Hello all,
I am new in this mailing list but have photographed with OM-cameras since
1984. I have also experiences with a little bit Pentax and Pentacon six
equipment. I just wanted to give my personal comments on various recent
topics.
1. I wouldn't exaggerate the amount of multi coating versus single coating.
For example, I have taken stereo photos with a single coated 50mm 1:1,8 and
with the latest version of this lens (the turret of this is very well made
of plastic) with multi coating at the same time. There were only
differences in direct backlight where the single coated version showed
sometimes slight reflexes. There was no difference in contrast and
brilliance in its intirety. In this connection there was an interesting
test in April 1980 by the German "Stiftung Warentest" (in my opinion the
only independent and unprejudiced tester for cameras here in Germany). They
tested various cameras, among other things the OM-2 with a 50mm 1,8 f.zuiko
with chrome ring and the OM-10 with a 50mm 1,8 f.zuiko without chrome ring.
The OM-2 achieved in contrast, resolution, distorsion, spectral
translucence, flare and vignetting the highest (very good) result and was
one of the best cameras, while the OM-10 had only middle contrast and good
resolution. The testers guessed, that there is an influence of the camera
body since it were the same lenses in principle. From the use of the
Pentacon six lenses I have experienced that a lens shade is very important,
perhaps more important than multi coating. There are also many lenses
(among others several Olympus lenses) which have single and multi coated
lenses at the same time.
2. By the way, there was a discussion concerning the summicron and the
zuiko 50mm. The "mythologic" products of Leitz were not multi coated for a
long time and had their extraordinary reputation since then (nobody who HAD
to use Leitz microscopes from the seventies and eighties can believe this
reputation because of their poor contrast in comparison to Zeiss and
Olympus microscopes). Nowadays Leitz uses multi coating. But a comparison
of lenses with help of cross sections is somewhat ridiculous because you
have to know the kind of glass which is used for the elements. It seems to
me, that the 50mm zuikos have a front element with a high refraction glass
because one can see total reflections in this element. I don't think
Olympus need to copy Leitz lenses but the standard lenses of many
manufacturers are very similar, especially the 50mm 1:1,4 lenses, where
only Leitz recently introduced an eight elements version.
3. The Olympus AF lens 70-210mm 1:3,5-4,5 was tested by the "Stiftung
Warentest" in the late eighties and achieved the best single results in
comparison to other AF-lenses of that focal range, the overall result of
most of the tested lenses (also the Olympus) was "good". This lens is an
example for a very well multi coated lens.
4.I use a Sunpak ring flash and had to make out, that the green exposure
controll lamp of the flash doesn't work at all. The exposure controll lamp
of the viewfinder doesn't work with the OM-2n. It works with the OM-4 and
the OM-707 (OM-77). Metz flashes work with every OM camera in this regard.
Best regard
Matthias Wilke
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Matthias.K.Wilke/
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