Hi Sherwin, as was said, stop worrying. Every lens flares, EVERY ONE, "ghostless" coating or not, if there is enough difference between the non-image light and image light. Try shooting into a 500W spotlight in black room, and you will have flare. Certain sun (after rain, when air is clear of dust, low on horizont, the sun is stronger than a 500W spot IMO) is a always-flare. And interestingly, veiling flare is sometimes more produced by sun not in frame but hitting the elements at an angle. The more to center of frame, the less flare and vice versa.
About worn coating - I have coated lenses from early decades of lens coating, and they are not worn in any way even after decades of heavy use. Only the very early pre-war prototype coating was much prone to wear, or early postwar. So I think it was just a bad flare situation. OTOH, you would have to be REALLY unlucky to have a LTD lens with coating error - I assume they must pass pretty rigorous tests, as they are, after all, labeled Limited, in small volume that permits good testing. Frantisek (BTW, all lenses flare. Even late SMC Pentax F50/1.4 flares. Least flarey is a simple triplet design //well, even less is achromat, than singlet <g>//) - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
