Hartblei Arsenal P6 Lenses

[themoleman342]

In the 90s, Hartblei took to revising some of the older Ukrainian designs. There's a discussion here: http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/discussionFrameset.asp?webtag=kievreport&ctx=&cacheTag=14-58&msg=1602.11
Has anyone owned/seen/used any of these lenses? Production figures must be quite low.
I think the most common one I've seen is the improved Kaleinar 2.8/150mm: http://www.pentaconsix.com/C462_22.jpg
Were there others? I'm not interested in the T&S stuff, just the improved primes.
Thanks in advance!
~Marc

[iangreenhalgh1]

Hartblei, to the best of my knowledge, didn't have any facilities for making their own glass so surely they were limited to what they could source from Arsenal? That would mean improvements would purely be in the physical assembly of the lenses, wouldn't it? There are a lot of cases where the Arsenal lenses were poorly assembled and therefore didn't perform as well as the glass they contained was capable of. Perhaps all Hartblei did as remanufacture Arsenal lenses to higher standards, therefore obtaining a better performing product? This would lead to the assumption that the maximum performance of a Hartblei lens was merely that of the best examples of the same lens from Arsenal. Did Hartblei even possess the facilities to recalculate lens designs? Again, if not, they would be reliant on Arsenal designs.

[themoleman342]

The link I provided attempts to answer almost all of your questions.

The Hartblei 2.8/150mm is multi-coated and a different physical construction. No Kaleinar is MC. They must have outsourced to some facility. I also thought, in terms of lens construction, one can't just get a better lens by stripping off the old coatings and putting something new on. There have to be calculations involved. The speculation is LZOS produced glass for them upon request.

Arax was/is more about re-manufacturing to a higher standard. I thought Hartblei really tried to re-engineer the Kiev brand.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I read that thread and it left me rather confused, sadly.

I know that people have had lenses like the Mir-26B that sucked badly then after sending them for a CLA/rebuild the performance was improved dramatically and the technician who worked on them reported that spacing rings or other components had been improperly assembled in the factory.

That to me, suggests that there is a lot of scope for improving the performance through a thorough remanufacturing without actually changing the optics.

I am interested in finding answers to this quandry as I am interested in Russian lenses in P6 mount but have so far been put off them by the large variation in examplars due to the poor assembly reported by end users and repairmen.

The Mir-26B interests me as an alternative to the Flek 50, but only if I could find a good one. I'll certainly keep my eye out for Hartblei ones.

[themoleman342]

[iangreenhalgh1]

Yes, I can't say I've seen any Hartblei lenses for sale, but then again, I haven't looked.

Please share any further info you find on this subject, I find it most interesting.

[themoleman342]

At the risk at turning this into a discussion about the Mir 26, here's one sample of what they can be capable of:


This is wide open (f3.5) and hand-held on a Kiev 6c. Portra 160. No PP, just resizing. Mine is a later "Arsat" labeled one.
I think it's pretty impressive for the focal length. I had a zebra flektogon 50mm for a little while, it wasn't as sharp wide-open and it flared considerably more.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Interesting, I have seen results from other Mir-26Bs that were far away from that in IQ.