Single-coated filters best for Single-coated lenses?

chip j

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I think MC filters would interfere w/the single-coated "look" in B&W.
 

Kodachromeguy

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Well, maybe. Are you asking what type of filters to buy? The purpose of a coating on any optical surface is to reduce flare and light scattering when there are bright sources of light (like the sun or reflections) hitting the surface. If you consider the single-coated look to mean lack of contrast and various flare items, then using a single-coated filter may increase this effect. Much of the "single-coated" look you see may be a characteristic of the lens you are using. I often use old Leitz Series VI filters, and I think they are not coated at all, just glass. Maybe they have a single coating, but I can't see it. But I always use a hood and seldom see any flare. If you are buying new filters, most are probably multi-coated now. But there are thousands of perfectly good used filters available used, so I suggest you buy used top brands, like B+W, Heliopan, Nikon, Leitz, Canon, Olympus, or Minolta.
 

Arklatexian

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+1
 
OP
OP

chip j

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Yes, I have LOTS of single-coated Nikon, Hoya, Vivitar etc,etc. I just wondered about the "theory" of it. Thanks
 

Nodda Duma

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Yes, I have LOTS of single-coated Nikon, Hoya, Vivitar etc,etc. I just wondered about the "theory" of it. Thanks

Theoretically (and with decades of hands-on work to back it up), you'll be better off with a multi-coated filter regardless of what coatings are (or aren't) on the camera optics.

The reason has to do with spectral transmission theory, which is hard to talk about when I'm single-finger typing on an iphone at 2am. So I hope you don't mind if I boil the discussion down to "trust me, I'm a lens designer."
 

TheRook

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What do you mean by "single-coated look"?
I use uncoated, single-coated and multi-coated lenses, and I've never noticed a distinctive look associated with any category of coating. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but rather that is not so obvious if it does in fact exist.
 

RalphLambrecht

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makes sense to me.
 

Ian Grant

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I think MC filters would interfere w/the single-coated "look" in B&W.

And just what is the - single coated "look" in B&W - for starters coated lenses (pre-Multi-coating) often have more than one coating layer. Ever since I bought a Pentax Spotmatic F in Jan 1975 I used Multi coated lenses, one or two were extremely poorly coated a 28mm f2.8 Hoya WA was the worst , Hoya scrapped the complete lens range and went back to the drawing board and replaced them with an entirely new range of Tokina lenses. The issue was they hadn't Multi-coating every air/glass surface to keep cost down.

These days I shoot mostly large format and some MF with my TLRs with a mixture of coated and multi-coated lenses, it's impossible to see a difference in finished exhibition prints, I have shot for a while with an uncoated Tessar and that does have a different feel/look, but my uncoated Dagor doesn't, it's all down to the number of internal air/glass surfaces 4 with a Tessar, 2 with a Dagor.

A Multi coated filter won;t have any detrimental affect to the look/feel of any lens, uncoated, coated, or Multi-coated, nor can it improve or affect the contrast of an uncoated lens. An uncoated lens will normally have little to no significant effect on contrast etc with a coated or Multi-coated lens, it may increase flare in extreme lighting conditions but.

While in theory a Multi Coated filter is the best option in real life practice uncoated or coated filters are used with no detrimental affects, Lee colour correction filter gels for instance, or Wratten gel filters are and always have been key tools for professional photographers and cine cameramen, they are uncoated. Likewise similar gel filters are used in printing MG paper.

Ian
 

blockend

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One of my favourite lenses is a Soviet Jupiter 12 35mm 2.8 Biogon design. It renders beautifully, but its one failing is it flares towards the sun like no other lens I've known. Apparently, they all do that sir, and some people seek them out for this quality. I've wondered whether I could tame the propensity to flare just a little with a high quality multi-coated filter, but suspect internal reflections are the culprit, and the huge beady-eye rear element. However I may try it with a polarising filter as this will at least direct light in one plane. More difficult to experiment with on a rangefinder than an SLR where the results can be seen through the viewfinder.
 

E. von Hoegh

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I have the same results with mine, made at Arsenal in 1961. I think it has to do with the cemented pair behind the aperture which presents a flat or nearly so surface towards the aperture. Otherwise I like it very much. A shade helps but does not solve the problem, a multicoated filter makes no difference at all. My best result so far has been attaching a 3:2 mask to the front of the hood, thus eliminating all light save for that which forms the image. But, the hood attaches to the aperture ring, and everything turns when adjusting focus so it is a HPITA to adjust, and if the sun is in the frame you still get aperture shaped ghosts. Otherwise the lens is lovely, I can work around the flare issues.
I had the opportunity to use a prewar Zeiss original many years ago, it did the same thing.
I don't have a 40.5mm polariser, it would be interesting to try.
 

AgX

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A polarizing filter will not reduce lens flare.
(Unless there is not already polarized light causing the flaring as point light reflected by a polarizing surface.)

A polarizer filter does not "direct light in one plane".
(It sorts-out light not in one certain plane, which is a fundamental difference.)
 

benveniste

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A single coated filter will have slightly different transmission characteristics than a multi-coated filter, but in any sort of head-to-head test I don't it would interfere with the "look" in black and white. In my opinion, the "look" of a single-coated lens comes from the simple optical designs imposed by the need to limit the number of air-glass surfaces. To use a classic example, there's a noticeable difference in look between a Sonnar design 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor with 6 air-glass surfaces and a Gauss design 105mm f/2.5 with 8, but I've been unable to discern a difference in look between single-coated and multi-coated copies of the Gauss.
 

E. von Hoegh

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I think MC filters would interfere w/the single-coated "look" in B&W.
No.
A multicoated filter will introduce fewer artifacts than a single coated filter, and far fewer artifacts than an uncoated filter. In using uncoated lenses I've found that a MC filter is even more important, due to the higher reflectance of the front surface.
An efficient lens hood will make more difference than the filter type, even with MC lenses used with MC filters.
 

blockend

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but I've been unable to discern a difference in look between single-coated and multi-coated copies of the Gauss.
Looking through my tests on Yashica single and multi-coated lenses this week, I agree. Putting 28, 35, and various 50mm lenses head to head the differences were negligible to non-existent. If anything I preferred the single-coated DSB's, but even that was hair splitting.

Both are "modern" designs with aberrations eliminated to 1970s standards. Lenses that can deal with any direct highlights are the preserve of computer designed, multi surface coatings. Such renderings are often called sterile, but that depends on the subject.
 

Ian Grant

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Define the "single coated look". I'm using coated lenses like Super Angulons which you can't call a simple design, I have 5 of them none are Multi coated, as well as a post WWII coated Angulon, I use them alongside my Multi coated lenses and you really can't see any differences in finished prints.

Now a lot will depend on the quality and type of the coating, it's excellent on my post WWII Schneider large format lenses. I use a 1953/4 CZJ T (coated) 150mm f4.5 Tessar it's coating is excellent and it doesn't flare in conditions where my Canon SLR zoom lenses are useless. Probably the poorest coatings are the Kodak and other US lumenised lenses, I had an early 207mm f7.7 Ektar (Epsilon shutter) and the coatings were nowhere near as effective compared to a slightly later version I now use which is in a Prontor SVS shutter, or a very late US version in a Compur #1 shutter. The coatings on my Ilex Paragon lens are similar to the early Ektar, they are far less effective than my T coated Tessar or Schneider lenses.

You will notice I don't use the term Single coated this because most coated lenses have 2 or more coating layers.

Ian
 

AgX

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No.
A multicoated filter will introduce fewer artifacts than a single coated filter, and far fewer artifacts than an uncoated filter.
No.
Only the degree of reflection is different, not any number of artifacts.
 

benveniste

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Actually, I would and do call the Super Angulons simple designs since none have more than 4 element groups.

You will notice I don't use the term Single coated this because most coated lenses have 2 or more coating layers.

Single coating refers to a single layer of coating on the air-glass surface, so your Super Angulons would have 8 coating layers. A BBAR coating typically consists of 4 to 7 layers of different substances. But as long as we're talking about the same thing I can adapt nomenclature.
 

Nodda Duma

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No.
Only the degree of reflection is different, not any number of artifacts.

I think he implied the statistical sense.

Better coatings reduce veiling glare for a given design. Google veiling glare for the formal definition and how it's tested
 

Ian Grant

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Carl Zeiss Jena introduced multiple layer coating very early on and a great many lenses were coated with Multiple coatings years before Pentax and Zeiss (West Germany) introduced Super Multi Coating, so the term Single coating cannot be applied to cover every coated lens prior to SMC. I had a 150mm Sironar and to all intents and purposes it was Multi-coated destite the term not being used when it was made.

Ian
 

AgX

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I think he implied the statistical sense.
Better coatings reduce veiling glare for a given design. Google veiling glare for the formal definition and how it's tested

By reducing the degree of reflection, in case of "ghost" images, the very image can become that dim, that it is no longer effective on the emulsion or the human eye. If "number of artifacts" refers to number of ghost images, then such number may be reduced indeed.
 

Nodda Duma

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Veiling glare is a separate and independent artifact from ghost images, partially addressed in the design the same as ghost images but requires additional methods.

Both can be a problem when something out in object space is much brighter than the metered portion of the scene.

Anyways, that's kind of a footnote for the thread. Best approach is use a lens hood and good coatings.
 

E. von Hoegh

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Sorry to quote myself, but...
 

Ian Grant

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An efficient lens hood will make more difference than the filter type, even with MC lenses used with MC filters.

That depends on how well the lens is coated. When I had my Hoya multi-coated f2.8 28mm lens I had to do you're trick and make a 3x2 mask to fit the front of a lens hood, that helped cut the flare enormously, I've never seen a MC lens that flared so easily.

I've been shooting today with my CZJ T (coated) 58mm f2 Biotar from about 1954 and the lens coating is very good, I don't use a lens hood but the front element is reasonably well recessed unlike say a 55mm f2 of f1.8 Super Takumar.

I'd clarify my earlier comments about coatings, you see a step change in German coatings (East & West) also with in the 1950's where a balance of coatings improves colour rendition, so the coatings on my 150mm f4.5 Carl Zeiss (Linhof) Tessar are a vast improvement in terms of not introducing a colour cast, you see the same with the change of coatings in East Germany when the CZJ 50mm f2 Flekton becomes the Pancolar same lens just new and improved coatins. Other examples are the Color Skopars and there's a definite shift again in terms of colour fidelity betwteen my early f8 65mm Super Angulon and my f5.6 & f8 75mm, 5.6 90mm and f8 165mm Super Angulons.

Ian
 

Neil Grant

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I think MC filters would interfere w/the single-coated "look" in B&W.
...nota at all. Fitting an MC filter to a single coated lens won't turn it into an MC lens. But it will raise the flare factor slightly. A single coated filter will raise the FF rather more. The underlying character of any lens is better preserved with an MC vs SC filter - especially in high-flare conditions. Maybe think of it this way: the MC filter draws less attention to itself, it degrades the incoming light to a lesser degree.
 
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