Re: [Leica] Advent of Coatings (prev. 35 Summilux non-ASPH)

[D Khong <dkhong@pacific.net.sg>]

 Adrian Bradshaw wrote:
>>According to Dr Neil Wright's 'A lens collector's Vade Mecum 2nd edition' 
>>'The first antireflection-coated lenses were probably Zeiss Sonnars but 
>>again it would be hard to be definite here. And the first advanced 
>>multicoated lenses may well be the Leitz Summilux f1.4 35mm but there are 
>>other possibilities'

Marc wrote,
>Well, in the case of the Zeiss Smakula process, Wright and Wilkinson are
>close, but I suspect the first production coated lens to have been a small
>run of 4.5/3.5cm Orthometars in CRF BM dating from very late 1937.
>Certainly, Kodak and Wollensak were commercially coating optics by the
>American entry into the Second World War in 1941.  I own a 1.5/5cm CZJ
>Sonnar which was sold here in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1941 and which is
>coated:  it is not changed from the uncoated version save for its coating
>and only opens to f/11, while the later Wartime models open to f/22.
>
>As to multi-coating, most optical researchers grant the priority to Zeiss,
>which began to multi-coat technical and industrial gear in 1969;  Asahi and
>Zeiss both began commercial production of multi-coated camera lenses in
>'71, though who was first into the marketplace is a matter of grand debate.
> I had never heard that the 1.4/35 Summilux was in the running and would
>appreciate more information.
>

I remember reading the article on 35 Summilux-M in the past issue of
Viewfinder and the writer mentioned that the later batches had
multicoating.  This gave me the impression that the earlier ones were mot.
The approximate serial number separating the two was also mentioned in the
article.  

I double checked with the article before committing to my recent purchase
of the lens and unless the author had his facts wrong, I am not surprised
that in a 30-year production run, some improvement to the lens coating
could have taken place.

Dan K.
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