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I have a 1939 SUMMITAR that appears to have a slight pinkish color when viewed with sunless overcast sky. I know that LEITZ did not coat this model, what could the color be? Also it has a few very slight chips in the front element. I blacked them out. Will they affect black and white and color film?

Edited by anthonym3
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My postwar Summitar shows a faint coloured reflection which I‘d call more purple or magenta than pinkish. I also have a Summar which was coated presumably shortly after the war. It does not show a specific color, you only realize that it is coated when you compare the reflections of the surface to an uncoated version. So I don‘t think you can generalize how a coating of a certain time looks. 

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Am 2.6.2022 um 20:58 schrieb anthonym3:

Also it has a few very slight chips in the front element. I blacked them out. Will they affect black and white and color film?

Most likely not. You would be surprised to see how much a lens element may be deteriorated until it really shows in the results.

Edited by wizard
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37 minutes ago, wizard said:

Most likely not. You would be surprised to see how much a lens element may be deteriorated until it really shows in the results.

"shows" is the operative word - our ability to notice the difference.

I remember an article by Norman Goldberg (DAG's dad) who used to write the technical section of one of the photo magazines (after extensive testing he would completely tear-down cameras to report on their construction quality) where he had been demonstrating his setup for generating MTF charts, and used a 50 Summicron as his standard baseline. This time he noticed the MTF was obviously degraded. Looking closer he found a single fingerprint on the front element of the lens. After cleaning the MTF was back to normal. Perhaps that means we worry too much about technical lens performance?

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vor 7 Minuten schrieb TomB_tx:

Looking closer he found a single fingerprint on the front element of the lens. After cleaning the MTF was back to normal. Perhaps that means we worry too much about technical lens performance?

That must have been one big greasy fingerprint. I would not have thought that a single fingerprint has any noticeable effect on MTF. A while ago, a fellow forum member posted a shot he had taken with I believe a 35mm lens where the rear element (I think it was the rear element) had a crack running right through the middle of the lens element. In the resulting photograph, that damage could not be readily seen, which I found remarkable, as I would have thought such a lens is completely incapable of taking any photos having reasonable quality.

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2 hours ago, wizard said:

That must have been one big greasy fingerprint. I would not have thought that a single fingerprint has any noticeable effect on MTF. A while ago, a fellow forum member posted a shot he had taken with I believe a 35mm lens where the rear element (I think it was the rear element) had a crack running right through the middle of the lens element. In the resulting photograph, that damage could not be readily seen, which I found remarkable, as I would have thought such a lens is completely incapable of taking any photos having reasonable quality.

This is that lens. A Canon 35mm f2. The back element is broken in two. It came from a well respected Leica repair man, now retired. The lens element had cracked during a heating process applied to the unit holding the glass during a repair.

This print was taken at one second at f2 with the camera propped on a table.  Most of the blur is movement from the one second exposure. I should try it stopped down, that might cause the crack to effect the negatives?

I will take some more pictures with it and report back.

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Edited by Pyrogallol
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I had a Summicron-R 35 mm with a not too big scratch right in the middle of the rear lens, outside. It showed in homogenous areas if the lens was stopped down to 11 or smaller. So it may depend on definition of the scratch or the crack, aperture and distance to film. I would expect a greasy fingerprint to cause a glow.... 

Edited by Kl@usW.
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Probably better a single crack through the center of the lens than a uniform haze covering a whole element, at least in terms of contrast and flare. I'm sure you could get the crack to produce some interesting effects with off-axis point light sources or the sun, though.

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