On Sat, 17 Aug 2002 14:35:53 GMT, Steffen Kluge wrote:

>According to Neuman - Ruether :
>>When the first Nikkor multicoated versions of the
>>same single-coated lens designs appeared, I compared
>>a couple shooting with both the sun and dark areas in
>>the images. Guess what. They showed the same flare
>>and ghosting characteristics, except that the
>>multicoated lens' ghosts were multicolored instead
>>of neutral...;-) Brings to mind that old Barnum
>>saying, seeing ads that perported to "prove" the
>>superiority of multicoating for flare reduction...;-)
>
>Hm, I've got a quote, too:

>"Multicoating ("IC", which appeared on Nikkor lenses just before
> "AI" appeared) seems to have improved lens image contrast a bit,
> and and to have reduced flare in lenses that were prone to
> showing it."
>
>;-)
>
>Cheers
>Steffen.

You are quoting me, and as I pointed out in another post
in this thread (as I recall...;-), brilliance *is* slightly
improved with MC. This is a useful thing, though of a
considerably lower order of magnitude than the vast
difference in flare between single and multi-coated lenses
shown in sales brochure pictures, which is what I was
commenting about... As for the flare reduction in Nikkor
lenses, the only example I can think of (and the one I
was thinking of, when making the statement above) was the
one of the Nikkor MF 85mm f1.8, which in the single-coated
version was very sensitive to backlight. I did not compare
this particular one with the MC version, but others
reported that MC cured this problem (perhaps I should not
have gone with "second hand" info, though - and in my direct
experience, I saw no great difference between the flare and
ghosting of the lenses I had available to compare - and
MC did not generally appear to "vastly" improve overall
lens quality, or even improve it enough generally to
recognize it as a distinct advantage unless one was
looking for subtleties...).
But, thanks for "keeping me honest"...;-)