leica flare resistant lenses

<p>Leica lenses have been corrected for a lot of issues, but somehow flare-resistance does not seem to rank high in their design. The only lens that somehow stands out in this respect is my 35/2R, and even then it compares marginally with some of my nikon glass: the 28/2 ais does very well and the 20/4 ais and 20/3.5 ais (ironically bottom of the 20 mm lenses) are just amazing, even when shooting landscape directly into the sun. Maybe nikon has different/better types of coating?</p>

<p>Can't say I have ever noticed any flare problems with my Leica M and R lenses and I have had quite a lot of them. The only exception being the occasional veiling flare shown very rarely with the current 50 Summicron-M (non-APO).</p>

<p>Robin - depends on what you photograph I suppose; outdoors with skies included in the composition, the elmarit 90/2.8 is probably my worst; but the summarons suffer a lot of degrading image too. They only become useful when the sky is partially blocked out or with late light. </p>

<p>Be interesting to see the feedback here.When I was a working pro (about 10 years ago) I used Leica M and R as well as Nikon and Olympus.Photographed most editorial and motorsports, lots of bright sunny days and I never noticed a problem with noticeable flare.In many instances (as a car race for example) I would be using the Nikons side by side with the Leica M (300/400mm on the Nikon, wides on the Leica)...no problem whatsoever.</p>

<p>Leica lenses are relatively simple compared to lenses for an SLR. SLR lenses often have a retrofocus design to provide sufficient clearance for the mirror, which requires additional elements. Zoom lenses take that another step toward complexity.</p>

<p>I cannot have a bright light source anywhere in the image for my Nikon zoom lenses, or they will flare. Sunlight striking the lens even outside the field of view will cause flare and ghosting., and even a bright sky will reduce contrast. On the other hand, a 50 year old 55/2.8 Macro lens is almost immune to flare. It makes a good desert and landscape lens.</p>

<p>It takes an extraordinary amount of light to cause flare in Leica lenses. If sunlight strikes the front element, you mostly notice a reduction in contrast, and rarely a bright spot in the image. I have 35, 50 and 90 Summicron f/2 lenses from the 60's.</p>

<p>I shoot in bright contrasty Southern California and I've not noticed a problem with the 2 Summicrons I use. Both are last pre-asph versions, 35 and 50. I suppose if I put the lens right into a bright sun, but generally not doing that, though I do get a fair amount of back lighting.</p>

<p>Edward: yes reduction in contrast is what I meant. With landscape background details fade away and the outer details of trees and foliage loose definition. Veiling glare is probably a better term; but isn't that a form of flare?<br>

My nikon primes definitely handle the backlighting of the sky better. The elmarit 90 is the worst; and the hood doesn't do much to improve on it. The 1980's and 1990's designs are definitely better (elmarit M 21, 90, 28), which made me think their coating has caught up with Nikon's earlier multi-coating. But even with the contemporary designs the ZM lenses are said to flare less than Leicas; but I have no experience to substantiate that.</p>

<p>Expecting new behaviour from Summarons (35 @ 28 ?) maybe 60 years old, ditto Elmarit 90, might be stretching credulity. These were all, I think, single coated lenses, which must, by now, have some small optical flaws.<br>

I have had to have vintage lenses like these cleaned, and the only one which didn't really meet my requirements post cleaning was a 50 Summarit, which loses contrast very easily. <br>

That said, I don't push RF lenses too hard into the sun. With SLR's I could always get some visual idea of flare. It's better with M9 as I can check the image immediately.<br>

I have experienced less into the light flare from type 1 Summicron than with Type 4, but clearly also a little less contrast with normal photos.</p>

 

<p>I still maintain I noticed nothing like this with my 35 Summaron f2.8 or Elmarit M and R 90s, nor did I notice it with an older "fat" 90 Tele-Elmarit, nor my old 1968 Summicron 50. Nothing at all with my R lenses. I take lots of landscapes and used to take lots of contre-jour shots too. You are at a disadvantage with the Ms as you cannot see flare in the viewfinder like you can with a reflex (and therefore take steps to avoid it) but I certainly noticed nothing unusual, or worthy of comment myself - apart from (as mentioned above) that seen with the latest non-apo 50mm Summicron.</p>

<p>James - Point taken. Unfortunately the summaron sold until the <strong>mid seventies</strong> at the time when the nikkor 28/2 which I mentioned earlier on was readily available. The design may be from the late 1950's but by 1974, nothing had be done to improve its performance. The elmarit 90's replacement the tele-elmarit performs visibly better with veiling glare, but the thin elmarit 90 that followed (and was available in the 1990's!) is known to be even more susceptible to flare than its predecessors!!<br>

As I said, I am quite impressed with lenses such as the pre-asph. elmarit M 28 and M90, but wonder why it took so long for Leica to correct their 90 optics? How is flare corrected anyway?</p>

<p>Robin - I also have had no issues with veiling glare om the elmarit M 90. Strangely enough the super angulons which are as old as the summarons perform very well in this respect. I have the little SA21/4 on a leica III body and it is one of my most favourite lenses. But these are essentially Schneider designs. Not sure who specified the coatings. Wide angles I believe are generally more resistant? <br>

The quality of our subtropical light is probably different as well? Find it interesting that Puts in his discussions of leica gear generally says little about flare. Bokeh is left out all together; he finds it seemingly to subjective to his scientific mind.</p>

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<p>There's a good reason that Leica lenses are furnished with sunshades.</p>

<p>Puts does talk about the smoothness of transition to out of focus elements in a picture, and the word bokeh has passed his lips. Most of us had a life before this strange word appeared in the late '90's.</p>

<p>Bill - the funny thing is that lenses that are terrible with veiling glare, like the elmarit 90/2.8, benefit next to nothing from their hood (and the elmarit has a long extended one). On the other hand, flare resistant glass like the SA21/4 or the newish elmarit 28/2.8 (last pre-asph. version, in my experience, do not benefit from their hoods either.</p>

<p>james - yes i mustn't be too critical of the Puts reviews. I have gained a lot about lens technology from his writings (not that I know an awful lot). Which is why I brought up this topic in the first place. I am just curious about the cause, effect and remedy of <strong>veiling glare</strong>. Flare (as in blobs, lines, ghosts etc.) isn't really a serious problem with leica glass. Does that mean that the two are not related?</p>

<p>Dr Paul Wolfe, the pre-WW2 Leica luminary photographer, published lots of direct sunlight and sunlight reflected off water shots taken with 35mm & 50mm uncoated Elmars without any obvious flare or secondary images / internal reflections. (admittedly in black & white, but he had no Photoshop to lie for him)<br>

It's not as though all earlier Leica photos were taken with the sun behind the photographer, the principle of photography urged on me in childhood by my mother in operating my Kodak Cartridge Hawkeye. </p>

<p>Jean-Marie<br>

I have never used the 1960-70's ("long" Elmarit 90mm) nor the "thin" Tele-Elmarit 90mm - so I suppose it is possible they have worse flare than usual. I may even have heard this is an issue with the "thin" Tele-Elmarit (good as it is otherwise). The current M-90mm Elmarit and the 90mm Summicrons always seemed very well controlled. I had the 21/4 Super-Angulon-R and agree that this was excellent in avoiding flare, even though it is not as sharp as one of the latest 21s. </p>

<p>James - Wolfe's beach photography is stunning, and i am amazed by the quality of his work. He did master the flare challenge. The British landscape photographer James Ravilious at one stage used only early uncoated glass, including Leica. He built all sorts of hoods, some the size of a box in which the camera bodies fitted, in order to combat excessive light from washing out tonal values or reducing contrast.</p>

<p>Robin - SA really stands out amongst its contemporaries in terms of veiling glare control. A Swiss photographer whose name escapes me made extensively use of it in producing a beautiful large panoramic book on Antarctica in the 1950's or early sixties. Like Wolfe he controlled excessive light (skies and reflections on snow and ice) but at least he had the benefit of a good lens. I am still puzzled that the japanese photo industry took the lead in multi coating (Asahi in 1971, followed soon by Nikkor Ai lenses) when the germans had pioneered lens coating during and immediately after the war.</p>

<p>Jean-Marie,</p>

<p>My understanding is that Leica introduced multicoating into their lenses about the same time as the Japanese (e.g Pentax), but in their rather typical undramatic way did not make it into a marketing feature at all and never have really. Not sure why - I think it is the same philosophy that Rolls-Royce had in not releasing power data on their engines nor making claims about acceleration and so on. Zeiss, in contrast did and do still make quite a lot of fuss about T*.</p>

<p>Just for fun, I shot some pictures into the sun today, using a Summicron 50/2 and a Zeiss Biogon ZM 28/2.8, with the disc just outside the field of view. There are no spots, no glare, no haziness in the photos at all. The same shot with my Nikon zooms would create a rainbow effect, and a great loss of contrast if direct sunlight impinged on the objective. Hasselblad is better than Nikon, but a streetlamp in the field of view creates streaks and spots. Hasselblad lenses, save the Biogon, are retrofocus and complex.</p>

<p>I'm not a lens designer, but a ray tracing program could account for and optimize reflections which result in glare.</p>

<p>Edward - Thanks. Is that the last pre-asph. version of the summicron? I borrowed one (never thought 50mm would do me much good in landscape). The negs look promising, but I must admit I normally reserve judgement until the print is made (I find 'reading' the negative an unpredictable business).<br>

Most Nikon lenses flare, zooms seem to flare more easily, longer barrel and more glass? My 25-50 zoom however does not bother about excessive light entering its massive front element...no idea why; it is an early zoom and the coatings look just like all the others. The cheap 20/3.5 and 28/2.8 are just amazing. The 28/2, not so cheap!, is very resistant too. The 21/4, one of the earliest designs, with poor coating beats them all. <br>

I really doubt if design has anything to do with it. Looks like more often than not some glass flares exceptionally little 'by coincident', as a side effect rather than being deliberately 'corrected for'...</p>

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<p>Robin - 'Goede wijn behoeft geen krans' goes the Dutch saying: Good wine needs no praise.<br>

Zeiss pioneered lens coating before WWII. During the war these efforts were promoted by the military. A year after Pentax introduced its multicoating (1971 or 1972?) Zeiss promoted theirs: not sure if they introduced it or simply made an existing technology official. Pentax might have been very well the first to apply MC commercially. Looking at my leica glass it seems that leitz waited another decade or so...not clear from the literature I have.</p>

<p>The only Leitz/Leica lens I have that's unusually flare-resistant is a 1980s-era Noctilux, which I understand was designed/coated in order to be that way.</p>

<p>Never realized what a noctilux could do until I borrowed one: it seems to have a will of its own, forcing light (too much or too little) into creating a useful negative!<br>

Checked out Wolff's pictures again; many of his shots crop out the part where veiling glare washes out the contrast!</p><div></div>