the filter ring - I successfully renovated the threads by carefully setting up in a lathe and recutting the threads.

If your camera repair guy can't do anything with it and the front ring detaches, there is hope. Drop me a PM once you know if he can't do anything.

In the meantime, there are three on ebay at the moment depending on how much you want to spend.

Vivitar procured some of their products from 3rd tier manufactures so you might be lucky try google.

Hi,
I read somewhere on the web (youtube?) a simple low-tech repair that I have used successfully. Take a piece of one-inch lumber and drill a hole with diameter equal to the outer diameter of the filter ring (a simple fly-cutter from the hardware store will do this). Then cut the lumber so that you have a cradle encompassing perhaps 120 degrees of the circle. Support the lens with the filter ring in the cradle with the dent at the low point of the cradle. With a small dowel and a hammer gently tap the inside of the filter ring to bring the dent back to where it should be. Work slowly and check progress with a filter so you don't go past the proper point. Good luck.

I bought and used a filter ring dent remover on a 210mm lens. Yes I straightened the lens and managed to scrape up the coating so much that the lens became a painful reminder paper weight until I could no longer stand it and threw it out. Send it to S. K. Grimes to fix the dent. He is a bit pricy but well worth the costs. http://www.skgrimes.com/services