Re: [KOML] KO History

[Clive Warren <Clive.Warren>]

At 9:41 am -0500 12/1/98, Jim Richey wrote:

Snippety snippletson

>Clive Warren wrote:

>> All of the following markings were used on lenses:
>>
>> (Super, Wide, Tele) Omegon
>> Koni-Omega Hexanon
>> Hexanon
>>
>> It doesn't make a lot of difference as the lenses are essentially the same
>> apart from the writing on the lens rings. However it may useful to know the
>> age of the lenses.....
>
>
>The design of the lenses use the exact same specifications/formulas. The
>90mm lens is a Tessar formula lens with four elements in three groups.
>The big difference is in the coatings. The coating on the Omegon lenses
>are more blue than the purplelish coating on the Hexanon lenses. This
>makes sense since most spherical lens formulas are well known, but lens
>coating specifications are a lens company's highest guarded secret. From
>my experiments with the 90mm lens, the Hexanon appears to have slightly
>fewer internal reflections. This is most likely due to the coating.
>
>The Omegons were on the later Mamiya produced Rapid-Omega's, so they
>must be newer. Hexanon is Konica's lens line, so they were on the
>earlier Koni-Omega's.

Well that all seems to make sense - I have had later lenses on earlier
bodies and earlier lenses on later bodies consistently.....  Could it be
the case that Mamiya  made use of the remaining stocks of earlier lenses
when they took over production, leading to the "Koni-Omega Hexanon" tag?
It seems very unlikely that there were sets of lens optics with no coatings
sitting around waiting for the nice man to give them a coat....  surely
they were coated at the time of manufacture?

So the Hexanon lens has superior coating - guess this is true for the 180mm
and 58mm, have you assessed these lenses?  How did you assess the 90mm lens?

I have not been able to see any difference in the results from an Omegon
and a Koni-Omega Hexanon 90mm, however no science was used - just the
eyeball of some prints.


All the best,

              Clive   http://clive.bel-epa.com