I occasionally see ads for Zeiss 80mm Planar lenses. Can anybody tell me something about Zeisses forays in the large format area... are these lenses equal to plasmat designs. What kind of coverages do they provide. I ask because 80mm is an interesting focal length for roll film applications.

-- Glenn C. Kroeger (gkroeger@trinity.edu), December 10, 1999

Answers

I'm using an 80 Planar on 6x7 (Graflex XL) and it does very well; of course that camera has no movements etc, but the lens covers the format ok.

A comparable lens that also appears on the used-gear market is the Schneider 80 f2.8 Xenotar.

-- John Hicks (jbh@magicnet.net), December 10, 1999.

Rudolf Kingslake in his book "A History of the Photographic Lens" describes three different lens designs sold by Zeiss under the name Planar.

It seems to be the name that Zeiss uses for a top-quality lens of normal coverage. An 80 mm version would be intended for medium format. The most famous useage of the Planar is probably Rolleiflex cameras, which is a 6x6 cm format. They would probably work very well with a roll film back taking 6x6 and possibly larger.

-- Michael Briggs (MichaelBriggs@earthlink.net), December 11, 1999.

Now that we're on the topic, would anyone know how much coverage a 75mm biogon has?

-- James Chow (jchow@isl.melco.co.jp), December 12, 1999.

Back to Kingslake, he attributes the protar, the tessar, the plasmat, and the biogon all to Zeiss. The first three were designed by Paul Rudolph. To me, the most interesting lens is the Goerz double antistigmat, or Dagor, since it led to the angulon (as the reversed Dagor) and the Plasmat (as the separated Dagor.) The plasmat is the mainstay of L.F. photography. By the way, Kingslake is still in print. It's extrememly well done. It's a facinating book. It's currently published by Academic Press.

-- Neil Poulsen (Neil.Poulsen@MERIX.COM), December 19, 1999.

Glenn, Have you seen the question "80mm Planar and 6x9" in th MF Digest? See: wysiwyg://22http://www.photo.net/...1?msg_id=000uwQ&topic_id=35&topic=

Sai Kwong Chan's 6/14/00 response is especially comprehensive. I hope this helps. I greatly appreciate your answers to my questions,

-- Charles Mangano (cmangano@heart.umaryland.edu), August 15, 2000.