Domiplan lens and the CZJ Tessar lens

<p>Since I have both lenses , I thought I would try to compare them on the same roll of film by shooting with and then the other for the same view from POV and then go to another spot and shoot over again . Oh believe it or not I even kept track which lens what settings and what speed the film was Kodak Gold 200-24 , I myself should probably not do things like this since I have a hard time judging which is better . so I place them for you to tell me which is better: I know the Tessar is champ as far a lot of you folks are concerned :) But it gave me something to do: NO P>P> done other than cropping</p><div></div>

<p>frame three</p><div></div>

<p>next one in line<br>

frame seven</p><div></div>

<p>frame eight</p><div></div>

<p>next in line</p>

<p>next in line</p> nine<div></div>

<p>frame ten</p><div></div>

<p>Frame two is Domiplan 1/250 sec at F-13// frame three is Tessar 1/250sec F-13</p>

<p>Frame seven is Domiplan 1/500sec at F-11// Frame eight is Tessar 1/500sec at F11</p>

<p>Domiplan nine is Domiplan 1/1000sec at F-8// frame ten is Tessar 1/1000sec at F-eight</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>lens two</p><div></div>

<p>I believe I'm seeing slightly better contrast with the Domiplan? Slightly deeper blues in the water, better shadows ,like under the overpass in the last one? I know a lot of people hate the Domiplan= they used to go for $5 on ebay, not sure where they're at now, but I've found it a very capable lens. Of course you won't see the real failings of the Domiplan stopped down at f8-f13, it really loses it's sharpness off-center though when it's wide open. Plus, the M42 version tends to break, from what I've heard (mine is fine though).</p>

<p>I think they both look kind of blurry, but I think if these are prints, the processor didn't do them very carefully.</p>

<p>You're not going to see much of a difference between these designs at small apertures, but you would definitely see a difference wide open.</p>

<p>With color print film, it can be hard to compare lenses because you don't know what the minilab will decide to do. With slide film and a good scanner (or a good loupe) it's much easier.</p>

<p>That said... between #2 and #3, I prefer #3 (the Tessar) because of the very cold color of #2 and the sharper quality of #3. Between #7 and #8 I prefer #7 (Domiplan) because of its better contrast. #9 and #10 are both overexposed, but the Tessar again shows warmer colors. But it's hard to be sure how much any of this has to do with the lenses rather than the minilab or variations in shooting (focus accuracy, stability, etc.).</p>

<p>Fun excercise, <strong>Lauren</strong>; how nice to be looking for "Something to do"! Despite the bad press the Domiplan gets, mainly for it's fragile mechanism, I've found it performs very well from about f/5.6 down. As the others have said, at wider apertures the Tessar would definitely have the edge, but in this sort of test it would be hard to find huge differences.</p>

<p>I did a thing on the Domiplan a while ago, in which I surprised myself with the results:</p>

<p><a href="00XhXj">http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00XhXj</a></p>

<p>Great to see the Domiplan getting some respect. In its day this lens, and others with similar specs probably helped make SLR's more affordable to the average consumer. I noticed that some of the images are slightly darker at the right of the frame, possibly a scanner problem? The differences between the lenses appear to be minor at the medium to small apertures that would be required on a bright day. Your informative post has me curious about the price difference between a Domiplan and a Tessar--I am going to check some of my old back issues of Pop photo to look for some ads. Thanks for sharing.</p>

<p> I now have a Pancolor and a Tessar and a Domiplan also a 35mm Flektogon and two 135mm to play with now on the Exaktas .<br>

The domiplans have come up in price not like the Tessars or the Biotars those are expensive maybe others since the Exakta cameras had many lens makers producing lenses for them :</p>

<p>these are just develop only at target , their machine had been down and the lady ran it for when she felt the it was running good again, they were all scanned on my Epson 4870 scanner at 150dpi on Silver Fast ver: 6.6.2r5 ,<br>

so that much I can tell you , I know nine and ten have a heck of light coming back at the lenses the wheat tone of the grass caused a lot of the light reflection in those two, Now seven and eight that seven has better color saturation to it than does eight has ,they both can be made better with some Post Processing, as for two and three I am a little lost on them I did not think I had moved that far of the first frame of the shot, but it does look like it tho: thanks for your inputs on this folks :</p>

<p>Frankly, I have trouble seeing differences in the shots that can be controlled to the level of which lens was used.</p>

<p>The Domiplan can be reasonably decent, especially when stopped down, although, as you say, the Tessar has a much better reputation. The Domiplan was KW/Pentacon's inexpensive 'default' lens on many models at the nadir of East German quality control, alas.</p>

<p>The real problem, especially on M42 versions of these lenses, was that the Domiplan aperture mechanism is so fragile that relatively few examples in that mount are still functional. I rarely use my functioning ones, for fear that they will join their non-functional sisters.<br>

The Exakta mount versions seem to be a more likely to be working.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I posted some shots with the Domiplan / Exakta combination a while back, and was surprised at the good contrast and sharpness at f8/11: http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00YyHU<br>

I've not yet got around to shooting with the other lens which came with the camera - a Pancolar, which I've now got working properly after a few problems.</p>

<p>I think they vary in quality a lot depending on the example. Some Tessars are brilliant and compare very favourably with some of my modern lenses where as the others are clearly poor samples. Sometimes, you have to buy a few to get a good one.</p>