CyberSimian wrote:
I purchased my silver-nose 75-150mm zoom (serial number 133xxx) new in 1975.
It is marked plain "ZUIKO", not "O.ZUIKO" (letter "O" denoting 15 elements).
The zooms were never marked with the preceding letter and period to
designate the number of elements. It is likely that all zooms other than
the 75-150 were MC from the beginning, although the coatings likedly
changed over time for at least some of them.
It does not show the pale green reflection that is common to multicoated
lenses. I think that it is single coated. (Since it was purchased new, we
can rule out the possibility that the front retaining ring was changed from
one saying "O.ZUIKO" to one saying "ZUIKO".)
Serial numbers up to a very few thousand short of 500,000 are clearly
SC. I'm betting any MC, if any do exist, would be above 500,000
6. I've also never seen a Zuiko that didn't have green reflections and was
MC.
-- 1914xxx was purchased new and is marked "ZUIKO MC"; it has a BLUE
reflection. (This lens is one third of a "MIJ" -- it says "JAPAN" but not
"MADE IN"; it also has a sticky diaphragm.)
LOTS of these have sticky diaphrams, as does at least one early 'miJ' I have.
If I were ever to need another 50/1.8 (LOL), I would look for a 'mij' with
serial number above 4,000,000.
-- 5648xxx was purchased used and is marked "ZUIKO"; it MAY have a
very-slight green reflection, but it is much less pronounced than other MC
lenses, and some might classify it as "no green". In fact, I was originally
going to classify it as "no green", but decided that one of the reflections
sometimes has the merest hint of green, so I gave it the benefit of the
doubt. (This one is a "MIJ".)
Remember, the better the multi-coating, the weaker the reflections. The
whole purpoe of coating is to reduce reflections.
Moose
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