Huge difference between single coated lens vs multicoated?

[RalphLambrecht]

Single coated lenses are better than uncoated lenses and almost as good as multicoated lenses. Just do not aim into light sources and watch for flares.

+1

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

A lens may be thought of as color corrected if it has enough elements to properly focus most of the spectrum in the same plane -- which would also considerably improve sharpness.

The design (and material make-up) of elements is what makes apochromatic lenses, and multicoating further protects against off-axis light from ghosting and diffusion of the focus. It is most certainly not a mythical or marketing spin.

In older times, more elements were included to cancel out faults, thus making lenses bigger and heavier and more costly. Today, many lenses use CaF2 / ultra-low or low-dispersion glass or proprietary glass forumulae in multiple places. We have this technology to be thankful for in the exceptional quality of imaging possible and relatively affordable.

Apo does not necessarily infer solely correction of colour (chroma), but also form (e.g. spherical) — something old lenses do not have.

That's absurd. Achromatisation

What on earth is that word?? It seems its meaning is misplaced here.

 

[MattKing]

The ability of a camera/lens to use color film has, itself, been something of a marketing deal -- If you look at Kodak ads from the 40s and 50s they boast of the ability of their cameras to produce either b/w prints, color prints OR EVEN SLIDES!!!!

There actually may have been some substance to those ads.
During that time, most colour films were quite slow. So a reference to being suitable for colour may very well have been rooted in the fact that the lenses had a relatively large aperture (for the type of camera).
But mainly, it was probably a reference to quality. As colour film processing improved, it had a tendency to reveal poor quality equipment (and technique).

 

[Ian Grant]

Single layer coating and Multi-layer coating are not marketing terms.

Single layer means one 1/4 wavelength layer Magnesium Flouride, with the wavelength usually equivalent to the d line

Multi-layer means, literally, "more than one coating layer" in the optical design industry.

The marketing terms were tied to advances in coating process technology.

See this thread I created discussing AR coatings.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/the-inside-technical-scoop-on-lens-coating-durability.148890/

Well that's what I've been saying all along, the problem is people call Multiple layer coatings "Single coated". But my other point is that prior to what we'd all acknowledge was the major advance in coatings with Zeiss/Pentax Super Multi Coating and similar from other manufacturers there's three distinct types of coatings easily observable.

First - there's the early Carl Zeiss Jena coatings, a very heavy effective coating but has a definite cold blue effect (so would need a correction filter for colour. Seems to be quite hard wearing, earliest lens I've seen was a 1938 CZJ 150mm f4.5 Tessar, my own is from 1953/4 and ahs the same coatings again in excellent condition. I'd add in this catego

Second - the early Kodak (and other US) bloomed lenses, quite soft coating easily cleaned off , I had a n early UK made 203mm f7.7 Ektar in a Kodak Epsilon shutter, this was a bloomed lens, I've other 101/105mm similarly coated, the coating has gone from the from of one Ektar (it came to me like that).

Third - the mid 1950's "Colour" corrected coatings seen on lenses from Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, Voigtlander - who use the term "Color" in their marketing, Color-Skopar Color-Lanthar etc, even CZJ re-naming their Flekton as Pancolar to reflect the improvements in coatings. Dates of improvements will differ between manufacturer but these all appear to be multi layer coatings

Having a 1953/4 CZJ f4.5 150mm Tessar and a slightly later 1956 Linhof Carl Zeiss (Oberkochen) f4.5 Tessar I can tell you that the difference in colour rendering is very noticeable even visually. I've had 3 Kodak 203mm f7.7 Ektar's the first bloomed in an Epsilon shutter was in optically excellent condition but the coatings weren't quite as effective as a slightly later version in a Prontor SVS shutter (both UK made) or a late US version in a Compur #1 (I still have both these). - none have the distinct colour balance of the early CZJ coatings though.

So in answering the OP's question all these coatings are effective compared to uncoated lenses, the later ones more so and give far better colour rendition, for B&W there's no problems with any off them.

Ian

 

[removed account4]

what dan and ian said

+1

yeah, that too
+2

Just make sure that you shade any lens that you use. You don't have to get fancy either. I use a dark slide. Some use their hat.

+1

===

i have mainly uncoated or single coated lf lenses except for 1.
none have ever given me any issue, no flare, no lack of contrast, no problems shooting
chrome or c41 ... the only issue i have ever had is not enough bellows for my 210/370 symmar
to be used on a regular 4x5 camera because it requires more bellows than 370 to focus at infinity ...

there are people that suggest the newest and the most expensive lenses can do backflips over
old tried and true lenses .. this might be true for them, maybe they can see the difference,
but i can't say it is true for me.

have fun with your new lens !
john

 

[Dan Fromm]

In older times, more elements were included to cancel out faults, thus making lenses bigger and heavier and more costly. Today, many lenses use CaF2 / ultra-low or low-dispersion glass or proprietary glass forumulae in multiple places. We have this technology to be thankful for in the exceptional quality of imaging possible and relatively affordable.

What on earth is that word [achromatisation]?? It seems its meaning is misplaced here.

Huh? Are you writing about LF lenses? I ask because there are few LF lenses with fluorite (are there any at all?) or ULD elements. I'm not sure that any LF lenses are still being made. Are any still in production?

Also because I'm finishing up a piece on early anastigmats that quotes one maker as reporting that around the turn of the century (19th to 20th) improvements in optical glass made it possible to reduce element counts from as many as five per cell to three per cell while increasing lens speed, coverage and image quality. The lenses in question were separable double anastigmats, think "improved Dagor."

Achromatisation? Making achromatic. Nearly all LF lenses are achromatic, i.e., corrected for chromatic aberration. Anachromatic lenses have been used to get soft focus effects with black/white film. Interestingly, hyperchromatic lenses -- lenses with enhanced chromatic aberration -- have been sold as soft-focus lenses. The maker, also a patent on the idea, recommended using them with color materials as long as the final print is not going to be viewed too closely.

 

[iamthejeff]

Thanks for the entertaining back and forth, guys!

 

[summicron1]

There actually may have been some substance to those ads.
During that time, most colour films were quite slow. So a reference to being suitable for colour may very well have been rooted in the fact that the lenses had a relatively large aperture (for the type of camera).
But mainly, it was probably a reference to quality. As colour film processing improved, it had a tendency to reveal poor quality equipment (and technique).

some substance, but not much -- My Brownie Starflex had a switch for "color" and "b/w" which, as is indicated on the camera body, are EV 13 and 14 ... and the owners manual shows three types of film -- color print, color slide, b/w -- and boasts it shoots "ALL THREE!"

As I said -- hype. Kodak's original motto was "You push the button and we do the rest" and they still had a business model centered around the average consumer photographer being able to get pictures no matter how stupid they were about photography.

This particular camera has a "Dakon" lens -- whatever that is. Looks plastic. The camera does take decent pictures, though, but I don't see any coatings on it.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Thanks for the entertaining back and forth, guys!

You're welcome. This place is like a Skinner box sometimes.

 

[BrianVS]

I had a 24" F11 Goerz Artar that was an apochromat and was uncoated. Beautiful lens, picked it out of a junk bin. Cleaned up perfectly . I gave it away to a man that was at a festival at Mt Vernon. He was demonstrating a type of camera obscura used to project the image and then draw them, something he explained was used in the 18th century. He was happy to have the lens- I viewed it as a nice way to support a lost art.

As explained to me by an optical engineer: Apochromats have three zero-crossings where light at different wavelengths are in focus; Achromats have two zero-crossings, and Ultra-Achromats or Super-Achromats have four. The engineer also explained that the slope is also very important, achromats with a very slow walk-off will perform better than an apochromat with a steep walk-off. My observation is that an achromat with an IR focus index that is very close to the visible-focus mark has a slow walk-off, such as a 50/2 Summicron that has the IR index very close to the F2 DOF indicator. On Other achromats the IR index can be out to the F8 mark. Not for LF, but the Pentax 85/4.5 Ultra-Achromat is uncoated and produces gorgeous color on my Fujica SLR.

My oldest coated lens is from 1936- a 5cm F1.5 Sonnar, all surfaces are hard coated. Uncoated optics reflect "about" 4% of the light for each air/glass surface, coated optics about 1%, and multi-coated optics- somewhere around 0.2%~0.4%. I've noticed that the natural bloom that's formed on my 80 year old Sonnars puts them close in performance to the coated Sonnars. Natural bloom is what prompted the research into coated optics. Multi-coated optics reduce veiling flare to "effective Zero". Some films, and definitely digital, do better with some veiling flare to get them above a threshold of sensitivity.

 

[Nodda Duma]

BrianVS that stuff is all correct.