Piesker Berlin Picon 400mm Æ’/4.5

[Paragon19]

So I did a search of the forums for Piesker, and it doesn't look like there's a topic for the Piesker Berlin Picon 400mm Æ’/4.5 yet, so I thought I would start out by sharing three edited images I took with the lens on a Canon EOS M6 Mark II. It's a pretty simple lens, with only two elements mounted in front of the 20-blade aperture, and the rest of the lens is basically a hollow tube with a tripod and M42 mount. The glass on mine was a bit dirty, but cleaned up very easily. I also had to cover up some peeling material inside the integral hood using some black painter's tape.

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Images of the lens itself and unprocessed raw exports coming soon.

[Paragon19]

I got permission from the seller to post the images they took for the listing, since I forgot to take photos of the condition of the lens before working on it:

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My own photos of the lens itself are still pending my getting a little free time to take them.

[jamaeolus]

I have one of these sitting in its box in the closet in my lens room. Just a huge thing. They come up for sale on e-bay rarely and prices are all over the map. Good to see one getting some use.

[Paragon19]

[Paragon19]

Alright, time for a few photos of the lens itself.

First up we have the entire lens. I haven't measured the length yet, but you can see it's quite long.
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Taking a look at the side, we can see the minimum aperture is f22, and it uses a preset aperture with a locking lever instead of a second preset ring. Focus throw is nearly 360 degrees from infinity to the minimum focus distance of a quite long 20 feet.
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The lens came with an M42 mount that is locked in place by a large nut. No idea if other mounts were available, but it would be easy to swap out.
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The two elements are 90mm in diameter, don't appear to have any coating, and you can see the huge iris behind them clearly.
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Twenty aperture blades keep it pretty round when stopped down, but there's some kind of scalloping going on stopped down all the way to f22. I'll have to check if it does that at wider apertures.
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The front of the lens simply screws off by hand with no tools. The front contains both of the only two glass elements, which appear to be air separated. The huge iris is easily accessible now as well. There is a little oil on the blades of my copy that should be very easy to clean. You can also see my somewhat slipshod application of black painter's tape to cover up the peeling interior of the hood.
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A closer shot of the iris. It's not surprising there's so much dust in hear since the rear of the lens is just a hollow tube.
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Closer shot of the elements from behind.
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The minimum focus distance of 20 feet was far too long for the sample shots I took of birds, so I added a helicoid to the rear. If I can find a way to shorten the body of the lens (perhaps with a shorter M42 mount attachment) I'd like to keep one on it permanently...if I decide to keep it.
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Some shots of the labeling.
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[eggplant]

Some lovely documentation and sample pictures here- didn't realise it was uncoated. Thanks!

[marcusBMG]

Interesting old lens, thanks for posting the info. Love these big old iris's and zebra livery. It will be 40cm long at infinity focus given that its not a telephoto, extending for closer focus. Its optically similar to my novoflex (tho' thats a triplet), that has a lot of focus extension.
Bird pics don't look that great tbh, but you need to try to take some very careful ones to really see the best the lens can do: live view focus, remote shutter etc. Like the novoflex the lens will be better stopped down.

[Paragon19]

[spiffariffic]

Ok, this is really cool!

Obviously it doesn't excel at super-sharp wildlife photos but seeing as it's only two elements to begin with, I really wonder if you couldn't have some fun by turning it into a monocle lens or flipping one of the elements. Bet you could get some really interesting pictorialist-style (aka artsy) photographs out of it. Never seen anyone do that with a super long lens… yet!

[jamaeolus]

i have several piesker lenses and most are pretty good if the optics aren't foggy or whatnot. I have to confess I have never really spent much time with the 400. I will try to make a point of it soon. The weather is sunny (but really cold!) all of a sudden.