Canon 1014 XL-S lens

[mercyboy]

Do these naturally have a very noticable blue/purple lens tint to them when viewed at angles from the front? Curious, because my Bauer's are not like that at all (relatively tint-free except for a tad bit of warmness). I'm wondering if the Canon's lens coating is going bad or something.

[adamgarner]

Yes, I am looking at my 1014 XL-S and it has a blue/purple sort of refraction to it. I'd only be concerned if there was a "fog" to it. Helps?

[mercyboy]

That's a big help Adam, thanks. Is your lens coating perfectly, 100% clear when examined under bright light at all angles? This one has two tiny translucent spots and what might be some difficult to notice specks of fog. (Dare I say fungus?) The lens seems to have a haze at the sun, but that might be normal I guess.

[adamgarner]

Yes, the coating is 100% clear, for sure. I've inspected the sh*t out of it. I just got my first test rolls back and the images are crystal clear, so all good.

I noticed I had a bit of a haze in the viewfinder, and thought it might be the lens. I did 2 tests that are a major help. You can read that post too... just search for canon dioptric viewfinder haze.

test 1: with the viewfinder set to open and the camera on full zoom take a look into the lens and out the viewfinder. it helps to get a spot light into the viewfinder side.. .maybe a flashlight, or point it at a lamp or something. This will give you full view of the lens chain going to the viewfinder. This is where I found my "haze" in the viewfinder. Still not sure what it is, but it's not that bad and it doesn't affect my images.

test 2: CLOSE the viewfinder to take that out of the equation since it's not what goes to film. open the cartridge door and, again, have some sort of light source pointing into the door, at the shutter. Full zoom. Run your motor and look into the lens and you will see the chain of lenses that goes directly to the film. This should be clean and clear.

Give that a shot. The spot light in a darker room helps since you can see more details. Hope it looks good.

[mercyboy]

Thanks for the follow-up! The lens coating isn't 100% clear so it's a dead deal.

[adamgarner]

Yes, I'd agree. Don't buy it if the lens is no good. You can find a better 1014. You may want to go the super8exchange.com route or spectra film and video. They guarantee their cameras and only sell cameras in excellent shape. It's worth the extra cash to avoid the heartbreak of a camera that yields poor results. You want the best cam you can track down.

[S8 Booster]

the 1014/814 XLS lenses are super spectrum coated and appears blue when looked at frontwise:

so it was really that difficult then? its all been posted before.

canon s8 lenses are spectrum coated.

http://www.canon.com/technology/s_labo/ ... 03/03.html

macromedia simulation of each description below at the site - how it works.

Light is Reflected from the Surface of a Lens
Surface reflection reduces the amount of light transmitted through a lens, but this is not the only adverse effect. Reflection within the lens also causes such problems as image duplication, and the transmission of non-image light to the image: phenomena known as ghosts and flares, respectively. Ghosts are created when light reflected from the rear surface of a lens is reflected once again from the front surface, resulting in a faint second image slightly displaced from the primary image. Flares appear when light from the back of the lens barrel is reflected from the lens surface onto the image. Ghosts and flares caused by surface reflection reduce the quality of the image produced.

How do coatings Boost Light Transmittance:
Surface reflection can be reduced by applying coatings to the lens surface. You might think that coating the lens surface would block light, but in fact it increases light transmission. This is because light is reflected first by the coating surface, and then by the lens surface itself. The light reflected by the coating surface and that reflected by the lens surface have a phase difference of twice the coating thickness. If the thickness of the coating is one quarter of the wavelength of the light to be suppressed, light of that wavelength reflected by the coating surface and light reflected by the lens surface will cancel each other out. This reduces the overall amount of light reflected. In short, coatings make use of light wave interference phenomena to eliminate reflections.

Boosting Light Transmission to 99.9% with Multilayer Coatings
Magnesium fluoride (MgF2) or silicon monoxide (SiO) are used as coating materials, with very thin coatings being applied evenly over the surface through such techniques as vacuum deposition or plasma sputtering. However, light is made up of many different wavelengths, and one coating cannot possibly cut out all reflected light. To cut down reflections of light of various wavelengths requires many layers of coatings. Such multilayer coatings are applied to high-end lenses. The technology for applying coatings of over 10 layers has been developed, and Canon's high-end lenses featuring such coatings provide light transmission of 99.9% over a range that extends from ultraviolet to near-infrared light.

· Coating Technology for Filtering Light
Lens coatings are used not only to boost light transmission, but also to filter light. Lenses coated to reflect ultraviolet light are commonly used in eyeglasses and sunglasses. It is also possible to create coatings that allow light of only a specific wavelength to pass through, and reflect all other wavelengths. In video cameras, light is first split into RGB elements (red, green and blue) before being converted into electrical signals to form an image. This splitting of light is accomplished by lens coatings that permit only light of the required red, green and blue wavelengths through.

apparently proper lens coating may enhance imagery quality for any film stock or imaging media.

[Jim Carlile]

Traditionally Japanese lens coatings were bluish and Europeans were warmish. In time the warmer coatings can get positively orangish-- some of the mid 60's camera lenses are definitely off-color now-- but it doesn't seem to effect image quality. But yes the Canons are on the blue side.