Dear Mark Langer / John Hudson,
<< I opened up the Olympus 4cm f2.8 lens to clean out some schmutz between
the elements and it is a classic Tessar-type configuration -- two front
elements, diaphragm and a cemented doublet behind. So the "C" cannot
stand for three lens elements. I suspect it stands for "Coated" given
the age of the lens. The lens does couple properly to the rangefinder
of a Leica.
>>
I replied thus:
<< Olympus Vision Age magazines 1-5 has "The Zuiko Story, a short history of
Olympus lenses and cameras from 1936 onwards. A bit about their larger format
lens, the 75/2.8 6 element Zuiko with respect to Rollei's 75/3.5 and80/2.8
Zeiss Tessar lenses. >>
I missed out a bit. To this I should have added that these lenses, for the
Olympusflex cameras (first produced in 1952) were classed as "Full-Coated".
Faintly on the pictures I can just see "ZUIKO F.C."
Olympusflex TLR (1952-1956) - the twin lenses:
Camera lens: Full-Coated 75mm F2.8 Zuiko (6 elements in 4 groups)
Viewfinder lens: Full-Coated 75mm F2.8 Zuiko (4 elements in 3 groups)
In a specification table it says that the view lens was also called an
F-Zuiko but I think they have made an error in the table.
The view lens just says: ZUIKO F.C. on it.
The camera lens says ZUIKO F.C. too but I can't see anything before it
because of the orientation of the lens!
But the camera lens was the 6 element one - surely - so that would have been
the F-ZUIKO one and the table is wrong I bet.
So even by 1953 there was:
F-ZUIKO for 6 elements.
F.C. for Full Coating.
In addition, like your lens, the focal lengths were given in centimetres (cm)
on the lenses themselves. By about 1959, they were onto millimetres (mm) with
the Eyeflex camera lenses.
Your 'C' lens may well then be coated but not "full coated" whatever that is.
Maybe not all the lens surfaces were coated originally, or maybe just the
front surface of the front element was coated. Then I surmise that
Full-Coated lenses came along with all lens elements surface-coated, at least
those facing the air and not bonded together.
Still investigating. [It all seems nearly as confusing as trying to figure
out which modern OM-System Zuiko lenses were SC, MC, E., F., G., H.Zuiko etc!]
Dave Bellamy.
http://members.aol.com/synthchap/
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