Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/13
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At 02:25 PM 11/13/97 GMT, Jem K wrote:
>get this...
>a 10.5cm F2.7 Makro Plasmat in LTM by Dr. R.H.Meyer & Co. of Gorlitz, DRP.
>It focusses down to 1.5, though I'm sure that'll only be meters and not
>feet. The mount is extremely heavy though looks original, a mixture of black
>enamel and chrome, it stops down to F22 in 'modern' not European numbers.
>Anyone got any knowledge about this anomaly?
Sure, but you have to buy my book to read about it! Actually, while I do
mention the 4 1/2" f/2.8 Trioplan, I was unaware of the 1.7/10.5cm Plasmat
in LTM, so thank you! Was the lens RF-coupled?
Dr Paul Rudolph was head of lens design at Carl Zeiss Jena for about twenty
years, during which time he produced such epic designs as the Unar, Planar
and Tessar. He retired from Zeiss before the First War but was financially
ruined in the German depression following the Armistice and took employment
with Meyer-Gorlitz. He reworked their line of cine lenses into the Plasmat
lenses which were the first general-purpose 'fast' lenses ever made. These
are not terribly GOOD lenses, but they are fast and effective. As Peter
Dechert said of the Astro lenses, they were all that were available in
their own day.
When Leica first began exploring the use of interchangeable lenses, they
worked with an English camera dealer, A O Roth, to produce cameras using
Meyer, Ross, and Dallmeyer lenses.
Zeiss never adopted the Stolze ("European") aperture scale and only two
Zeiss lenses are known to exist using this. Zeiss favoured the
International Scale in general use today, and Rudolph carried this over to
Meyer when he went to that estimable firm.
Finally, you didn't say how much they were asking for the lens -- I'm
interested!
Marc
msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!