PR

P75 II is the advanced version of the rare vintage Primoplan 75. Along with its specially designed achromat lens the P75 II can go down to a minimum focal distance of just 25cm or less than 1 foot. Its enlarged frame size allows use on mid format cameras and increases contrast and resolution. It is a bokeh lover's dream with a variety of possible bokehs build into one lens: from circular, melting rings to swirly and creamy backgrounds. Yet, its center sharpness is magnificent.

Prototype Stage

When the ingenious Paul Schaefter first constructed the Primoplan 75/f 1.9 in early 1930's, his goal was to create the best lens of its kind. Even a century later, its ability to create the most striking and impressive bokeh-effects have stood the test of time. When we decided to recreate and modernize this lens, we knew we had an important legacy to uphold – and the results were beyond even our high expectations.

With the modern Primoplan 75, the creative photographer has the perfect means in his hands to compose his images with the required background and dreamlike transition from sharpness to fuzziness. But see for yourself.

But we wanted more so we carefully innovated and have developed a new version of the Primoplan 75, which we have named the P75 II. In the new P75 II, you’ll find that we’ve reduced the minimum focal distance by almost 30% to just 55cm or 1.8 ft. and we enlarged the image or frame size so that we can now also cover mirrorless medium format cameras like Fuji’s GFX 50s. Also, as a consequence, we improved the contrast of the images for 35 mm (full format and mirrorless) dramatically. The Meyer P75 II is just simply the perfect tool for portrait, nature photography and, through the enhanced contrast, black and white photography.

Help us to put this legend back into your hands

The region in Germany around Jena-Dresden-Goerlitz gave birth to so many famous camera and lens advancements in the early part of the 20th Century, you might call it the Silicon Valley of photography of its time.

At this time, genius Paul Schäfter developed the Primoplan 75, whose design Meyer-Optik-Görlitz applied to protect on 17/06/1936. It soon became famous for its unique, dreamlike ability to create bokeh, along with a soft transition from fuzziness to sharpness which is still unmatched.

Lights seem to magically, melt into each other. Yet, the P75 II maintains that special Primoplan center sharpness, dramatically stressing the core of the image.

World War II abruptly put a halt to this success story. After the war, the company was more or less taken over by the new East German government. While some dedicated skilled workers restarted what was left of the company by 1949, barely two thousand Primoplans had been built.

For a short time, it seemed as if the wonderful lenses could return to their original glory as photographers around the world hailed the return. But again, politics interfered and the communist central planning committee put an end to the Primoplan line in favor of other lenses. So, the Primoplan series can rightfully be called a lost treasure.

No wonder vintage Primoplans are selling at extremely high prices. We knew from the beginning that bringing the Primoplan back would be a tough task. The glass of the time was no longer available, and the use of lead in optics is no longer acceptable. But after lengthy calculations, prototype building and tests, Dr. Wolf-Dieter Prenzel, leading development engineer of Meyer Optik, succeeded in adapting the historic lens construction to modern-day photography while keeping the characteristics of the lens alive.

In 2017, the first new P75 lenses – at the beginning still called Primoplan 75 – hit the market and were soon sold out.

But we wanted to take the saga further and following Paul Schaefter’s legacy, we went on and developed the Meyer P75 in a second version with even better features. Come and join us on our journey and help us to revive a literally historic lens.

The Primoplan 1.9/75 is known for its fine progression from focus to blur, exceptional base sharpness and unique, dreamy, creamy bokeh, which lets the light magically flow together. The 75mm focal length creates a natural viewing angle and does not compress as much as longer focal lengths. Its 14 aperture blades enable the camera to create impressive blur patterns even when stopped down.

"Bokeh Lover’s Dream Lens"

There is much talk about bokeh. Different lenses have their strength and weaknesses. But the Meyer P75 II is a true king of bokeh because it offers the photographer a whole range of different bokehs in one lens. With the background at a closer distance, the 14 aperture blades display their merits and a wonderful circular, donut-type bokeh appears with the colors melting into each other. When the background is at about 9 feet/3m this becomes a more rotating composition of out of focus effects. But all the time these bokeh effects remain discreet and are not intrusive. You might call the P75 II bokeh effect noble or refined.

The Primoplan 75 is perfect for portrait photography. It adds a creamy, background-melting bokeh, classic sharpness and exceptional color rendering that produces skin tones that are almost perfect straight out of the camera. While there is always a great debate when you ask photographers to name their favorite focal length for portraits, we think the 75mm hits a sweet spot that gives you a bit more compression than a 50mm but allows you to work in slightly tighter spaces than an 85mm or 105mm lens.

The original Primoplan 75 / f1.9 is an enhancement of the Cooke triplet, in which a central dispersion lens is flanked by two groups of lenses, each acting as a converging lens. The rear group consists of a single biconvex converging lens. This exceptional design results in breathtaking images. The New P75 II (Primoplan type lens) will remain the basic construction but our lens designer Dr. Wolf Dieter Prenzel, has worked on major improvements in the optical scheme to make a perfect lens even better.

We are using a completely new lens design and lens materials which also are upgraded with a special coating to make them as resistant to environmental influences as possible. Of course, it will maintain the classic sharpness and versatile bokeh that vintage enthusiasts love, while incorporating modern technological advances for today’s DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.