Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/12/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I am afraid that I can only offer anecdotal evidence and hearsay on this question but perhaps the reposting will twig someone's memory. If you are talking about multi-coating such as Pentax and others have (they are cheap and will keep a baby happy for hours), I do not think that Leica coats for coatings sake. The Pentax et al lenses will give "pretty" magenta, green, etc reflections off its front element, while all the Leica lens I have only seem to give off a deep magenta reflection ( baby got bored right away). My lenses span the early seventies though 1997 with little apparent difference. Many sources say that Leica uses such special glass that they require less coating to achieve the high contrast that we love them for. Dick Gilcreast reports in his viewfinder article on the 35mm f1.4 that it received multi-coating around 2 930 xxx (1978). The only generalization one can make is that later lenses display better contrast with similar designs than earlier lenses. Many reports say that a particular lens (during a known version's production) "seems to have been tweaked at such and such a point". Perhaps a coating change some of the time. In practical terms "a lens in the hand is worth two in the store".... Cheers John Collier Mr. Bolam enquired: > Having bought a few older lenses recently, I was just wondering when > multicoating was first introduced by Leica? > > Presumably, this change was evident from a certain serial number?