Blue dot TLR Mamiya lens

[justin_fullmer1]

HI,

How do you know if you have a blue dot Mamiya TLR lens? I have read

that these are more desirable. If so what makes them so?

Thankyou!!!

[colmmccarthy]

They have a blue dot on them. I believe the last TLR lenses that Mamiya manufactured were this type, which means they're the "latest", therefore more desirable. Personally, I don't care if it's chrome or black or what kind of dot it's got on it as long as the shutter speeds are good.

[justin_fullmer1]

I figured that was the case. My 80mm has a blue dot in the shutter cocking arm. I wasn't sure if this was indicative of one of these newer blue dot lenses or not as this is the first TLR lens I have owned. Does anyone know if the coatings are different than the prior lenses or what changes/improvements were made on these blue dot lenses. They seem to garner a higher amount on ebay and I wondered if they were worth the extra mulah over thier older counterparts.

[colmmccarthy]

The black lenses have multicoated glass whereas the older chromes don't. I shoot almost exclusively in b&w so I get equally good results from all of the lenses I own. Shooting color, I've noticed that the black lenses have an edge over the chromes.

[larry_lambert1]

Do a search for Graham Patterson's name on a meta search engine, and go to his Mamiya TLR website, because i'd bet you've got more questions, and anything that can be answered he already has. To the question above, blue dot lenses usually have aperature click stops (both of mine do), and this seems to indicate a lens of higher quality control. At the time Mamiya were becoming more competitive in the MF market, yet details about any factual differences between "blue dots" and the non-aperature click stop lenses are tough to substantiate (records from the time are apparently poorly kept). But I'd say that having the click stops makes the use of the lenses easier, since I don't have to take my eyes off the viewfinder to change exposure, and to maintain the same EV and change to a different DOF one needs only grasp both rings simultaneously and turn to a different click, very very nice at wedding ceremonies.

[larry_lambert1]

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq.html

[christian deichert]

As far as the multicoating goes, the latest lenses had a purplish coating, and older lenses, click stops or no, have yellowish coatings. I have the rrange of black lenses, apparently; my 55mm has no click stops, yellow coating, and no blue dot; my 180mm Super has click stops, yellow coating, and no blue dot (althoug there are markings to indicate that a blue dott was there but fell out, much like the red plastic dots on my Minolta Rokkor lenses); and my 105mm DS has click stops, purple coating, and a blue dot (as well as DOF preview, DOF scale, and a self-timer).

[picturesque]

There have been some heated discussions about whether the black lenses were multi-coated. Use Search to find these discussions on photo.net. Some maintain that the lenses were multi-coated (especially the 80mm S) and others (supposedly Mamiya) say that the different colors of the lenses (sand/yellowish versus purplish) were merely different kinds of single coatings. Supposedly the lens designer decided what coating to use, but they were not multi-coated. In practice, since I own almost all the lenses (black) for the C330, including some new and old versions of the same focal length, I would say that it doesn't make a difference, except for maybe the 80mm S. I don't have proof, but I think it has better flare control and color rendition, whereas the 55mm newest version that I own is no different (flare control or color) than the 55mm older black version I have. I have done an unscientific test on this.