This might make a good portrait lens...

[rick_oleson]

over the weekend I picked up a nice 1953 Praktica FX with an equally nice (somewhat older, around 1950) 58/1.9 Meyer Primagon lens on it. The Primagon, as I recall, got by with one less element than the 58/2 Zeiss Biotar of the same period, and was a less expensive lens - a top-line lens on a Praktica, rather than a Contax S. You can't call it sharp, but it has a pleasant rendering and the bit of softness might go well with its short-tele perspective on an APS format body to serve as a slightly dreamy portrait lens.

Here's an example shot at its softest, wide open at f/1.9 and at its close focus limit of 75 cm. I would ordinarily be inclined to boost the contrast a bit and maybe add a click of sharpness to it, but in the interest of demonstrating the lens I have left this without any postprocessing:



I have noticed one other, unrelated thing while playing with this lens this evening: even with a manual focusing screen in the camera, the viewfinder considerably understates the amount of blur in out-of-focus details. I had observed this with the AF screen but had never really looked for it after changing screens. In this case, I took a couple of shots specifically to catch the image of some out-of-focus highlights, only to find that the recorded image bore almost no resemblance to what I had seen in the viewfinder.... clean little donuts in the finder came out as huge blurs. I need to take a closer look at my screen - my guess is that it's made up of little microlenses similar to the AF screen, just with larger apertures....

[Seele]

Rick,

I am sure you meant Primoplan, rather than Primagon?

As it happens I have a Praktica FX with the same Primoplan too, both requiring work; the shutter has gone positively funky, and the lens has a major case of fungus infestation and its focussing helicoid jammed up altogether. Still I'd see if my technician is willing to give them the once-over.

[no-X]

rick_oleson: Primoplan 58/1.9 is one of my highest-rated lenses. My experience...

• sharp center (maybe slightly sharper than Biotar)
  
• soft corners
  
• great bokeh - best of all <f/2 primes I know and 2nd best of all standard primes (1st one is Volna-9 for me)
  
• lowest axial-CA of all <f/2 primes I know - this really helps to nice bokeh
  

Primoplan is based on different optical formula than Biotar. Biotar is slightly assymetric - but more or less basic - planar.

Primoplan is enhanced triplet design. Concretely enhanced Ernostar with cemented doublet instead of 2nd optical element:




Primoplan 58/1.9:



Biotar 58/2:


http://www.taunusreiter.de/Cameras/Biotar_en.html

[rick_oleson]

[Bruce]

[martinsmith99]

That could be interesting for selected applications. It does look like a soft focus filter has been added.

[LucisPictor]

I like my Primoplan 58 a lot. It creates a very special effect with an individual character.