Is a damaged coating on a lens still better than no coating at all?
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Is a damaged coating on a lens still better than no coating at all?
YES. The way I understand from what I've read assuming the glass surfaces are good whatever the gain from the coating will only be lost in a percentage equal to the amount of the surface damaged. So if the coating is 10% damaged you're down 10% in whatever the gain from the coating was. Overall percent can be very low. People who obsess over perfection are suffering from a far greater % loss than a little coating damage. But that will never change.
What Jim said, and it's a wonderful thing! I've bought a couple of great lenses quite cheaply because they had very minor flaws (maybe 0.001%) in the coating only. Could never have afforded them otherwise...
What Jim said....and don't used vodka to clean your lens when out in the field, even if its the only thing handy!;-)
Geez, I'd think vodka would be pretty good for lens cleaning. Seriously. 20-40% ethanol in water? I'd think that would work pretty well. Except, of course, that there may be far better uses for it than removing crud...
But what about sour mash?
Actually, I think Everclear is what you want for lens cleaning. The "better uses" issue remains however.
Thanks, I enjoyed the answers! This isn`t one of those things where I`m obsessed with a little damage. I have a lens that some bonehead left their permanent fingerprint covering the entire inside of the rear of the front cell. I was thinking of removing the coating entirely if that would improve things. If somes better than none, so be it...