Lenses and manufacturer

The manufacture is a long established corporation Meyer-Optik Görlitz which has produced Trioplan that is famous for bubble bokeh. A lot of fans feel the sorrow of prosperity and decline, when they use “Orestor”.

On this day, I was walking around the city with a minor lens “Orestor” from Meyer-Optik.

Orestor Meyer-Optik Görlitz 100mm/F2.8 M42 made in about 1968

For your information, Meyer-Optik went bankrupt in 1991, but it came back in 2014 with the new lens Trioplan which is specialized in bubble bokeh. Meyer-Optik succeeded in raising money with Kickstarter in the end of 2015. They will make shipments of whatever becomes available from this April. There is an early invest plan to get these lenses for $599 which is to be envied.

The new lenses are €1399, the old lenses are about $1,000 in eBay.

Where I walked around

I carried a variety of camera lenses with me on this day. But when I passed Ikenoue station in Chuo line, I found beautiful rape blossoms were out all along the railroad. So I decided to use Orestor. I thought medium telephoto lens would add interesting taste to the images.
The rape blossoms were in high position and the street were busy. I was trying to position the train appropriately in the image too. These factors make it difficult to take a well-composed photograph.

The color and the size of the letter on the power pole was a bit problematic. In addition, there is a residential area on the right hand side in the image. So if I had stayed long there, I would have felt awkward.

Blur quality (Bokeh-aji)

The aperture value is set to F2.8, bokeh effects can be naturally applied to the image with an open aperture. Orestor can be ideal to capture subjects by using wide focus areas like the photo above rather than narrow focus areas.

Moreover, 135mm lenses also go by the name of ”Bokeh Monster”, you might feel bokeh effects with this 100mm lens is not that strong.
By the way, I thought 100mm lens would be ideal when you take portrait photographs. But When I was shooting photographs of a person, I felt lens distortion was too strong and the face of photographed person become strained. So I needed change the lens that time. I will neatly check and report about this matter afterwards.

If you look at it positively, it is the bokeh blur which improves the appearance of the entire photograph.

But if you look at it negatively, it looks tasteless.

Helios 58mm

As an aside, I took this photograph with Helios 58mm lens.

The blend of swirly blur and blur quality is suitable for narrow focus and it is in contrast to the photograph taken with Orestor.

Colors, halation and bright section

It was nice weather and on top of it, the contrast is set a bit high. I think the chromogenic development is flawlessly beautiful and plain. It is amazing that this lens was burn 57 years ago, which gives a feeling that we can use it 100 years from now.

This lens can easily show bright section of light, I think the halation dose not disturb the image as well.

Line weight and sharpness

The line weight is slightly thick. But surely get a sharp focuses, which the reason why we feel the contrast is enough strong I suppose.

Since the line weight of bokeh is thick, it improves the appearance of the entire image with dividing the image into the front side and back side.

For more information to purchase Orestor

About $150〜$250 in eBay

The lens constitution is a five element four group construction. Since The second lens group is doublet lens and it is a vintage lens, you might be concerned about separation. But compared with Zeiss lenses which were produced in same period, we see less descriptions about haze. Of course it matters the amount of products, but when you purchase Orestor, you had better check the damages of the cleaning mark or fungus.

The points of well taken photos

I think I could well capture the bokeh effects, the landform and the sense of distance in the image. If there were more flowers in the middle of the image, the density would be ideal. In any case it was the best work I could do with this frame.

Since I took photographs with an open aperture, the peripheral light quantities decreased. But I found the dispersion in contrast became interesting. So I decided to keep it in this way.

The points to improve

I did not take photographs this time using narrow focus areas. So I would like to take sample photographs next time.
Due to the strong bokeh lines, it was difficult to take a well composed photographs. I will pay attention to this point next time.

Maybe If I use a model for this kind of images, it would be more interesting.

Orestor is suitable for a full body shot for catalogs such as magazines rather than medium telephoto portrait.

Photographing information

Camera : SONY α7ii

Image quality : Raw uncompressed
Contrast, saturation and etc. without any adjustment, no adjustment, no filter, only a few pieces of brightness adjustment.
This time Aperture : F2.0~F5.4
Shutter speed : Almost photos 1/1000, when too bright ,1/400
White Balance : Auto