Yet another of my ancient vintage lenses ....
479 posts
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Posted 18/01/2023 - 10:34
These are perfectly sharp for me, viewed large on my new'ish Asus monitor - brilliant in fact, I bet that lens is worth a bob or two. 
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Posted 18/01/2023 - 21:01
Interesting lens, whose capabilities are shown very well in your pictures.
I googled it to try and find out a bit more. Here‘s some interesting history of that design:
link (in German but can probably be translated with Google etc.)
As far as I can understand the Primotar are based on a Zeiss Tessar design and were released after the patent for the Tessar had expired.
An interesting feature, also mentioned in some of the marketing material for the Primotar E 3.5/50 included on the linked page, is that although it is a relatively modest f/3.5, there is a wider aperture for focussing which is designed to be used for focussing but otherwise not usable for taking the photo. The logic is reported to be that most amateurs stopped down to f/4 or higher in practice anyway so an optimized lens at reasonable cost makes some sense. Anyway, it seems like they had a bit of a lukewarm reception. Despite the optical quality and relatively large amount of advertising, production didn‘t run for very long so one in the condition you have might not be all that common.
I googled it to try and find out a bit more. Here‘s some interesting history of that design:
link (in German but can probably be translated with Google etc.)
As far as I can understand the Primotar are based on a Zeiss Tessar design and were released after the patent for the Tessar had expired.
An interesting feature, also mentioned in some of the marketing material for the Primotar E 3.5/50 included on the linked page, is that although it is a relatively modest f/3.5, there is a wider aperture for focussing which is designed to be used for focussing but otherwise not usable for taking the photo. The logic is reported to be that most amateurs stopped down to f/4 or higher in practice anyway so an optimized lens at reasonable cost makes some sense. Anyway, it seems like they had a bit of a lukewarm reception. Despite the optical quality and relatively large amount of advertising, production didn‘t run for very long so one in the condition you have might not be all that common.
Link
Posted 18/01/2023 - 23:34
Curious. You are quite correct! I thought the awkward ring on the front was simply an auto/manual switch - admittedly to assist with focusing. When done, you turn the ring and it acts as a pre-set device, stopping down to the value on the aperture ring. BUT I failed to notice that when set at 3.5 the iris still visibly covers part of the available orifice through the lens. When you turn the front ring the iris does indeed open fully. Clever idea but one of the reasons it failed must have been that it is a complete pain in the bits to operate in the first place !
Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass
My page on Photocrowd - link
Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass
My page on Photocrowd - link
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davidwozhere
Member
Slap in the middle of England
It's resolution is quite remarkable, as shown by the full frame and 100% crop of a shot from the local park.
and crop (which is much clearer on a big monitor).
As to colour, I found a Berberis bush with thorns to make anyone think twice!
and some rose hips
If you examine the various control rings on the thing you will see that they had no notion of 'ease of use' in those days, probably because setting up the camera and lens to take a picture then was such a finicky task anyway !
Comments are, of course welcome.
Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass
My page on Photocrowd - link