Recoating lenses

Not being too familiar about the recoating process for lenses I got a

question. <br>When recoating the front element on an older lens how

much does that effect the original characteristics of the lens?

Rich, very dificult to quantify that, and depends who does the work, and how bad the damage on the element is etc.

All I can say is that if I had a lens with a minor coating defect that otherwise gave me good images I would leave the coating alone. Obviously if the lens really needs re-coating then I'm sure one of the experts can do a good job, especially if the damage is no deeper than the coating.

This thread may be of interest<br><br>

<a href="http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5173" target=_blank>Summicron front element recoating</a> (opens in a new window)

Focal Point in the US are experts in recoating of Leitz lenses:

http://www.focalpointlens.com

You might give John at Focal Point a telephone call and ask him about this.

I have the front element of my LTM Summicron polished and recoated by Arax in the

Ukraine, and it is turning out to be one of the sharpest lenses in my large collection of

Leica mount lenses. The coating provided by Arax is multicoating.

The polish & coating done by USA vendor is single coating, and 8x the price of Arax.