Non SMC lenses

blakemordala · Jun 3, 2008

Hi guys,
Im looking zoom lenses that will give as much flaring as possible. Need everything from 28mm to 300mm. Any mount.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Blake

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Jun 3, 2008

Get the oldest, cheapest ones you can find on eBay, especially from people who say "I am not a photographer, just selling equipment from a retired gentleman" and cultivate brands that look as if they come from Mars.

Avoid all Vivitar, Nikon, Pentax, Canon, Olympus, Sigma, Tamron, or any other recognizable brand that is still in business.

blakemordala · Jun 3, 2008

all right. how bout Optomax, might that be awful enough?

Am I making a wrongful observation here. Can you tell weather a lens is coated if it has purple/bluish reflections when you look at the glass??

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Jun 3, 2008

blakemordala said:
all right. how bout Optomax, might that be awful enough?

Am I making a wrongful observation here. Can you tell weather a lens is coated if it has purple/bluish reflections when you look at the glass??

Sounds like a real charm! Coatings give usually golden, magenta, bluish, or even green reflections.

blakemordala · Jun 3, 2008

and non coated look more neutral, no color in the glass, maybe a little yellowish.. right?

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Jun 3, 2008

blakemordala said:
and non coated look more neutral, no color in the glass, maybe a little yellowish.. right?

If it's yellowish, it's usually single-coated, but that's just a rule of thumb. My non-coated lenses don't have any coloured reflections.

But I don't think a single-coated old zoom would be much different from an uncoated one (if they exist!) in terms of flare. Other factors beside coating influence flare, namely the amount of light reflected by the insides of the lens barrel, the type of glass employed, etc.

removed account4 · Jun 3, 2008

can you harvest the lens off of a junk folder
mate it a barrel/mount so you can screw it in and out to focus.
single element non coated glass ..

it'll only have 1 fstop (you'll have to measure and divide to figure it out).

have fun
john

Wishy · Jun 3, 2008

What format do you want to shoot and is there any specific mount you need?

df cardwell · Jun 3, 2008

and, just for the heck of it, what is the effect you want ? flare is a pretty general term that can mean a lot of different things

el wacho · Jun 3, 2008

if you specifically want to induce flare, multi coating doesn't stand a chance with a direct blast of a point source light and a long exosure. i've seen it on my zeiss hft-coated 50mm for my sl66.

blakemordala · Jun 4, 2008

Im actually using these lenses to shoot films through a 35mm DOF adapter so any mount will do. I’m trying to get flares close to what you see in films like “Die hard”(clearly the best example because they’re almost in every frame). I’m shooting with 2.35:1 anamorphic and wanna achieve very noticeable oval flares. A horizontal streak of light to would also be perfect, but that only occurs in anamorphic elements as far as I know.

df cardwell · Jun 4, 2008

It seems that your anamorphic adapter would elongate any circular highlight into an horizontal ellipse.
Also, stacking up an objective lens on your anamorphic and DOF adptrs will create that ambient flare
(looks like pre-exposed shadows) ... naturally.

First gen Nikkors is where I'd look. Plentiful, well built, and hardly expensive anymore.

Some first rate Nikkors (non-ai, non sc) of days gone by would be very good for your project - 24/2.8; 50/1.4

35/1.4S - wide open, good base image but coma.
43-86 - lots of elements, a very good lens from 'back in the day'.

Good luck. Pre 1970 lenses from Minolta, Konica, or Pentax will be similar in results.

blakemordala · Jun 4, 2008

Yes a spherical flare will automatically become elongated in post. the anamorphic streak can only be obtained if the anamorphic adapter itself is poorly coated I think.
I’m in the middle of trying to educate myself on 35mm optics. Have always shot in anamorphic scope, but straight on to dv.
What is non-ai? And non-sc? Super Coated?..
the more elements in the lens the more surfaces to create flaring right? So what are the pros of many elements? What are the cons of few elements?

Ps. Thanks to everybody answering my questions

df cardwell · Jun 4, 2008

More elements, more air glass surfaces.
More surfaces, less transmission, more reflectance.
This is 'flare', and it creates the the softer blacks you see.
It is like adding 1 or 2 exposure units to the film: the effect is more noticeable in the dark areas, hardly noticeable in the midtones. Classic cine lenses, like a pre WW2 Speed Panchro (similar in design to most current 35 mm fast lenses) made very soft shadows because of the flare. After the war, when coating was no longer a military secret, lenses with several air glass surfaces became a viable product. Zoom lenses have many more air-glass surfaces, and until multi layer coating were always soft in their tonality.

Today's objectives are very close to perfect, which is why 'cult lenses' are still coveted by some. On the other hand, you can shoot things with a Zeiss prime that defies imagination in a 1940 cine context/

Lens terms: this is a good resource for Nikon lore,
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/

Like all things, if you have access to a rental house, or a prop camera shop, you'll be able to test this stuff and see for yourself.

Sounds like fun.

d

mabman · Jun 8, 2008

blakemordala said:
Im actually using these lenses to shoot films through a 35mm DOF adapter so any mount will do. Im trying to get flares close to what you see in films like Die hard(clearly the best example because theyre almost in every frame). Im shooting with 2.35:1 anamorphic and wanna achieve very noticeable oval flares. A horizontal streak of light to would also be perfect, but that only occurs in anamorphic elements as far as I know.

A thought occurred as I was taking my FED-2 out for a walk today - if you can use truly *any* mount, I think one of the cheapest and most plentiful sources of non-to-single-coated lenses are the early Soviet-era copies of German lenses - I'm thinking specifically of the FED-50/Industar-22/Industar-50, which are all pretty much the same lens (50mm). They are collapsible lenses, clones of the Elmar collapsible lens, although I believe the I-50 is also available in a rigid body in LTM. Looking at my FED-50 today, there is a very slight yellow colour, so I'm assuming mine is single-coated.

I also just picked up a (rigid) version of the I-50 in M42 mount, which makes it a pancake lens, but I don't have it handy to see what coating it's got.

These lenses are going quite cheaply on eBay and elsewhere - might be a place to start.

blakemordala · Jun 17, 2008

the russian Industar/FED lenses all have fairly short focal lenghts as far as I can see. I need lenses all the way up to 300mm.
Getting non or single coated lenses is proving to be harder than I thought. Got ahold of a very flary Optomax zoom but the focus was damaged.
Heres maybe a 3 stooges like thought, but might it be possible to chemically rub off a coating?
Otherwise any other lens suggestions?
thanks
Blake

Paul Howell · Jun 17, 2008

blakemordala said:
the russian Industar/FED lenses all have fairly short focal lenghts as far as I can see. I need lenses all the way up to 300mm.
Getting non or single coated lenses is proving to be harder than I thought. Got ahold of a very flary Optomax zoom but the focus was damaged.
Heres maybe a 3 stooges like thought, but might it be possible to chemically rub off a coating?
Otherwise any other lens suggestions?
thanks
Blake

Try a solvent like acatone, or even gasoline.

blakemordala · Jun 17, 2008

acatone didnt do the trick.

any other lens suggestions maybe?

Harrigan · Jun 17, 2008

Acetone will not remove lens coatings. Many folks use acetone to clean coated lenses. You might have to literally polish the lens to get the coating off.

I suggest using old single coated crappy quality super wide lenses if you want lens flare. I have a vivitar 21mm f3.8 that flares readily but also one that does not and is incredibly flare free. I have a soligor 21mm f3.8 that is also horrid and a Vivitar 20mm f3.8 that flares really bad. Lastly a vivtar 17mm that produces the worst flare I have ever seen in any lens I have ever used.

Anscojohn · Jun 17, 2008

blakemordala said:
all right. how bout Optomax, might that be awful enough?

Am I making a wrongful observation here. Can you tell weather a lens is coated if it has purple/bluish reflections when you look at the glass??

******
I do not think there are any zoom lenses which are not coated. Lens coating antedated commercial zoom lenses on the market for quite some time. I may be wrong.

Paul Howell · Jun 18, 2008

blakemordala said:
acatone didnt do the trick.

any other lens suggestions maybe?

Try paint stripper, you could try it on a small sheet of glass to make sure it does not etch the glass.

mabman · Jun 18, 2008

blakemordala said:
the russian Industar/FED lenses all have fairly short focal lenghts as far as I can see. I need lenses all the way up to 300mm.
Getting non or single coated lenses is proving to be harder than I thought. Got ahold of a very flary Optomax zoom but the focus was damaged.
Heres maybe a 3 stooges like thought, but might it be possible to chemically rub off a coating?
Otherwise any other lens suggestions?
thanks
Blake

My only other suggestion would be an Industar/FED attached to a teleconverter - a quick search shows there are a couple for LTM, or you can try the M42 Industar-50 with either an M42 teleconverter or with an adapter on a K-mount converter. This would get you up to 100mm with a 2x version - not quite the 300mm you are looking for, but better than nothing.

Not sure how well this would work, though - I think all/most teleconverters are multi-coated themselves - not sure how that affects flare generated by the lens attached to it. Also, there's usually a loss of image quality involved...

The chemical stripping idea might work, although most modern lens coatings are usually designed to be pretty hard and damage-resistant.

blakemordala · Jun 21, 2008

allright. I do have an old crappy optomax single coated zoom. I polished the front with abrasive polishing cream for 4 hours and the coating was removed! I then spend the next day taking it apart and polishing all the other elements. it did leave tiny tiny scratches, but its not visible in the results....now this lens has a defect focus so it wont do, but it is possible. I do however believe that its only possible with old crappy coating, so im still looking for old single/crappy coated lenses....any suggestions?

Non SMC lenses

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