I notice that the ROM R lenses have a different (bluer) coating than the 3 Cam lenses. Does it make a significant difference? I don't care about the other ROM features, but I do a lot of backlight work and fear that the older coating might not be as effective at supressing flare. The difference in price is about $200 per lens used. Thanks.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), December 09, 2001

Answers

A recent post reported two supposedly identical M-lenses that had different coating colors. So, unless the difference you noticed was consistently present for a number of examples of each type,I'm not sure that it means much.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), December 10, 2001.

Peter

The older R lenses do tend to have a more yellow coating, which seems to become bluer and less colored with the recent lenses. You see this with M lenses too. I think the coatings have been changed and that this accounts for the difference. On the other hand my 21mm Super-Angulon from 1977 and my Apo Telyt from the late 70s both have blue coatings. Whether it makes a difference is of course the $64,000 dollar question. I can't really say, I used the old (yellow) 2 cam lenses (35, 50 and 90) and they were great - any flare difference (I did not notice any) was probably largely down to design changes. In my case I do not worry about coating changes if the design is the same, but it looks like this is the kind of thing that concerns you, in which case getting the ROM version might offer peace of mind. I am not sure my answer is all that helpful.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), December 10, 2001.