lens flare?

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

Hi

these were shot with a 1952 Leica Elmar 5cm f3.5 lens, is this lens flare? Or a dog of a lens? My Summaron and 9cm Elmar on same camera (a leica III) do not do this. One foto is with hood and one without, the sun was behind me and it was overcast....

I am sure it is obvious..but the flare if that is what it is, is always in the same place, the centre of the image...

E. von Hoegh · Sep 17, 2014

How badly hazed is that lens?? N.B., haze can be hard to spot. And any haze will have an effect.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

Its not too hazy, certainly not as hazy as my Elmar 9cm, which is actually a beautiful lens and shows no obvious flaring from haze, nonetheless.....

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

PS I have shone the torch thing through it...

E. von Hoegh · Sep 17, 2014

Anton Lukoszevieze said:
Its not too hazy, certainly not as hazy as my Elmar 9cm, which is actually a beautiful lens and shows no obvious flaring from haze, nonetheless.....

Haze will have different effects depending on which surface(s) is/are hazed. I really can't tell you anything else without seeing the lens, of course, but cleaning it is the first step I'd take.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

Thank you, I thought it might be the shutter curtain leaking, but i checked one roll of film with 3 different lenses and the 5cm is only one with these light 'balls'....

georg16nik · Sep 17, 2014

With shorter lenses, holes in shutter curtains might be more apparent.. depends on if its the rubber or the cloth part.
Inspect your curtains in dark with pin light.
Besides the 9cm Elmar, what were the other lenses you tried?

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

35mm Summaron f3.5 coated from 50's, very nice lens, had no problems with it at all, maybe it is the 5cm focal length that is causing it? weird...

Hatchetman · Sep 17, 2014

Does not look like typical lens flare.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 17, 2014

thats what I thought, either the shutter curtain has gone thread bare at the centre? or the lens is defective? but as said, other lenses work ok, unless the 5cm focal length shows it up somehow...

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 18, 2014

solved...ish

Tested the 5cm lens on another ltm body, no light ball, so it must be the shutter curtain, but only the 5cm lens shows it, not 35 or 90mm,
which is strange...i am sure there is a scientific reason....

Xmas · Sep 18, 2014

Hi

The center spot is characteristic...

The single coated or uncoated triplets need a deep lens hood...

Noel

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 18, 2014

Thanks Noel, but the different Leica body I tried had no flare/light....

Xmas · Sep 18, 2014

Hi Anton

I accept that but if you like the single coated signature, you will still need a lens hood to contain excessive flare.

You can make a trial push on one out of paper mach and black paint.

Most thin lens triplets have a plane surface which will cause problems without a hood.

Noel

jochen · Sep 19, 2014

Hello,
did you check whether you have a burnt-in hole in the curtain? Check it in the darkness with a Maglite light-tight held onto the flange.

Anton Lukoszevieze · Sep 19, 2014

lens

Hello Jochen, my camera is Leica III, i did shine a torch in the dark through lens flange, no sign of light. at back with base off....I just shot a whole roll yesterday in bright sunshine with 90mm lens and negs are perfect, no leaks/marks whatsoever. I am beginning to think Noel may be correct about lens hood, though...maybe the 50mm elmar (coated) is very flarey indeed.....i did try with fison hood on it also...

Xmas · Sep 19, 2014

HiAnton

It needs the FISON.
It will can misbehave if the sun gets to the front surface with the FISON.
Even multi coated lenses can misbehave.
I prefer the single coated signature.
Lots of people bought the SC Cosina Voiglander 35 and 40 mm /1.4 lenses.
Sometimes gbag two sets of lenses...

Noel

jochen · Sep 19, 2014

Hello,
excuse me please, I forgot that the rear side of a Screw Leica cannot be opened, with my thoughts I was with my M 3.

georg16nik · Sep 19, 2014

Anton Lukoszevieze said:
Hello Jochen, my camera is Leica III, i did shine a torch in the dark through lens flange, no sign of light. at back with base off....I just shot a whole roll yesterday in bright sunshine with 90mm lens and negs are perfect, no leaks/marks whatsoever. I am beginning to think Noel may be correct about lens hood, though...maybe the 50mm elmar (coated) is very flarey indeed.....i did try with fison hood on it also...

Just taking the base off won't do it. The pressure plate covers the gate completely.
You are better take it to a qualified person in case you can't walk the walk.

250swb · Sep 20, 2014

Before panicking and taking it for an overhaul do a simple test to determine if it really is a leaking shutter curtain. Load film, fire off a blank frame, take the lens off and leave the camera in daylight for 30 seconds. Cock the shutter and again leave the camera without lens in daylight for 30 seconds. So you have two blank frames with the shutter un-cocked and cocked. There may be some mild leakage around the edges, but when you develop the film look for your round halo in the centre, if it's there you have a shutter curtain leak.

Myself I think it is more like haze in the lens, exaggerated by maybe using a small f stop so the haze itself comes into focus, and while you should definitely use a lens hood it looks far too uniform for conventional flare.

Steve

Hatchetman · Sep 20, 2014

I agree that if it is the lens, there must be something wrong with it. I use an uncoated 1939 Summitar, granted a different lens design, but I've never had flare that bad even in the most extreme conditions. Not even close.

Xmas · Sep 20, 2014

Beg to disagree

a) does not look like bad flare to me I've had much worse.

b) flare is dependent on brightness of flare source and darkness of subject

street scean in open shade shot from other side of street, sun light into optic no picture at all, is not untypical

A filter won't help & some triplets have two plane air to glass surfaces. (A summitar only has deep curves.)

I use a uV cause of overly friendly sea gulls...

Much worse with dcams with reflective sensor... note I don't have one but chimping over owners shoulder...

Arklatexian · Sep 20, 2014

While I am not a lens expert, I do read references to the Elmar as a "triplet". I have always been of the opinion that a 50mm, f:3.5 Elmar like similar Kodak Ektars and Tessars were all four element lenses. Is this not correct. That "ar" ending always seemed to point to this.....Regards!

Xmas · Sep 20, 2014

oldtimermetoo said:
While I am not a lens expert, I do read references to the Elmar as a "triplet". I have always been of the opinion that a 50mm, f:3.5 Elmar like similar Kodak Ektars and Tessars were all four element lenses. Is this not correct. That "ar" ending always seemed to point to this.....Regards!

You are correct but we are addressing flare herein.

The Elmars, Tessars and Heliars are normally thin lens triplets some may have four or five (eg Heliers) elements in cemented pairs. But the flare arises in the main from air to glass surfaces. ie six in a triplet.

But independent of the flare they are still considered as triplets as you have detected. This to distinguish from the double Gaussian style 4 group lens Planar, Summicron, etc. Which are typically 6 element lenses.

Pretty normal for two of the inner surfaces to be plane which surfaces can lead to larger hot spots.

The Sonnar (&clone) triplets were thick lens triplets with various combinations of cemented elements,

Multi coating has muddied some of these 'rules', Zoom lenses - eugh. Some zooms are triplet derived but have groups and elements beyond number.

The really worrying news is if you get an optimum match of refractive index and dispersion in the glass catalogue the four element triplet is not much better then the three element triplet, the simpler lens would be cheaper.

This is simplified to I hope help you.

250swb · Sep 20, 2014

Xmas said:
This is simplified to I hope help you.

And yet Erwin Puts describes the un-coated and coated versions of the Elmar as being very flare resistant, indeed the coating makes no real difference at all. Now I'm not going to disagree with him, but it seems to me that banging on about flare before the other possibilities have been eliminated is likely to veil the truth. And particularly as it is so uniformly central in the image and seemingly independent of the type of light that does induce flare. It is in other words a fixed phenomenon most likely caused by a mechanical or optical fault, rather than an intrinsic design characteristic of the lens.

Steve

lens flare?

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