opinions on these lenses

[FrankS]

50mm f/1.8 Meyer-Optic Oreston

50mm f/1.9 Canon collapsible (Serenar?)

Good/bad/so-so?

[NoTx]

"50mm f/1.8 Meyer-Optic Oreston" Now that peeks my interest... now I am going to have to research:)

[back alley]

i'm curious about the canon also. been thinking it might be kinda cool on the p for a more compact profile. (unlike my own)

joe

[yossarian]

Frank,
I've used a few of these, and they (like the Soviet lenses) had rather loose QC and tended to vary a lot.
Just to make certain we're talking about the same lens, the ones I used had the very useful ability to focus to 13" (from the film plane). I would put average optical characteristics of this lens on par with similar vintage Mamiya/Sekor and Miranda lenses; sharpness and contrast would both rate adequate but flare level a bit on the high side. However, there was no dramatic drop in quality at minimum focus, which is remarkable, considering it beat out every other normal lens except for the f/2 Planar for the Contarex in near focus.
yossarian

[doubs43]

"50mm f/1.8 Meyer-Optic Oreston"

Frank, I've owned a couple of thses lens and have one on a Pentax Spotmatic II and another on an Exakta RTL-1000 as I type. In general, the Oreston 50mm f/1.8 is an excellent lens. There was another 50mm lens of the same period made by CZ-Jena called the Pancolar. The Pancolar is reported to be ever so slightly better than the Oreston but IMO it depends upon the specific examples.

If the Meyer-Optik Oreston was made in other than M-42 and Exakta mounts, I'm not aware of it. My first such lens came as standard on the Exakta RTL-1000 that I bought back in the early 1970's. The pictures it took were first-rate.

Walker

[FrankS]

I've spoken to the seller, and the Meyer-Optic is indeed an m42 mount, so fo-get-a-bout-it. The Canon 50mm F1.9 lens needs disassembly to remove some large paint flakes, so it's pretty reasonable. But is it worth it? I've got several 50's already.

[back alley]

don't know if you're interested, but ebay has a whole swack of collapsable russian 50s right now.

joe

[back alley]

from the dechert book, page 82

'the f2 normal serenar was recomputed to a design with f1.9 maximum aperture, largely a cosmetic improvement,for use with the IIB camera'
' like the f2 serenar, the f1.9 was also collapsable and was made to a gauss-derived formula...'

i can't seem to find any comments on the quality of the images taken with the lens, sorry.

joe

[Kin Lau]

Don't know how much the Serenar is going for, but it does have a very good reputation.

[ddutchison]

Frank,
There was a thread today on Photonet about the 50/1.9
Canon F1.8 LTM, Canon F1.9, or Jupiter 8? (http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BLtt)