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 (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/HugoMeyerDoppel/HugoMeyerDoppel.html) 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?


http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/HugoMeyerDoppel/lens.jpg

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

85691856928569385694

[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.

[Steven Tribe]

Don't own a Plastmat. But:
- the F5.5 is the speed of both lenses together.
- the F.11 is the speed of the rear lens - when used without the front lens.
Not all shutters are original to the specific lens pair - or were engraved with 2 or 3 scales for the possibilities there were.
Yes, the plastmat was a real advance in lens design

[graflexiste]

Wow. Thank you for such quick responses.

Jim - 1940 is probably about right. I got this lens from a professor of mine about 20 years ago and it belonged to his father, so ... 1940.

Your comment about all the glass-air surfaces without coatings makes a lot of sense. I knew the shutter was slow, but still things tended to come out underexposed, so does it make sense that while it's rated at 5.5, it exposes more like an f.8?

In any event, it's nice to use, but requires a beefy front standard. I'd need to make some scans to show the results - give me a couple days.

Thanks again. I've been reading here for a while and finally jumped in.

[jcoldslabs]

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

Ya, you betcha!


http://www.kolstad.us/ebay/Meyer-on-2D.jpg


OK, so it's actually a 240mm f/4.8, but close enough. Jim's is a No.5, while mine is a No. 4. The serial numbers are pretty close, though. I have the same shooting experience: nicely soft wide open and sharp stopped down. Not great for landscapes since the minimum aperture is only f/32.

Jonathan

[Jim Galli]

Ya, you betcha!


OK, so it's actually a 240mm f/4.8, but close enough. Jim's is a No.5, while mine is a No. 4. The serial numbers are pretty close, though. I have the same shooting experience: nicely soft wide open and sharp stopped down. Not great for landscapes since the minimum aperture is only f/32.

Jonathan

Thanks for resurrecting my thread Jonathan. It was fun to look at the pics again and ask myself, why is that old beauty laying dormant since I made those. It ought to get used! I hope you'll share some images done with yours when you can.

[jcoldslabs]

I found a Hugo Meyer Doppel-Anastigmat 210mm f/5.5 recently that is definitely a Dagor type and covers 8x10 easily starting at f/8. It has some scratches and other wear and tear to the front element so I wasn't hoping for much contrast-wise, but here is a test shot of the backyard taken today. The white eaves on the house at center right (beyond the fence) show some highlight halos, but overall the lens performs pretty well considering its age and condition.

Kodak 2D 8x10, 210mm Hugo Meyer Doppel-Anastigmat @ f/50, Kodak Low Contrast Aerial Duplicating Film (SO-277).


http://www.kolstad.us/ebay/Meyer-DA-TEST.jpg


And a detail:


http://www.kolstad.us/ebay/Meyer-DA-DETAIL.jpg

Jonathan

[jcoldslabs]

I found another one. Picked this one for a song because, like the one in Jim's original post, the front element has some damage (so does the rear, for that matter). I wonder if the outer elements of these were made from softer glass.

Jim reported that his lens is quite soft wide open. That has been my experience with the two other Meyer Doppel-Anastigmats I have, as though the extra speed was there mainly for ease of composing on the ground glass and not for exposing. But this one, a 300mm, is actually rather sharp wide open which surprised me. I wonder if the design was refined somehow? I haven't shot with it yet, but when I do I'll post some images.

The lens weighs nearly four pounds. Adding extra speed (f/5 vs. f/6.8) vis à vis the traditional 3+3 Dagor layout is great for portraits and composing but comes at the cost of enormous weight. This makes me wonder what these lenses were originally designed for--studio work? I can't imagine anyone would want to lug one of these out in the field.


http://www.kolstad.us/ebay/300mm%20F5%20Meyer%2002.jpg


http://www.kolstad.us/ebay/300mm%20F5%20Meyer%2001.jpg

Jonathan

[Jim Galli]

A cool lens Jonathan. Rarely seen in any shape.

[jcoldslabs]

Jim, you're the patron saint of old unusual lenses. I've got you and your Web site to thank for both sparking my interest in and providing real world examples from lenses such as this.

J.