Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/02/18

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Subject: [Leica] Anyone know about the internal coating of the Hektor 12.5cm lens?
From: marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)
Date: Sun Feb 18 19:56:37 2007
References: <20070218130339.RPEH1673.tomts16-srv.bellnexxia.net@vickko1> <45D910A6.6050805@san.rr.com>

Carl Zeiss owned the German patent rights on 
vacuum coatings from 1940 to 1960.  I believe 
that Carl Zeiss, USA, had the US patent rights as 
neither Wollensak nor Kodak seem to have patented 
their processes at the request of the US 
military.  Carl Zeiss, USA, was owned, in any 
event, by the US Government from 10 DEC 1941 and for twenty years thereafter.

In any event, Carl Zeiss only licensed the 
process to its associates and friends.  Thus, 
Hensoldt, Rodenstock, Voigtl?nder, and Schneider 
got to use the process but Leitz was not.  Leitz 
then used an alternate system which involved drip 
coatings which were somewhat soft but which were 
moist and which tended to disappear as they 
dried.  For that reason, some of the first coated 
Leitz lenses seem to have been treated more 
heavily on the inside elements than on the outer 
surfaces.  By 1954, Leitz knew a bit more about 
how to handle this and many of the coatings from 
that era have held up quite well.  The coatings 
on my Hektor are quite nice and I've never 
worried about them as it is a rather nifty lens 
to use.  (It would also work well to throw at 
someone attempting to attack me, giiven its 
almost softball-shaped size when fully collapsed 
and its hefty weight.  And I've already done the 
bounce test on mine, so I know that the score would be Hektor 1, Bad Guy 0.

If your lens has fungus, send it in to John Van 
Stelten and let him look at it.  Follow his 
advice:  John Knows Lenses and has been doing 
almost all my lens work for two decades.  (I did 
have Leica do some work on a Leicaflex lens which 
needed new elements, and I only did that at 
John's suggestion.)  John is immensely honest and 
possesses the probity of a Roman judge:  he 
refused to recoat my Summitar as he said that it 
didn't need it, and it didn't.  I'm still shooting with it today.)

John will clean the lens.  If it needs recoated, 
he will remove the existing coatings and will 
replace them with a vacuum coating superior to 
that which was state-of-the-art in 1954, so you 
can then send an e-Mail nastygram to Mister Zeiss 
at Oberkochen in the glee you will receive from 
using this rather versatile and interesting lens.

And using it is so retro it is beyond being 
retro:  when you pull out your camera, clip the 
film leader, load the darling, dig out the 
Visoflex, remover the covers and mount it on the 
camera, then pull out a small grapefruit and 
unfold this into a lens and mount that, then 
actually start using it, you will have gawkers 
from all stations of life staring at you in 
wonderment.  If someone asks, politely tell them 
that the process is classified and that you'd 
have to kill them if you told them more.  That 
generally gets a laugh.  But it is retro beyond 
retro, like using a Rolleiflex TLR.

And the Hektor takes damned good pictures.

Marc




msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!



In reply to: Message from vick.ko at sympatico.ca (Vick Ko) ([Leica] Anyone know about the internal coating of the Hektor 12.5cm lens?)
Message from glehrer at san.rr.com (Jerry Lehrer) ([Leica] Anyone know about the internal coating of the Hektor 12.5cm lens?)