I am interested in hearing from anyone having experience with Schneider G Claron lenses. My concern is that they are single, as opposed to multi, coated. Is this factor obvious, or even noticable, in your images? My specific interest is in the 270mm focal length. I shoot a mix of black and white film and Velvia. Thank you.

DAB

-- Douglas A. Benson (dab@evcom.net), October 04, 2000

Answers

I use G-Claron lenses (305 & 355) for field work with my 717 and 1220 inch cameras and the results are excellent, even in high-flare situations. That said, they aren't as flare resistant as my Apo-Sironar S, but I don't know whether that has to do with the coatings or other complex design factors.---Carl

-- Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net), October 04, 2000.

In most shooting conditions you won't be able to tell but little if any difference between a multicoated and single coated lens. Multicoating is most important with zoom lenses, which can have as many as 13 to 16 elements, and each element creates flare at the surface. For LF work, single coating is all you need unless you put the sun in every picture.

Regards,

Doug.

-- Doug Paramore (dougmary@alanet.com), October 04, 2000.

Douglas,

I use a 305mm G Claron, for 4x5 (and with roll film backs) and 8x10. I've shot the same scene with both the G Claron and other Schneider multicoated lenses, using 4x5 Velvia film, and can see absolutely no difference whatsoever. Color saturation and contrast of the transparencies look the same. Sharpness is excellent. I believe too much is made of the fact that the G Clarons are single- vs. multi-coated. Sergio.

-- Sergio Ortega (s.ortega@worldnet.att.net), October 04, 2000.

The G-Claron was designed as a copy lens for use in graphics arts applications. As such, it was expected that as part of its normal working condition, it would be pointed at a back-lit copy board with very high contrast artwork attached to it. Any flare would seriously degrade the image under such conditions, so these lenses were internally shaped and edge-blackened to eliminate reflections and flare as much as possible. The anti-reflection coating is just the icing on the cake.
There are only 8 air-glass surfaces in the lens anyway, and as stated in a previous post, the difference between multi-coating and single-coating in this case is minimal. If these lenses would have benefited from multi-coating, then Joe Schneider's would have applied it.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), October 05, 2000.

I use both Symmar 180s, 210S, & G-Glaron 270 and the only differences I have noticed arise when shooting in the studio with tungsten illumination. All lens are excellent with regard to flare, sharpness, etc. However, the G-Glaron has a decidedly cooler color balance than the Symmars, requiring at least 5-10cc more yellow to achieve the same balance.

-- Will Lytch (LytchPhoto@webtv.net), October 06, 2000.