The Legendary Lydith; Simply Great.

Rick, I like the big shots best. Detail is great. Enjoyed the post.

 

Randyc

<blockquote>

<p>... and it's wonderful ability to create images with that indefinable "presence" that I find so appealing in the Oreston. It's hard to explain the sense of depth and dimension that the lens brings to an image,...</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Meyer used to produce lenses for the Movie industry. Perhaps, that explains the characteristics of "rendering" that we find in the Oreston, Lydith, etc. I have a few Lydiths in both Exakta and Praktica mounts. Really like them.<br>

I am sure your pictures will enhance the Ebay price of the Lydiths. Beautiful pictures, as usual. Thanks, sp.</p>

I have possessed Matanle's books for years, but I was unaware of this lens. Great performance in the hands of a master.

<p>Great responses! The Lydith is one of my favourite lenses, high on the list of lenses that gets picked up if I just want to go out and take photographs for the fun of it. The "Lydith" folder on the computer must contain more kept images than that of any other lens, I suspect. You're right about the clangers, <strong>Tony</strong>, though as <strong>JDM</strong> rightly pointed out the glass was often good but the cheap build rather spoiled things. Even a Domiplan can perform quite nicely, in working trim. I'm pleased you noticed the obligatory peeling paint...Thanks, <strong>John</strong>, a book would be a nice project, though there's currently some persuasion to do a calender, but I tend to be my own severest critic, in such matters. Interesting that you and <strong>Fred</strong> picked the Lydith's possible ancestory of both Olympus and Nikon lenses. </p>

<p>Lucky man, <strong>Jeff</strong>, the Noflexar is one really interesting lens, and getting hard to come by at any price, as are many other classic lenses, as <strong>Chuck</strong> observed. You could well be right about the movie influence, <strong>SP</strong>, and I know how much you admire the Oreston. The "Tibouchina" image perhaps illustrates the ability of these Meyer lenses to produce an almost-3D effect. You're right, <strong>Randy</strong>, big is definitely better! And thanks, <strong>Gene</strong> and <strong>David</strong>, for your comments.</p>

<p>Great pictures Rick. The lens is so very sharp, it competes well with today's lenses despite its 50 year age! The veedub image is very nice.</p>

<p>This lens performance is pretty similar to those of the same era. Nothing spectacular there but people are prone to find qualities where there is none. Why Meyer lenses have cult followers when other manufacturers did much better is beyond my understanding...</p>

<p>You're right about it holding up well against modern lenses, <strong>Shash</strong>,which is why I use it. Thanks for the response, <strong>Nicolas</strong>; "...beyond my understanding..." is noted.</p>

What a beautiful blue on that tibowhatever. This is likely the best photo in this outstanding series.

 

Bravo!

<p>Immensely enjoyable and skilfully done review of the Lydith as typical for your photo essays Rick. I loved the photo inside the old barn looking through the window. I won an Exakta a couple of weeks ago, so maybe a Lydith for it will come my way when it's ready for a film. Thanks for taking the time to put this together and I hope you are all safe and well after the most recent quakes.</p>

<p>Rick<br>

I don't know what you are on, but you ought to bottle it and sell it.<br>

I had a Lydith in M42 mount which I used on my first SLR, a Petriflex V6. This would be around 1968, and was the widest lens I could afford as a student. I reckon it sold for around £30 ( £1 per mm?) in the UK, and everything else was twice the price. I never got impressive results from it and blamed the lens, so I was secretly pleased when it got stolen in a burglary. I used the insurance money to buy a Tamron 28mm<br>

I'm going to have to dig back in my neg file and see if I can improve on my prints from this lens given what you can do with it.<br>

Mike Pearson</p>

<p>Thanks, <strong>Brett</strong> and <strong>David</strong>, and no damage resulting from the recent quakes, just a heightened tension. Perhaps you had a poor copy of the Lydith, <strong>Mike</strong>; I've read that there was some variation in manufacturing quality, but not as much as with the Orestegon, which became the Pentacon 29/2.8 Glad you enjoyed the post.</p>

I found your post doing a search for the history of this company. Thank you much for your great photos and description of the history. I picked up a Pentacon 30 a couple of years back, now running it on M43 and a Canon M50, both with focal reducers. I have grown very fond of this lens, which I picked up very reasonably (30USD) because of a bent filter ring, straightened out the ring, added a filter, since trusting the filters threads more. This lens has character, So many of the digital lenses seem antiseptic comparatively, the background blur is amazing, and the colors are great, as your photos show so nicely.

Well, that's certainly unearthing a piece of ancient history, a post from the good old days. I'm pleased you enjoyed it, and that it was of some help.

Harkens back to an era... both the post and the lens!!

Definitely worth a resurrection.:)

 

As I said the first time around, Meyer was not the "best" of the DDR lens makers, but they were willing to experiment, and came up with some wonders in their day, like their f/0.95 45mm of the middle 60s and their more recent (post VEB) Nocturnus. I don't know if these were actually sold to the public or not, however.

While this thread is resurrected: Hugo Meyer was one of the few companies to "copy" the legendary Dagor lens design of C.P.Goerz. The Meyer Dagor copy goes under the un-presupposing name of "Doppel-Anastigmat" and usually doesn't fetch anywhere near the price of a Dagor.

 

Just a bit of trivia for lens collectors and users of antique large-format gear.

Well, that's certainly unearthing a piece of ancient history, a post from the good old days. I'm pleased you enjoyed it, and that it was of some help.

 

Hello Rick,

 

I've been interested in a 2nd lens for my Practica LTL, and notice this lens you've highlighted is selling at reasonable price point on eB@y, at least there seem to be good quality lenses available right now... all from sources outside the U.S. however. This lens seems quite interesting, maybe it would compliment my Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar lens, suitably? BUT although I know my LTL has a screw mount, I do not know what exactly it is- seems there are at least 2 different screw mounts?

 

Can you enlighten me as to what mount my LTL has, please?

Thank you.

Tom

Edited July 7, 2021 by Ricochetrider

Ricochetrider said :

Can you enlighten me as to what mount my LTL has, please?

 

The Prakticas in general had the M42 screw mount, later adopted by Asahi and popularised as the "Pentax screw mount". Happily, there is a huge range of older lenses available in this mount. Nice cameras, the LTL's. The much later electronic Prakticas moved to a bayonet mount, the PB, and there are not many lenses available for that system other than the original Pentacon creations. Everything you'll ever want to know about Prakticas may be found here:

 

Mike's Praktica Home

Edited July 7, 2021 by rick_drawbridge

Thanks Rick- Dr Mike has a nice website!