Remove Lens Coatings???

[redaber]

Hello guys,

This may sound strange but i love when a lens makes alot of flares and light streaks, this could be done by having a uncoated lens... unfortunatly these lenses are very very expensive. Now my question is, is it possible to remove the coating yourself?

Thanks

[PaulB]

You could spray the lens with an atomiser full of water before taking the photo. Or with a weak gelatin solution if you're feeling brave.

[redaber]

It is going to be used for video this a video that show's where i am looking for. i have bought a bunch of canon FD lenses all of them are very fast lenses (1.8 to 2.8 primes, 28,35,50,85,135 cost me 80 bucks, now i need to get the coating off )


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnbBfLE3VBE

[Levas]

You need a good solvent solution, so the coating can dissolve in the solution and you can wipe it off.
Like alcohol and that kind of stuff, although I think alcohol (ethanol) isn't strong enough to do the trick.

You could try aceton (nail polish remover) although really aggressive solvent, glass can resist it, but plastic can't. So don't spill on plastic stuff around the lens.
Aceton is really nasty on plastic...
Better try it out first on a cheap (non plastic) lens, or a little part in the corner on the lens...

[redaber]

Ahh i see, now i need to know if the anti flare coating is only on the front element, do you happen to know if there are any coatings inside that i need to get rid of?

[Levas]

I have absolutely no idea, but my guess would be that there are only coatings on the front element and maybe on the back element (to prevent light from bouncing between back element and sensor ?).
Why add coatings to all elements inside the lens...front element coating should prevent all.

[PaulB]

Coatings are probably on all elements as light can reflect off any glass surface in the lens assembly.

[mageye]

I am no expert on optics, but from this video, I would deduce that the lenses are coated all over. Perhaps I am wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am5wJUEiNAI

[redaber]

Nooooooo why guess i am going to take all the elements out then lol

[redaber]

if this is not going to work, do you guys know any lens that has insane flaring?

[Levas]

Some other approaches:

put a cheap non-coated uv-filter in front off the lens  .

Don't know if you want fake anamorphic lens flare, but google on the words: lens flare fishing line.
And you get lot's of tutorials where they use fishing line in front or back of the lens to create anamorphic lens flares.

[Datadogie]

I'm sure l seen a video of someone with a uv filter that had been slightly rubed with sandpaper.

[Datadogie]

http://youtu.be/zLHgaWGrzAU

[KMikhail]

Coatings have to be on all surfaces. Otherwise there will be about 4% (x0.96) reflective loss of light on every air-glass border there, which would contribute to loss of contrast, flare and loss of light (T stop, which is always higher than F stop). That's why early multi-element lenses were so much darker, than modern multi-coated (multi=many layers on a single surface).

Modern lenses lose only a few percent for a whole lens assembly.

[dpjpandone]

don't take your lenses apart, you will never put them back together properly..... use an anamorphic flare filter instead