Steve Cushing Impresionist Fine Art Photography

Steve Cushing Impresionist Fine Art Photography

Embracing imperfection, recording emotions, one impression at a time…

Meyer-Optik Görlitz Diaplan 80mm f2.8



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The Lens details of a series of images taken by Steve Cushing on mirrorless camera.

Fitting has no mount and has a 42mm Flange Distance - this lens will fit and achieve focus to infinity mirrorless cameras even on DSLRs.
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History


Meyer-Optik was a lens manufacturing company which was founded by Hugo Meyer in the 1890s. It was based in Görlitz, Germany. They created lenses at a very early stage and to continued to do so even in a divided Germany for many years. The company worked with with Dr. Paul Rudolph, who had previously been involved in some of Carl Zeiss Jena's most important lens developments (Protar, Planar, Tessar). Together with Dr. Rudolph, the famous Plasmat lenses were developed and the Kino-Plasmat was the world's fastest lens at the time. Another important step was the delivery of OEM-lenses for camera manufacturers - such as the Exakta from Ihagee. In the 1930s Meyer-Optik already had a wide range of high-quality interchangeable lenses. Meyer wasn't a high-end lens manufacturer like Leica or Carl Zeiss because of this compared to Carl Zeiss Jena, who was a market leader at the time, the lenses were usually offered at a lower price. Nonetheless, mechanically and optically (and despite their age) Meyer-Optik lenses remain strongly desirable. They produced mainly M42 mount lenses although they also used the Exakta mount.

After World War II, Meyer-Optik became VEB Optisch-Feinmechanische Werke Görlitz and one of the most important lens manufacturers in the newly created German Democratic Republic, DDR. They partnered mainly with Ihagee Dresden, whom they provided with lenses in the Exakta mount while making M42 mount lenses for Praktica cameras.

This Lens

The Meyer Optik Diaplan 80mm f2.8 is projection lens for 35mm Slide Projector. If you like bubbles for Bokeh you want this lens. Its optical design is Cooke Triplet and the Bokeh similar to the Trioplan 100mm f2.8, but with smaller bubbles.

In 1968, when Meyer-Optik was merged with Pentacon some of their lenses were renamed Pentacon. With changes affecting the exterior design as well as some other upgrades (like the multi-coating), the lenses developed at Görlitz remained in production until the early 1990s.

By the integration of the Meyer-Optik into the combine VEB Pentacon, the imprint Meyer optics on the lenses disappeared after 1971. In the mid-1980s, the combine VEB Carl Zeiss Jena took over the VEB Pentacon and thus also Meyer-Optik. As a result of this centralisation, Meyer-Optik increasingly lost technical competence and some products were discontinued in favour of competing models from Carl Zeiss Jena. In addition, many machines necessary for the production of high-quality lenses could not be procured from other socialist states or from Western countries until 1989.

This is the first version of this lens in all metal from before they became part of Pentacon. The later Pentacon AV has a plastic barrel and is also reviewed on this site with sample images.

If you are using any trioplan it is for the artistic effect as this lens design is not pixel perfect, indeed sometimes even the focus peaking does not work on my camera when I use a Cooke triplet lens as the image is not short enough. But who cares, this is an Art lens.

No filter mount, no aperture and no helicoid. It was used in 35mm slide projectors with 42,5mm mount. Its optical design is Cooke Triplet and the Bokeh similar to the Trioplan 100mm f2.8, but with smaller bubbles. If you want big bubbles get the Pentacon AV 100. I prefer the smaller focal length of this one, but have both.

The bubble bokeh is better than the later plastic Pentacon version which is also on this site.

Lens In Use

  • Optical design: 3 glass elements in 3 Groups (Cooke Triplet) made by the same company as the expensive Meyer-Optik Görlitz Trioplan 100 mm f/ 2.8.
  • No filter mount.
  • No aperture - but who wants one when you want the bubbles. Any aperture will change the shape and clarity of these so wide open is the only way to shoot with a Cooke Triplet!
  • No helicoid.

Summary

I can't create creative images like this even with my expensive native super-sharp canon RF lenses.

Rarely is learning so much fun!

For general information on lens design and lens elements go to the homepage HERE


IMAGES WITH THIS LENS



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Steve Cushing Photography