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In the Luminous Landscape review of the Fuji X-Pro1, Nick Devlin notes:

... how else could one read the “Super EBC” labelling on the lens other than as a nod to the company’s [Range Finder] past. For the uninitiated, it stands for “Super Electron Beam Coating” – a moniker devised in the days when men walked on the moon and words like “electron” and “beam” conjured up visions of a Jetson-like futurama.

The retro-styling of this camera is undeniable, and that's clearly part of its appeal, but the other part is very modern, innovative technology, like the dual optical / EVF viewfinder and the novel sensor array layout. So, underneath the nod-to-the-old naming, is this a traditional multi-coating, or is it actually a modern update?

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mattdm
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    They haven't made a big stink about it, so it's probably safe to assume that it's a refinement of the "old" EBC process (which was not entirely meaningless—it's a cathode-ray regulated vapour deposition process that made a meaningful difference in their enlarger lenses over the previous multicoated version), probably using new materials. If they were doing something like polycrystaline crystal deposition, I think there's be trumpets blowing somewhere. Not definitive, so it can't be an answer, but it's the best extrapolation from the available data I can make. –  Apr 10 '12 at 23:37

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No, it is not. EBC is described as "multilayer coating":

All the lens elements used in the X-S1 have been treated with multilayer Super EBC (Electron Beam Coating),

Nanocoating however is NOT multicoating, it is a different process.

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Just for completeness — Fujifilm lists many lenses which say "Super EBC" as actually using using High Transmittance Electron Beam Coating (HT-EBC), apparently first made for television lenses and described in a FAQ as:

The low reflection range of this wide-band coating is the wavelength of 380 to 780 nm, while it is 400 to 700 nm for the conventional Super EBC coating. It reflects oblique-incidence light, greatly reducing ghosting and flare to realize clear images even under difficult lighting conditions.

HT-EBC is also a multiple coating process, not nanocoating. But newer lenses like the XF16-55mm f/2.8 feature "Nano GI" coating, which, as the name applies, clearly is a nanocoating. (The "GI" stands for gradient index.)

mattdm
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