SC Lenses

[bronekkozka]

After some comments from people on single coated lenses, what is the look they give? I understand they are for B+W, but what is the disadvantage when using them with colour film...(do they have a diff look with colour film), also I have an older Leica 50mm f2...would this be single coated (mid 60s era)...my other lens is a CV 35mm 1.7, which I'm quite happy with but still wander about the 1.2....and now thing maybe a 40mm sc?????

Any thoughts

Bronek

www.kozka.com

 

[Larry H-L]

I recently did an article, with colleague Bill Schneider, for Photo Techniques mag (March/April 2006 U.S.) looking at differences in the C/V 40 Nokton MC and SC. We found that the SC gives slightly less contrast, most noticed in the lighter rendering of shadows. Highlights are not affected too much, but there is slightly more flare from point light sources. Differences are slight and easily wiped out by careless processing (over development). We could see little difference in bokeh.

Color changes were slight, but we found the MC to be slightly magenta, the SC slightly more green as compared to the MC. Slight, very slight differences. Side by side on a light table, one would be hard pressed to tell which was which by color cast.

The SC coating on the modern 40 Nokton is MUCH heavier than any older single coating, such as on a Summitar or older Elmar.

I shoot mainly B&W and enjoy the lower contrast, open shadow look of older glass.

 

[Avotius]

I find that single coat lenses are really nice for bw if you are looking for the more "grey" look. For color photos I really dont think its so bad either really because you get a lot more shadow depth in the photos and its much easier to tweek a photo that isnt so high contrast. Also I perfer the subtle colors that single coating gives, its just a different look, more "zeiss" then "canon" so to speak

 

[wlewisiii]

Also keep in mind even earlier uncoated lenses. With the way that uncoated glass handles light at the glass air edges you have a very distinctive lower contrast look that is very different from even a single coated lens. They tend to give a slightly softer look than the exact same design with even a single coating for both black and white or color. Color gets a certain kind of pastel look as well, though the extent of it is quite dependant upon the emulsion.

Still, it is important to remember that multicoating is a quite recent phenominon, being introduced with the Pentax SMC lenses around 1970. The other important change in the past ~30 years is the preference for "sharpness" over any other feature of the optical design. Between this bias and multicoating, it becomes, at least to my eyes, much more difficult to tell modern lenses apart.

William