APO- Germinar 9/450

I aquired APO-Germinar 9/450 lens. F stop 9-128

I would like to ask if someone has lens like this or have an idea where I can get some information on what kind of performance I can expect and what would be the best use for lens like this. Any information would be appreciated.


Thanks in advance Greg

I have a 300mm f/9. It's performance is wonderful from wide open through f/32 and beyond. I'm guessing that your lens is a four element airspace design (like my 300). And I'm guessing that it will be a narrow angle lens of around 46 degrees coverage.

Kerry Thalmann had Docter Optic Germinar lenses for sale here on APUG recently. He prpbably has a few left to sell (150, 240, 300, 7xx?). You might try contacting him to see what he knows.

The Apo-Germinar's were developed by Carl Zeiss Jena in the GDR as a successor to the Apo-Tessars. After the unification of Germany, they were continued by the company Docter Optic which had bought the Saalfeld plant of Zeiss Jena. Thus you can find Apo-Germinars with either the Zeiss Jena or the Docter designation. Docter went bankrupt in 1995. and production stopped around that time. The shorter focal length up to and including the 450mm one are usually* 4/4 dialyte types like the Goerz Apo-Artar or Rodenstocks Apo-Ronar, longer ones are a six element design . (* the first series from the late 1950's was a six element design for all focal lengths, but these are very uncommon). The lenses are single coated and usually come in barrel - however, Docter sold a few in shutter in the 1990's. The barrel versions are not easily transferred to shutters. The performance is very good, at least as good as the Apo-Ronars from Rodenstock. The 450mm was supposedly the "sweet spot" of the 4-element designs, and shows slightly higher MTF curves than the 360 or 300mm ones. So you bought a very high quality lens!

For more information, I wrote a 2-part article on Zeiss Jena and Docter Optic lenses for "View Camera" in 2003, if you have access to that. An earlier online version (albeit with a few errors) can be found here:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/docter-optik.html

Arne Croell

Thanks Arne
This one is Jena/DDR lens. I mounted the lens in Packard Ideal shutter.Thank you very much for the information it was a great help.

Greg