where can I get a lens coated or should I just use a MC filter?

[paul_graham4]

I have a much beloved lens, but it is a very basic single coated

type. Flare is a bit of a problem compared to any modern lens I use,

though it is razor sharp so:

 

should I try to get it coated - and if so where?

 

or

 

would things improve if I use a modern multi-coated filter on the

front (or do I loose more than I gain?)

 

thanks,

 

paul

[pdumais]

If it is already coated, there's not much you can do. Even if it weren't, coating it would not be cheap. Companies specializing in this would charge $500-1000 for a multilayer coating run. Maybe more. And if you wanted to coat the internal surfaces, you'd need to disassemble the lens and have two separate coating runs done.

 

Adding filters on top of the lens changes nothing to what the lens does by itself. Using a multi-coat filter will only minimize the contribution of the filter itself.

 

Looks like your best investment lies in a hood.

[mark_sampson]

It's possible to have old uncoated lenes coated- these would be pre-WW2 lenses. I can't imagine anyone puting a multi-layer coating on a single-coated lens roughly 1945-1980). I wouldn't think that it was possible- and in any case the cost would be prohibitve. No filter on the front of your lens will reduce flare, multicoated or not. If you want to reduce flare, use a lenshood (preferably a compendium) and block off all the stray light.

[michael_briggs2]

There is a place that offers a service of applying a single-layer coating to uncoated photographic lenses. As the others have said, a custom multicoating job would be very expensive.

 

While there big difference between uncoated and single-coated, for lenses with a small number of surfaces, such as LF lenses, the difference between single and multi-coating is comparatively small.

 

Sometimes the flare can come from the mechanical design of the lens. If black paint has fallen off in some spots, fixing that would be a practical repair.

 

As the others have said, adding a filter won't change how the surfaces of the lens transmit and reflect light. So if the flare is because the glass surfaces of the lens are relecting light, the filter won't reduce the flare.

 

Which lens is this?

[neal_wydra1]

Dear Paul,

 

Here is the link to a place that is used by amateur telescope makers. My first guess is that a newer lens would be cheaper but an e-mail is a cheap way to find out.

 

http://www.clausing.com/

 

Neal Wydra

[ronald_moravec1]

A really effective bellows lens shade is best if you like the image the lens renders.

[chris_gittins]

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." i.e., a MC filter won't mitigate shortcomings in the lens coating.

 

There's generally not much difference in the anti-reflection properties of single-coat AR vs multi-coat AR. That's provided the single-coating isn't peeling off or otherwise optically degraded. It's problematic to coat uncoated lenses or re-coat previously coated ones. The lens has to be disassembled in order to do it. If it's not reassembled properly, the image quality will be degraded even if the surface reflections are (marginally) reduced. You're probably better off using a bellows or your hat to shade the lens. It's at least worth a shot - recoating is a pretty drastic step and likely to cause more problems than it solves.

 

Chris

[__jon__]

Talk to John:

 

http://www.focalpointlens.com/fp_intro.html