I have recently purchased a Hugo Meyer 200mm F-9 Weitwinkel-Aristostigmat lens and was told this was a wide angle lens that will cover 8x10. Can anyone tell me anything about this lens, it's age, performance opinions ?. Any info on the Hugo Meyer Co. which frankly I have never heard of before. Thanks

-- Craig Maxwell (cm@craigmaxwellphoto.com), May 11, 1999

Answers

Craig,

Sorry for coming in late. Hugo Meyer of Gorlitz, Germany, was established in the late 19th century and produced a wide range of lenses, one of the most famous was Paul Rudolph's Double Plasmat, which was the basis for all the "normal" LF lenses used today. In the 1960s it was bought out by the Pentacon Group and now I believe it is owned by Schneider.

The WA Aristostigmat was made over a very long period up to the late 1930s, and is a classic WA design with four air-spaced elements in symmetrical arrangement, and will cover 8"X10" easily. However, the full aperture was designed for focussing and composing only and you have to shoot at f/22 to get the quality. The most important thing about the WAA (and similar lenses) is that the eight air-glass surfaces need to be really squeaky clean or the photograph will lose quite a bit of contrast. I use my 4"/6.3 version on 4"X5" and the negatives can stand up to enlargement quite well.

-- Samuel Tang (samueltang@eisa.net.au), October 21, 2000.