Coated or uncoated

[Don'tknowmuch]

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Morning all. Well it is where I am.

Haven't yet spent any pennies, and I don't have that many of them. But my fund is building!

I'm thinking of a CL or M2 and I will only (initially at least) be able to have one lens and this will be in the range 35-40mm. I like the look of images I've seen taken with uncoated lenses as some of you may remember from recent posts. I apologise if this seems like a bit of a repeat thread, but my question is about what actual difference does the coating make?

I will be scanning negs and wonder if, with a bit of simple level shift or finding a curve, one can "un-coat" the lens anyway in Photoshop...

This is slightly heretical, I realise, and if I had the space for a proper darkroom I'd be there. But I don't.

Once I get this coating issue sorted I can begin to price up options, and I continue to be grateful to those who have kindly helped me already.

Thanks,

Jim.

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[andybarton]

Buy an M2 and a Summaron f2.8 and have a lot of fun for not much money.

 

Simple.

 

[brianv]

As far as simulating the look from uncoated lenses, you might be able to lower contrast, or even induce some sort of fake veiling flare, but.... "Pretty Weak".

 

A higher contrast is going to "clip" the image, lose shadow detail and blow highlights. A coated lens tends to retain shadow detail as it is lower contrast, and as it brightens the image in those areas from veiling flare.

 

Uncoated 1938 Carl Zeiss Jena 5cm F1.5, modified for Leica, wide-open. No Photoshop- straight off the scanner, saved to Jpeg.

 

 

Get an uncoated lens.

[andym911]

jim hi

 

if you want to get a uncoated look from a coated lens there are a multitude of options in post processing that I am sure you are familiar with, contrast, saturation,vignetting etc.

In LR you can surely build a preset to create the look you want, through trial and error.

 

In neg development you can also under develop to get a thinner , lower contrast neg, and even try shooting without a lens shade to encourage a bit of flare.

 

just my 2 cents...I guess at the end of the day it will come down to personal taste as to what your final print should look like. Personally I would go with coated vintage lenses, and if desired change the look in processing rather than the other way round.

regards

andy

[andym911]

here an uncoated elmar on HP5 (don't normally use the stuff but am trying to use up out of date (2002)stock), developed in you know what.

 

andy