Hugo Meyer Doppel Anastigmat f5 resurrected....sort of.

[Jim Galli]

Been a while since I enthralled the 3 or 4 of you who care about my soft focus adventures. Here's a tale of a lens that shouldn't be soft.........or should it. A Dagor type that is f5 instead of f6.8 or 7.7 may well have never been sharp.

Is there another Hugo Meyer & Co. of Goerlitz Doppel Anastigmat f5 still extant on the planet?

Perhaps I'll never know how an example with perfect glass would behave. This is not the plasmat. I think it predates the more common plasmat and was a design experiment that is wishing for plasmat speed but still living within the constraints of a dagor type. That's my best guess. Anyone?

[eddie]

fun. so some of the shots were with both front and rear groups on the lens and two were with only the rear group? did i read that correctly?

[Jiri Vasina]

I have had a 270mm f/6.8 Hugo Meyer Doppel Anastigmat with a nice combination of soft and sharp. I sold it in what I think was my biggest mistake (in photography )... Your f/5 sample looks even better...

Jiri

[Wimpler]

Jim, I am quite sure more then 3-4 people enjoy your photography and tales.

Another great job with this lens. Both the restoration and use! F5 does seem very odd to me, but I like the effect.

[Jim Galli]

Thanks guys. Yes, Eddie, doppel is of course both and single is just the rear on those 2.

[Jon Wilson]

aaah yes, another "Sow's ear made into a silk purse". The touch of the Master....Jim Galli. SWEEEEET! I expect nothing less from you Jim. NICE. Thank you for sharing. Jon

[Jim Galli]

Thanks Jon!

[Mattk]

I found a 14 1/4" Hugo meyer doppel anastigmat but the f7.7 version under the same circumstances. It also had a terrible front cell that looked like well....
On a whim I sent it to Focal Point to have it recemented and was amazed. It turns out what I thought was internal haze was just bad cement (it didn't look like traditional separation). I found it odd that the front cell looked like it had been through the ringer and the rear cell was clear as a bell. Could they have use different cement techniques for front and rear cells?

[graflexiste]

I know this is an old thread, but there's not much out there about these lenses so I figured I'd start here. I've got a Hugo Meyer & Co. Gorlitz and New York Double Plasmat - the front cell is 12" and the rear cell is 20.5" set in an Ilex shutter. As mentioned here, it's really heavy and large. The 12" front element says f/5.5 and the rear element is f/11. The shutter which I think is original, says 5.5. It acts like a fast lens, which is to say it's got lovely bokeh and exposures based on the 5.5 seem accurate. It's tricky though because the shutter is definitely not accurate. I think the 1/50 is about half that.

Anyway, I'm writing in to see if anyone has any more info on this. Seems that it's a precursor of sorts to many of the modern lens formulas still in use. Thanks for any thoughts.

Best,
Nelson

[Jim Galli]

I know this is an old thread, but there's not much out there about these lenses so I figured I'd start here. I've got a Hugo Meyer & Co. Gorlitz and New York Double Plasmat - the front cell is 12" and the rear cell is 20.5" set in an Ilex shutter. As mentioned here, it's really heavy and large. The 12" front element says f/5.5 and the rear element is f/11. The shutter which I think is original, says 5.5. It acts like a fast lens, which is to say it's got lovely bokeh and exposures based on the 5.5 seem accurate. It's tricky though because the shutter is definitely not accurate. I think the 1/50 is about half that.

Anyway, I'm writing in to see if anyone has any more info on this. Seems that it's a precursor of sorts to many of the modern lens formulas still in use. Thanks for any thoughts.

Best,
Nelson

Pretty old thing. Yes, it's a plasmat like our modern ones. Great design, but similar to the dialyt and others, 8 air glass interfaces before coatings were invented, was just too many. That's about 30% of your light that's not making an image. After WWII these designs came into their own because anti-reflection coatings solved those problems. To this day, a coated Artar is worth about 3 times what a non coated one is worth. I'll guess it at about 1940.