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Lens mount variability in Olympus PEN F/FT lenses
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 8:09 am    Post subject: Re: Coating and lens fit Reply with quote

taunusreiter wrote:
... Brown colored coating was invented later. First coated lenses all were blueish. ... Olympus is no exception.


I am not sure I understand this statement. Lets look at the serial numbers of 38/1.8 lens:

1311XX – yellow
1500XX – yellow
3561XX – bluish
3569XX – bluish
3738XX – bluish
3754XX – bluish


PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 8:16 am    Post subject: Re: Coating and lens fit Reply with quote

taunusreiter wrote:
I think there are a lot of wrong informations in this thread.

Olympus Pen F/FT lens series was ceased before multicoating was common.
Look at the history.
Even the OM system (followed the Pen/FT line) was launched without multicoating.
For marketing reasons all lens makers announced multicoating as a feature when they started to use it. From Olympus, nothing was noticed when the Pen-F/FT line was sold.
The "MC" story of Pen/Pen FT lenses is nonsense.

The difference with brown/blueish coating was very common the late 1950s/1960s within the same company. It depends on more modern glass that was used in the 1960's. I.e. all my Canon RF lenses are mixed with brown and blueish coatings. Of course, all single-coated (although Canon sold the RF lens line well into the 1970's). Brown colored coating was invented later. First coated lenses all were blueish. My Nikon RF lenses (1950's) all were blueish, whereas the Nikon SLR lenses (1960's, new designs) mostly are brown colored (except the very early ones). The same with Pentax glass and even Komura. Olympus is no exception.

I see no real difference in my PenF / Pen FT lense line (most are Pen FT) or bayonet fitting. All with strong (tight) fitting.

I have one NEX adapter which is working with all (10?) of my lenses (but less strong fittings than with my cameras), and one which is crap, working with none of them.


Hallo Taunusreiter, Frank, thank you very much for commenting!

Your idea that all Pen-F lenses are single coated makes a lot of sense. Though some manufacturers will have started to apply more than one layer of coating on at least some lenses before Pentax launched Super Multi Coating in 1971, couldn't have Olympus done that with some of their later Pen-FT lenses as well?
Again, I rather agree with you that all are single coated. However I shall try to soon add a photo of a Pen-F lens showing a variety of very strong what must be coating colors, and will be curious if this really can be interpreted as having single coating.

regarding the mount, in this thread we qualified them as 'angular' and 'slanted', if you haven't seen it yet, please look at these photos:


though really pertaining here, this photo originally was posted in this thread which is about coating: http://forum.mflenses.com/lens-coating-yellow-vs-blue-t62340,start,30.html
More observations on coating of Pen-F lenses to be found there, my last thoughts on page 4

besides the difference clearly seen Alex, me too are suspecting that there even might be a variation of thickness of the mounts.
On the camera and a good adapter all will fit well, but fit of original rear caps will vary a lot, and because the lens mounts are not uniform there is a big chance of getting an adapter that only works with some lenses, not all.

cheers, andreas

P.S:most will know, Taunusreiter not only set up very good and famous pages about early Takumars but also generally about early SLRs, German camara history specially Voigtländer and Zeiss Contax, the Nikon F and many more including pages about the Pen-F/FT
http://taunusreiter.de/Cameras/Olympus_PenF.html
http://taunusreiter.de/Cameras/Olympus_PenF_Lenses.html


PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Alex H wrote:
taunusreiter wrote:
... Brown colored coating was invented later. First coated lenses all were blueish. ... Olympus is no exception.


I am not sure I understand this statement. Lets look at the serial numbers of 38/1.8 lens:

1311XX – yellow
1500XX – yellow
3561XX – bluish
3569XX – bluish
3738XX – bluish
3754XX – bluish


right Alex, earlier Pen-F/FT lenses having yellow and later blue coating looks very consistent for all Pen-F lenses.
Besides that I can see variations between those that are 'yellow' and those that are 'blue'


PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Coating and lens fit Reply with quote

taunusreiter wrote:
The "MC" story of Pen/Pen FT lenses is nonsense.


I also questioned the possibility that none of the PEN F lenses are MC in the other thread:

http://forum.mflenses.com/lens-coating-yellow-vs-blue-t62340,start,45.html

And I think this is one of the reasons they render the pictures in their own special way Wink


PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If somebody have the same lens with both yellow and blue coating, maybe they can do a bokeh test to see if something is very different?!? Surprised


PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Adding my Pen lenses to this scientific endeavor Smile

20/3.5 - Yellow - FT - SN 102293 - Straight
25/2.8 - Yellow - FT - SN 104909 - Straight
38/3.5 - Blue - FT - SN 103384 - Angular
38/1.8 - Yellow - F - SN 185281 - Angular
38/1.8 - Blue - FT - SN 377989 - Angular
38/1.8 - Blue - FT - SN 401250 - Angular
40/1.4 - Blue - FT - SN 185893 - Angular
40/1.4 - Blue - FT - SN 187148 - Angular
42/1.2 - Blue - FT - SN 107061 - Angular
42/1.2 - Blue - FT - SN 108786 - Angular
100/3.5 - Yellow - FT - SN 241867 - Straight

To note: I have many older Meyer and CZJ coated lenses from the early to mid 50s with bluish coating.