6x Shootout: Biotar Pancolar Oreston Primoplan Helios v6 v7

alex ph · Joined: 16 Mar 2013 Posts: 1571

Thank you for a very clear comparison. Subjectively, for colors and image rendition, I liked the most Pancolar and Oreston. Taking into account that Oreston is barely the cheapest among your test set! It makes me wonder, who set that Primoplan should be the highest in price? Was it an initial price tag, in the production period, or was it a "popular marketing" coming from forums and extremely well done pictures on flickr?

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 2877

Rarity + collectors + hype somewhere, the recipe is the same for all lenses. I am sure more good pictures were taken with Oreston than with Primoplan.

Really, if one wants a technically good lens, take any Japanese top brand from the beginning of 80' (Nikon/Canon/Konica/Zuiko/Pentax/Minolta does not matter) and you have it. But those lenses are so ubiquitous that after awhile people stop being excited by them and start to search for "character". That's where lenses with flaws such as Primoplan deliver. I am sure 99% of Primoplan owners were overjoyed to upgrade it for Oreston and Trioplan for Orestor.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Main thing this test shows is the differences between good 50mm double gauss type lenses are rather slight. The Biotar and Primoplan, being older and designed before electronic computers are a little less highly corrected so have a little swirl to the bokeh caused by spherical aberration and coma. That is only apparent wide open though and stopped down, they will all perform about the same with only very minor differences.

alex ph · Joined: 16 Mar 2013 Posts: 1571

Fermy, you must be right!

Me personally, I appreciate Fujian CCTV that I use sometimes on NEX just because it delivers some difficulties to shoot. I think, digital photography almost exempted users from that minimal effort they had to do with manual cameras. So when you find a lens that delivers you some imperfection, that turns you back to the ultime sens of photography: you start overcoming that imperfection in search of reality.

alex ph · Joined: 16 Mar 2013 Posts: 1571

iangreenhalgh1, from what you say follows that a lens imperfection costs more. Funny! I saw Primoplan prices on ebay, it's higher than Takumar.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Yes Alex, that is often the case. Some people seek out lenses with 'character' and those lenses are the ones with residual aberratons present. The reason why they are more expensive is supply and demand - there are so many later lenses with higher level of corrections but the older less corrected ones with character are simply not available in the same numbers. Primoplan is expensive, there aren't many of them around. A Helios 44 is a good substitute for the Primoplan imho.