Looking for "Art lens" - Your thoughts on the new Meyer-Optik Trioplan lenses

[PeterN]

Hi all,
I was looking for an "art lens", i.e. a lens that I can use to create a dreamy look with a "soap bubble" type of effect. I saw very promising photos of the new Meyer Optik Trioplan lenses (35, 50, 100mm). Does anyone have any experience with these new lenses? Or thoughts?
As they are pretty expensive, what might be good alternatives?
Thank you for your help.
Peter

[Michael Erlewine]

Hi all,
I was looking for an "art lens", i.e. a lens that I can use to create a dreamy look with a "soap bubble" type of effect. I saw very promising photos of the new Meyer Optik Trioplan lenses (35, 50, 100mm). Does anyone have any experience with these new lenses? Or thoughts?
As they are pretty expensive, what might be good alternatives?
Thank you for your help.
Peter

I am sure folks like Klaus Schmitt and Jakov Minić may have some suggestions. I have the Trioplan 100mm ( I believe that's the one I have) and several of the Russian lenses that do the same. The Trioplan I have is made well, but darned if I can get it produce many soap bubbles for me. It just is more like (pardon me) a lousy lens. And the Russian lenses for sure are poor lenses. I need to spend more time with it, but it is not like falling off a log easy. I look forward to what others say. I probably am going to sell all of mine.

[Jakov Minić]

The soap bubbles need to be induced regardless of the lens used.
These aberrations are found in lousy lenses like Micheal Erlewine mentioned.
The lenses that I use to create these bubbles are Zenit 85/1.5 and Nikon 135/2.0 DC.
Both lenses need to be at the widest aperture stop and pointing toward a strong light source.
Of course, the 135DC is not a lousy lens but the Defocus Control feature has to be abused by setting the ring all the way to F (front focus).
That way the foreground will be nicely blurred, the in focus object dreamy and the background will provide bubbles.
The stronger the light source and fussier the backgrounds, the better the bubbles

Recently, I have posted nice examples here:

http://nikongear.net/revival/index.php/topic,3088.msg89456.html#msg89456

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

You may like to scan to my albums and you'll find quite a few such lenses (recently I'm using a lot of projection lenses):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kds315/albums

A well known candidate aside from those are the HELIOS 40-2 f1.5/85mm, Tele-Ennalyt f1.5/85mm and
the Biotar f1.5/75mm (I'm selling one btw ;-) )

Ennalyt:


Biotar:

[Thomas Stellwag]

reading your post, you just want to go into this kind of picture taking, but have no preferences?
I personally do not see the need to spend € 1.3k on a new old lens.
You did not write which cam you use, so if it is not a Nikon, but any mirrorless,
buy an adapter and an original 50mm trioplan, together € 100.- (and already overpaid),
as these lenses 2 years ago where at € 25.-
Otherwise you could buy a new 1.5  85mm Russian Helios, which fits to you Nikon for a
very reasonable price and use it as well as portrait lens.
Btw, the proposal made by Jakov works on both Nikon DC lenses and both are much more
valuable than this 50mm Trioplan.

[richardHaw]

just buy a petzval 

[John Geerts]

There are many lenses, but also some 'unexpected ones'  like the Nikkor 35-70 / 3.5 AIS  that  can make the 'bubbles' 



And another example

[PeterN]

Thank you so much for your views! It has become clear to me that it would not be a good idea to pay 2500 US dollars for the Trioplan trio (or 650 for the 35mm). I still have to discover what can be done with such a lens by experimenting (and see what I like and do not like), spending a large sum of money is not a good idea, even when taking into account the Kickstarter discount.

Also many thanks for the links to the album, Dr. Klaus Schmitt. I do admit that I really liked seeing the many variations. The Trioplan 50mm was a standout to me. But I really liked seeing the other examples too. So I will do some further research.

John: that is indeed a fascinating effect!

I am still going back and forth which camera I would like to use: Olympus PEN-F or D750. Getting an adapter should not be a problem.

Thanks for your help and sharing your photos. Any additional info and examples are appreciated!

[Fons Baerken]

Love those bubbles

[Fons Baerken]

D800 35/1.4

[PeterN]

Looks cool, Fons. I am getting all kind of ideas.

[Danulon]

I purchased the 100 mm "Neo"-Trioplan and am still struggling with it.

I still have to manage to create soap bubble bokeh pictures, but you can be sure that middle/ far distance pictures have a very "special" rendering, too.

Two recent sample shots:

At about f/14:

Interesting: The "washed" rendering of the bush in the foreground.

Open aperture:

[aerobat]

I love the soap bubble images in this thread.

@Fons, which 35mm f/1.4 lens ist this?

[Jack Dahlgren]

The Nikkor 35mm f/1.4 AI/AIS gets a lot of "dreamy" look wide open
Untitled by Jack Dahlgren

Untitled by Jack Dahlgren

Super sharp when stopped down.

[F2F3F6]

Oh yes, the 1,4/35 Ai (my sample) or Ais full open or at f:2 is a dreamy wild lens ! With lots of softness (coma) and some bubbles ...here a sample image from last autumn...