David.WE.Roberts wrote:
Black paint is suggested, but I am struggling to work out how you would
get light through that unless it is a very shallow film, and so more like
a sunglass tint.

The way you'd use black paint is use it to fill in the scratch only.
This would stop any reflections inside the scratch, so making it less
obvious with a backlit scene, but may show up as a black line on all
pictures, depending on how much depth of field the lens/ sensor system
has and how wide the scratch is. The brighter it is and the wider the
scratch, the more likely it is to show up looking almost like a hair in
the gate of an old movie camera. A very narrow black line will not have
any noticeable effect on the amount of light gathered by the lens, and
may not be noticeable if it is out of focus enough, such as when you are
shooting indoors with the lens wide open.

You apply it by painting the thinnest stripe you can along the scratch
with about 75% thinners and 25% paint, and then removing all the excess
with neat thinners on a soft cloth before it has chance to dry hard.
This will give a black line the exact size and shape of the scratch.
It's a similar process to the one I've used in the past (Admittedly with
silver paint) to apply very thin window frames to model vehicle windows.

The article was talking about etching by a fungus, which is probably much
more shallow.

As this is presumably a sacrificial item (much like the neutral filter
used to protect an SLR lens) I was hoping that replacing it would be
straightforward and not too expensive.

Have you spoken to the repair agents or Panasonic? If you can find a
non-Panasonic repair shop, then they may not be tied to just fitting
whatever the smallest part combination supplied by Panasonic is, which,
knowing Panasonic, is probably the complete lens assembly, possibly
attached to the sensor.

Perhaps having it re-bloomed would be enough?

If the glass is scratched (assuming it *is* glass), then no. If the
scratch is only affecting the coating, then yes.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.