At 21:13 10/9/00 , David Williams wrote:
>Hey gang,
> I've been reading this list for the past week or so. Thanks for such a
>great list, lots of useful information out there! On everyone's suggestion
>I purchased a OM-4T which should be here in the next day or so, and I also
>snagged a Like New 50/1.4 my question is... everyone was saying get a 1.4
>with a serial number greater than 1,000,000 and one person said greater than
>1,100,000 well which is it? the one I purchased is 1,081,xxx I know
>either is probally a good lens and I'm after more of an artistic look but I
>don't want to be battling lens flare either. Can anyone clarify this ?
>Thanks for any help in advance and thanks for the great list!
>
>Future Zuikoholic,
>David Williams
I have a 50/1.4 MC S/N less than 1,000,000 (I think it's 900k+). You
wouldn't get it out of my hands unless you wanted to trade a 50/1.2 for it
in pristine condition . . . even swap.
I have a 50/1.2 also, and used to have a 50/1.8 SC. In order of
performance they run 1.2 best, then the 1.4, and last is the 1.8, but the
spread is very small, especially between the 1.2 and 1.4 lenses. You have
to project very fine grained chromes to 35x50 inches to see it, and even
then it's not all that apparent. I have little doubt the lenses in
production for many years went through formulation tweaks that improved
them. It's a matter of how much it improved them and whether you can tell
a difference in practical use.
More important is you got a LN condition lens which means (among other
things) it should mechanically tight, free of any substantial crudmium
internally, and externally there should be zero marks _on_the_glass_. I
have yet to see a lens totally free of dust internally; a few silt-sized
specks won't hurt anything. Dust, fingerprints, oily grime, or "cleaning
marks" cause more dispersion flare than almost any other source, and damage
to a rear element is far worse than equal damage to the front one. I got
"anal" about lens and filter cleanliness, and very carefully cleaning them
some time back. It makes a real difference with dispersion flare; more
than SC or MC does.
Multi-coating a lens doesn't gain as much as the hype about it would have
you believe. How much is related to the index of the glass. The higher
the index of the glass used, the less gain MC has, as the bandwidth of the
SC increases.
-- John
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