Abot reviews

I found this little Meyer optics Domiplan 50mm f2.8 lens in my cupboard the other day.
I thought before I use it, I have a look at some reviews.
After I read a few, I was just about ready to commit suicide or send the lens to my worst enemy.
Some of the idiotic comments in various reviews:

It is not as good as my Takumar 50mm f1.4 What do they expect from a 3 element Cooke style triplet

it is slower than normal 50mm lenses. What do they expect from a 3 element Cooke style triplet

It is soft wide open. What do they expect from a 3 element Cooke style triplet.

The edge sharpness is not perfect. Who gives a s...

So Before I Jumped down some bridge, I went in to my backyard and took a few pictures with my K5 and this lens fitted.
I can't really find anything wrong with this lens. Maybe it is not quite as sharp as the latest 25 element
aspherical rare earth glass f0.5 25kg 50mm lens ,

I would say, this lens does take some very nice images.

This people who write some of the reviews must be photographing brick walls only.

The above applies to other lenses too. The 2 most idiotic comment reappear all the time
1. It is softer wide open . What else do they expect?
2. The lens is prone to flare especially wide open when taking pictures in to the sun.
This improves when fitting a lens hood. How stupid can you get, to mention the obvious ? Why would you even think of not using a lens hood?

Regards, Horst

My first SLR - a Praktica 1V had this lens which i think was the standard one sold with the camera. I like the colours it produces, but in those days the colours had more to do with the brand of film one was using than the characteristics of the lens, I think.

Lens testing and lens reviewing is a complex thing, and very time consuming. Of course, it might seem obvious to us that three element lenses are not corrected as well as 6 element ones, but not everybody knows that. Not everybody knows that a lens hood helps a lot and why.

The Domiplan is a modest lens that works well stopped down. If we started to use a Takumar instead, then the difference would be obvious immediately in many ways, including colour vibrance, sharpness and build quality.

The Domiplan may be soft wide open, but not all lenses are, so again probably good information for those who are looking for guidance.

John wrote

This is exactly what i meant.

How stupid of the reviewer to compare a seven element and a 3 element lens and then saying the Takumar is better.

How stupid to complain about having only an f-stop of 2.8 .
2.8 is even excessive for Cooke triplet. 3.5 or 4 would be better.

I recon, it would be more sensible for the reviewer of any lens, just to show a series of images , close medium distance and infinity distance with the various f-stops.

One could see, If one likes what the lens ( actually the objective) produces .
All the charts on lines p/mm and similar technicalities are really irrelevant if you like or don't like the images the objective produces.
Regards, Horst

I was really hoping, somebody would comment on the pictures I added .
To tell what they think of the quality.

Regards, Horst

Children pics are particularly nice. I think you will like the article:- "Why An Image With Technical Merit Won't Always Cut It Any More" on here !

Well - they're a bit soft and lacking contrast -
but what would you expect from a 3 element Cooke style triplet?
Look on the bright side. Some of those early SLRs had Ludwig Meritars on them.

On the other hand, they are nice photographs - so it can't be that bad. My first camera was an Exa IIb with a Domiplan lens. I rather liked it. Then a burglar nicked it, together with my Exakta RTL1000

I see 2 main problems with this lens.

1. The colour rendition on those Orange trees looks a bit too yellow to me
2. For some reason it takes photographs of children defying gravity



For an old 'cheapie' the results look OK to me - I have owned virtually every Pentax fit 50mm lens made at one point or another - and have to say that I have never found a truly dreadful one. You can pick them all up so cheaply - they are great fun to play with and compare to modern lenses

Carl

Carl wrote:

Exactly my sentiments. it seems we both have fun, using and playing around with different lenses, looking at the results and not just the cold hard graphs.

Actually I thought those lemons looked a slight bit to orange.

Regards, Horst

Another famous 3 element lens the Meyer Optik Goerlitz Trioplan 100mm f/2.8 will be available new shortly for the bargain price of 1400 Euros

Mind you don't get trampled in the rush!

http://photorumors.com/2015/05/21/meyer-optik-goerlitz-trioplan-100mm-f2-8-lens-...

Video....

http://photorumors.com/2015/06/26/meyer-optik-trioplan-100mm-f2-8-lens-for-dslr-...#more-73262

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Algi, I checked the above link. here is one part of the crap written:

If the effect shown is just because of the 15 Aperture blades, the hundreds of older and some newer lenses which also have 15 or so aperture blades would have the same effect. They don,t. It has to do with the arrangement of the actual lens elements especially with the triplets or also Petzval type lenses.
Any lens, fully open, has a completely round aperture. therefore, any lens wide open should also have this effect. What crap. I have some old Kodak , Ilex, Agfa and lenses with 13 an 15 blades. None of them give this effect. I also don't think this totally exaggerated effect looks very good.

Regards, Horst

Actually Horst, the quote you've made is quite correct. Some current Pentax lenses also have more, and sometimes curved as well, aperture blades to make a more circular aperture and hence smoother bokeh.

Don't confuse this with the number of elements. Triplets can also have very high contrast and high centre sharpness as there are few air/glass surfaces to reflect light inside the lens.

You don't take photographs with a 100mm Trioplan..........
..... You perform Magic!

http://flickriver.com/search/trioplan+100mm/

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Hi John,
Thanks for your comment, I did not try and make Triplets look bad, on the contrary, you are correct in what you are saying about less reflections etc.

what i am saying to get such an effect, in my opinion a not very nice effect. you have to make the lens do it and not the diaphragm.
Bokeh does not mean a confusing mess behind your object, but a smooth relaxing background.
if you look at the imaged shown in this link, one doesn't know where to look. The subject is hardly visible because of this.

If you ever have seen the Bokeh of an old Elmar lens, then you know what I mean.

the Elmar did have a similar lens arrangement as the Tessar, but not quite the same. Max Berek knew what he wanted, A sharp, lens with a smooth Bokeh. It also had 15diaphjragm blades, but did not have anything like this future 100mm f2.8 Meyer Domiplan.

Regards, Horst