Hugo Meyer Plasmat 3.5 inch f1.5

[16:9]

VM indicates this focal length was was used with the Primarflex and Prima Reflex 6x9 cameras, unlike the similar-but-different Kino Plasmats, which dates it to 1929-1939. I can only find Meyer serials from 1940. Certainly one of the earliest fast Plasmats at 4xx,xxx. It's in rather beautiful condition - optically near-perfect. Appears to be uncoated. Bokeh is sublime. It came with a home-brew M42 mount. I think many of these similar lenses were factory converted for M39.

Highly gratifying to be shooting with it almost a century after it was made. It's period soft at f1.5 - but my goodness, shooting at f1.5 at all must have been mind-blowingly futuristic in 1935! - but by f2.8 it's credibly sharp, even on a 35mm digital camera of 2023. This image is uncropped, handheld at f2.8 resampled from 43MP, with some contrast adjustment and modest sharpening.

Does anyone have any more information about this vintage beauty?

 

[OAPOli]

f1.5 on medium format is pretty amazing. You should try to adapt it for Pentax 67 or Kiev 88! What's the back focus (approximately)?

 

[MattKing]

Moved to the Medium format sub-forum - although I thought about that for a while .

 

[16:9]

Moved to the Medium format sub-forum - although I thought about that for a while .

Me too! At some point it may have been used for all the formats . . .
At infinity the FFD is approximately 75mm.

 

[Ian Grant]

The 3" f1.5 Meyer Plasmat was £25 in 1934, the same price as a Leica III with f3.5 Elmar.

In the early 193s Meyer introduced a number of new lenses, their UK agents A.O. Roth sold Leica cameras with these f1.5 lenses, they advertised in various magazines, and sixteen pages in the 1934 British Journal Photographic Almanac is quite significant.

Ian

 

[16:9]

It's a 70mm mount: I've seen them adapted to M39 for Leica. I don't believe there was a 3.5" Kino Plasmat. Does anyone have a serial guide for pre-1940 Meyer? Or specifically datable examples that might give us a clue?

 

[Ian Grant]

Meyer sold the f1.5 Plasmat in a focus mount for Leica cameras.. Presumably the 2". They advertised a 3½" Kino Plasmat for 35mm cine cameras.

Ian

 

[nosmok]

I have no further information except that I am very jealous of you! It kind of boggles my mind that, the better part of a century on, there's no modern equivalent of these Plasmats (or the Ernemann Enostar). I've been looking on occasion for awhile, not searching obsessively, but still there seems like there oughta be more ultrafast small MF optics out there from different sources through the years (why Zunow missed this boat is especially perplexing to me, seems right up their alley).

 

[16:9]

It does feel odd to shoot with modern cameras with a lens so old and so fast. At f2.8 its rendering is very refined but at f1.5 it's other-worldly. Three times in as many months I've come across lenses with a rare, ineffable vibe: a very cheap Kershaw projector lens; a moderately expensive Angenieux projector lens - and this.

Below: 35mm full frame (no crop): f2.8. c.65cm distance. I'll try to shoot something on GFX for comparison.