At 10:29 AM 12/23/98 +1100, Wayne Harridge wrote:
>I have been pondering some comments about lenses giving "cool" or "warm"
>rendering of colour. Does anyone have an idea of whether this is much of a
>problem ? I would think that film selection would have a greater influence
>than lens choice. I've always considered my Zuikos to be neutral, but I
>haven't used much else for transparencies over the last 20 years !
I don't know how much it is a factor for Zuikos. "The OM System Lens
Handbook" claims on p. 204 that the coatings on the various elements of
each lens are chosen so that different lenses give the same neutral
rendition. A graph shows the spectral reflective characteristics of an
amber coating, a magenta coating, and multicoating.
Remember how we talked about the fact that not all elements in all lenses
are multicoated? It's possible that some of these single-coated elements
serve to "cool" or "warm" the color rendition of a lens. (Note that the
book doesn't say this directly, but it's a reasonble thing to deduce from
what it *does* say).
I can tell you that cool and warm lenses do exist--I've got two of them for
my old Leica IIIf. These are late 1940s or early 1950s coated, screw-mount
lenses. My 35/3.5 Summaron is a warm lens--as was the 50/2 Summitar, which
I no longer have. My 90/4 Elmar is decidedly "cool," and I've actually
read in old Leica literature that all lenses of the Elmar (triplet) design
are cool. They mention using a skylight filter to compensate if you find
the coolness objectionable.
The effect of the lenses' color rendition is subtle, but easily discernable
to someone with a good eye for color. You can see it most in neutral
colors, and in a slight extra saturation of the favored colors. For
example, I have Kodachromes of the Canadian Rockies taken with the 90mm
Elmar that look a little bit starker and more icy than the same scene taken
with another lens. And flaming sunsets with the 35mm Summaron are *nice*.
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- Peter - : | | | | | | | |
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