Coating an uncoated Elmar: feasible?

[Marc-A.]

Hiy'all,
I have an uncoated Elmar red scale (1939). It performs quite well (as you can see in my gallery) but I would like it to be coated. I have two question then:
1. Should I avoid any change and consider to keep it as it is?
2. If coating is an option, where can I get that? I heard of Arax , but honestly I have doubts about a 30$ coating job. Maybe I'm wrong. Do you know if Leica Solms still performs this king of service? Is it outrageously expensive?
I'm looking forward to your advices!
Marc-A.

 

[richard_l]

Email john@focalpointlens.com and get an opinion and an estimate. He recoated the front element of a Summicron for me and did an awesome job. It's not cheap, but the guy is a perfectionist. His web site is http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html

Richard

 

[Marc-A.]

Thanks for the tip, Richard.
Roland, interesting point. I know that most M lenses have inner coating, but I thought that coating the front (and maybe back also) glass would improve the results. If I'm not wrong, coated Summitar or Summaron LTM have not inner coating either... why Leitz would have coated only the external surfaces if it had no noticeable effect? See my point?

 

[PhotoJim]

You lose about 9% of transmission with every air-to-glass surface, so although coating the outer elements will help, it will still be subject to a lot of flare compared to a fully coated lens.

Frankly, I think you're best to keep your Leitz lens uncoated. if you want to see how much you would prefer to use a coated optic, get yourself a nice coated Soviet lens, which will be quite inexpensive (the Industar-61LD is very cheap and extremely good), or pony up for a more modern Leitz lens. Uncoated lenses have a lot of virtues when used in contrastier light with black-and-white film, and the results really can't be duplicated with any other sort of lens (the flare makes better detail in the shadows the way that you would get with preflashing the emulsion, which is very impractical on a rollfilm camera). It'd be a shame to lose that ability with your current lens.

 

[Ronald M]

You do not get more shadow detail with an uncoated. The deep shadows will have less contrast and be maybe up the tonal scale a little further.

I have done pleanty of consecutive frames with coated and uncoated elmars.

Keep the one you have and get a nice coated sample.

 

[raid]

My old Elmars are coated even though they are very old.
I would keep such an oldie as is.

Raid

 

[peterm1]

I am an Aussie and I know that in Tasmania a decade or so back there was a company that coated lens elements. Not sure if they a re still around but at the time I recall reading about their services in a camea mag. and they seemed pretty good and not too expensive. From memory they also repolished lenses too.

So I guess you probably can get it done if you hunt around. Now as to the real question - should you?

Personally I would not. I have discovered in recent years, the unique look that only an uncoated lens can provide. If you can ever lay your hands on the book "Collecting and Using Classic Cameras " by Ivor Matanle have a look at some of the shots taken with uncoated lenses. They can look stunning and quite unlike anything offered to day. There is one shot that I recall of a young woman gazing whistfully through a window, and the sun streaming in gives a wonderful flare that modern coated leneses just cannot reproduce. So think very carefully about it.

Having said that a few yers back I bought a nice old Leica LTM 111a which ahd been factory reconditioned after the war adding the 111f style of flash sync. At the same time (I presume) they had the lens, a 50mm f 3.5 Elmar, coated. And boy it takes sharp and contrasty photos.

My point is that these days it is not hard to get sharp and contrasty photos. But it is ahrd to egt that "look" that comes from using old uncoated lenses.

cheers

 

[Xmas]

Marc-A

CRR Luton will arrange for a lens to be recoated >>£, one of the Ru guys want you to strip the lens to glass elements. Or buy a Ru body with a collapsibe in good condition. You might like the Ru better.

Noel

 

[sockeyed]

I had my the badly-scuffed front element of my 1957 Summicron-50 recoated by Arax in the Ukraine and was very impressed with the work. Now I've got a lens that creates images with a classic look but has modern multicoatings. The only caveat is that it can take a long time - I waited 8 weeks for mine to come back.

The results look good to me:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sockeyed/tags/summicron50/

 

[Xmas]

Marc-a

The 10% reflectance above is more than one would get with a pre WWII lens.

The formula for normal incidence at a single surface

is ((1-p)/(1+p))**2 where p is the refractive index, so

1.5 pre wwII 4%
1.6 50's cron 5%
1.7 80's cron 7%
1.9 f1.0 Not 10%

lens performance is controlled by glass refractive index, complexty and non sperical surfaces. Later lens use higher refractive index glass, to simplify but they need better coating.

trans internal bouncing about
elmar/sonnar (six air to glass) 24% 16%
summar/J12 (eight air to glass) 32% 25%

though lots of non image forming light comes from bubbles, lens/iris surrounds and camera reflections, your elmar is heavily baffled

Use a good lens hood with your uncoated elmar buy several Ru copies sell any bad ones on...

Noel

 

[raid]

Not to hijack this thread, but where is a good place to have an Elmar cleaned?
I wonder whether an inexpensive lens is worth $70 to have it cleaned.

Raid

 

[pfogle]

You do not get more shadow detail with an uncoated. The deep shadows will have less contrast and be maybe up the tonal scale a little further.

I have done pleanty of consecutive frames with coated and uncoated elmars.

Keep the one you have and get a nice coated sample.

this interests me, as I'm now using the R-D1 with both coated and uncoated (summar) lenses.

I think a bit of flare (ie noise, in signal-to-noise ratio terns) can lift the shadows off the foot of the curve with film, allowing tonal separation that would otherwise be lost. Maybe.

With digital, I'm doubting the value of using uncoated, even though the dynamic range is a big obsession with digital shooters. I like the summar, but the very low contrast is a drag, and I prefer the look of an old single coated lens, like the Canons.

On the question of coating only the front element, I'd have thought it would make very little difference. And it would cost as much as a decent used lens, I would have thought.

 

[jkelly]

Uncoated Summar, low contrast? Lack of shadow details? I would say that depends.

 

[richard_l]

I sometimes think too much is made of this so-called 'classic' look. It is, among other things, a clever euphemism for 'low contrast', which could be a symptom of some serious haze, fungus, inferior glass, poor lens design, etc. I can make images from my 50mm Summicron (recent version) look quite 'classic' with some simple post-processing. I cannot, however, make a hazy, flarey shot from an ancient Elmar look like it came from the Summicron.

Before you start the flames, note that what I wrote above is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I, too, love the fine, old Leitz lenses, but it's very easy to get overly romantic about them.

Richard

 

[Marc-A.]

Use a good lens hood with your uncoated elmar buy several Ru copies sell any bad ones on... Noel

Many thanks for your precise answer. I think I 'm gonna follow your advice, as well as PhotoJim's, Ronald's and Peterm's. I'll keep my uncoated Elmar as it is and consider a new acquisition. Nevertheless, I don't see exactly why coating an old lens would deeply change its characteristics. It seems to me that a coated Elmar still remains an Elmar with its own character. I've got a coated Summitar from 1946 (and have had a Summitar from 1940 which had been coated by Leitz after WWII) and it's still a Summitar with its bokeh, its softness ... it can't be confused with any other lens.

Richard, I kinda agree with you when you say: "I sometimes think too much is made of this so-called 'classic' look. It is, among other things, a clever euphemism for 'low contrast'". But IMHO, the Elmar is a contrasty lens, less sharp than the Summicron, but contrasty; so the Elmar classic look doesn't come specifically from a lack of contrast (the Summar and the Summitar have a low contrast). I think my red scale is not bad at all in this respect (see samples bellow). But I wanted to reduce the flare which can be important. I've already got the Fison dedicated hood, and it reduces flare quite well; but even with the hood, you cannot shoot into the sun, or even with the sun at 60° on the left or the right (it's not clear, is it?)

Marc

 

[ferider]

Great shots, Marc ! But when I look at (1) and (3) I care less about the lenses flare behavior 🙂 "Leitz Glow" must be a Bourgois concept ....

Roland.

 

[phototone]

I have had three Leica lens front elements polished and re-coated by Arax in the Ukraine. He uses the same technicians and facilities that make new lenses for Kiev cameras, etc. I have been very, very pleased, and you should not worry about reliability and dependebility of his services. The low price just reflects the lower cost of doing business in the Ukraine and the exchange rate. The length of time it takes can vary, as the lens element to be recoated has to be included in a coating run, when the factory is coating new glass.

Gene McCluney
McCluney Commercial Photography

 

[richard_l]

But I wanted to reduce the flare which can be important. I've already got the Fison dedicated hood, and it reduces flare quite well; but even with the hood, you cannot shoot into the sun, or even with the sun at 60° on the left or the right (it's not clear, is it?)

Coating the front element should improve the light transmission of the lens, but I don't think it will do anything for flare, which is caused by internal reflections between the elements. The hood is about the best you can do for flare. Whenever a lens is positioned so that a light source strikes the front element, there is the possibility of flare. I've heard of UV causing flare in an uncoated lens, but that could be a myth.

I'm glad you have a contrasty Elmar. My latest model is also contrasty, but it also has excellent flare control. So many of the older lenses develop haze or other problems that they unjustly earn the reputation of being 'classic' 😉 . The simple Tessar-like design of any Elmar should make for good images provided the lens is in good condition.

Richard

 

[Ronald M]

Red Scale 50 Elmars are 1950 lenses and are coated as all Leica glass starting from early post war years, say 1947.

 

[colyn]

Hiy'all,
I have an uncoated Elmar red scale (1939). It performs quite well (as you can see in my gallery) but I would like it to be coated. I have two question then:
1. Should I avoid any change and consider to keep it as it is?
2. If coating is an option, where can I get that? I heard of Arax , but honestly I have doubts about a 30$ coating job. Maybe I'm wrong. Do you know if Leica Solms still performs this king of service? Is it outrageously expensive?
I'm looking forward to your advices!
Marc-A.

I had a Summar coated by Arax a few years back. It greatly improved the performance but at $30 an element I didn't make much money when I sold it.