Hugo Meyer

Plasmatlinse 8/32cm 11/47cm Satz Plasmat 22.3cm

Gem or Junk?

Found one but have to get a lens board with a correct hole.

Don't know the proper use. Two lenses with interrupted threads. separate? combined? switched front to back?

Any help?

SID

With most 'covertible' Plasmats, you remove the front group to get the longer focal-length (and smaller aperture). This is usually to the detriment of the combined image quality at the shorter focal length.

If three focal lengths and apertures are given, then the two longer FLs will be those of the front and rear groups separately and the shortest FL that of the combination.

Compendium lenses like this were once popular with frugal photographers, who effectively got 3 lenses for the price of one. The fact that two of those lenses gave inferior image quality didn't seem to worry them much!

I imagine the IQ will be similar to that got from the more common Schneider 'convertible' Symmars of 210mm FL. However, Meyer were late to the table in applying AR coatings to their lenses and an uncoated version will obviously have lower contrast than a coated example.

Also, condition is everything with a lens. Cleaning micro-scratches and other damage can cause a severe degradation of performance.

FWIW, the combination of a 32cm lens with a 47cm lens ought to give a 19cm lens by my calculation. Two near-identical 43cm + 47cm groups together would give a combination much closer to 22.3cm.

P.S. Sheeesh! I just looked at the price being asked on eBay for some of these Meyer bits of old junk (my personal opinion). Talk about optimistic. And not even a shutter thrown in.

Let's just note that in the post-war, VEB, east German technical environment, Meyer-Görlitz was the provider of the cheaper, "default" lenses for various DDR lens mounts (M42x1, Exakta, etc.). Not all their lenses were 'crap', but some were. Their problems, to be sure, were often mechanical rather than purely optical.

Some of their standard lenses have a sort of Petzval-like swirl to the bokeh that can be nice in some applications.