Elmar coated or uncoated?

[rogerzilla]

On the contrary, an uncoated lens will tame Velvia's high contrast. The last roll of Velvia I shot was with a 1st generation Summicron; single coated, not badly scratched (amazingly) but not with pristine internal coatings either. The results, in cloudy weather, were still excessively contrasty for me.

 

[Bingley]

Luddite Franck,

Yes, I kind of feel a bit the same! Hunting boar with a spear comes to mind also...

Stephane Marco uses very few lenses/camera. I remember I read somewhere (maybe his flickr presentation?) that he was using a 1932 leica with its 50mm elmar, had a Leica III with a summar, and had an MP with a recent summicron.

He was stating that he found old glasses more "poétiques" in their rendition. It appears in its pictures, but some are also stunningly sharp as well.

He's also got some shots on his flickr of a nice M2 w/ a nickel elmar, and I've also seen some photos with a Summitar. He does beautiful work w/ a Summar. Interesting to me is that nearly all of his photos are taken w/ classic 50 mm lenses; there is very little, if any, wide angle work. The street scenes he's posted from towns in sourthern France are simply gorgeous.

 

[Kherberos]

Rogerzilla,

Thank You for the input. So I think I will try velvia on my 9cm and 5cm uncoated elmars. I have a super clean 35mm summicron v1 that I used with velvia 50, and was VERY happy with the result. But I was under very dense vegetation surroundings (sub-tropical like conditions of some western Japan "forest" in summer), and had no issues with contrast. It performed nicely under the sky of summer southern France (early morning or evening). However, I tried the same with my coated summitar, and it was a so so impression. I regret somehow the times of agfa rsx (very different, but quite high contrast still) I managed to use in most situation.

Actually, but this may very well be my lack of experience with leica glasses, I find that velvia suits best my slr's (FA; FM3a) Nikon optics.

Bingley,

You are right; I was not able to locate a single wide angle shot in his gallery. Which made me think of southern France. I am a native of rural south-west France and, actually, in small villages, very small towns, except if you shoot close perspective memorial monuments (WWI), or churches, I feel there is no need for a wide angle lens. Streets may be narrow, but they are also short or not very straight. Houses are not so big in height. And you can move at will: if you are polite, nobody will tell you not to stand on his grass or small courtyard. A 50mm (a 45mm is nice) and a 90mm are useful, and 28/35 are just options, on my opinion.

What is nice, in the south, for black and white pictures (shows up very well in Marco's work), is the texture of materials used in construction: anything is textured, somehow. The pink/orange bricks, hand cut stones, white limed/crusted walls, handmade stone pavements etc. etc. The scene gives in itself small 3D "elements" that participate nicely in picture taking. The light puts this in relief, and probably helps the "old glasses".

The same would apply to many places around the Mediterranean sea, of course. Japanese summer are dull in light, but I find that ancient wooden constructions, deeply marked tiles and earthen walls act in the same way.

In Marco pictures, his Paris serie is of great interest to me, as he is still sticking with a 50mm. But in Paris, scale of things is getting VERY different from small places of the south. Very instructive.

 

[lxmike]

Just bagged an uncoated version very happy

 

[Steve M.]

Fortunately, it's not a lens that tends to flare much, even uncoated. In my experience (and especially with Summars), flare is caused more from internal stuff on the elements than whether the lens has coatings or not. I asked John at Focal Point this question once. He had cleaned a Summmar for me, and it went from being a flare machine to one of the crispest and sharpest lenses I ever owned. I had wanted him to coat all the elements in it (flush w/ some real estate money, that's the sort of crazy decisions we sometimes make), and he said it would just be an enormous waste of money at $200 per side, per element. So he talked me out of it because according to him I wouldn't see a nickel's worth of difference from all that work and expense. Maybe a little bit of increased contrast, maybe not even that.

Think about it. Those elements are so tiny, there's not much there to create a flare problem, and what glass there is, is recessed very well in the lens. If you shoot a lot of colour you are probably going to see increased saturation w/ a coated one, but personally I love the look of uncoated lenses and colour film.

 

[Jim Evidon]

I believe that the very late Elmar coated lenses were made with more up to date glass that enhanced contrast. I have a coated Elmar that produces lovely images with excellent contrast.