Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Primotar 135mm f/3.5

Meyer-Optik Görlitz · Exakta + M42 + Pentacon Six + Other · 1953

Also known as: Primotar 135mm f/3.5 · Primotar 135mm f3.5 · Primotar 135mm f/3,5 · Primotar 135mm F3.5 · Primotar 135mm 1:3.5 · Primotar 135mm 3.5 · Primotar 135 3.5 · Primotar 135/3.5 · Primotar 3.5/135 · Primotar 3,5/135 · Primotar 3.5/135mm · Primotar 3,5/135mm · Primotar 1:3,5/135 · Primotar 1:3.5/135 · Primotar 135mm · Primotar 135 · Primotar 13,5cm · Primotar 13.5cm · 135mm f3.5 Primotar · 135mm f/3.5 Primotar · Meyer Primotar 135mm · Meyer Primotar 135 · Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primotar 135mm f/3.5 · Meyer-Optik Görlitz 135mm f3.5 Primotar · Meyer Optik Gorlitz Primotar 135mm · Primotar E 135 · Primotar E 3,5/135 · Примотар 135

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
6×6 reflexes (Primarflex and others), manual diaphragm Primarflex and other 6×6 reflexes — — —
Exakta, preset (aluminium and black) Exakta 1953 2794273 (PhotoCo Camera House listing)
2817817 (Wrotniak's own example, black) 		—
M42, preset M42 — 3174864 (Foto Köberl listing) —
Praktina, preset Praktina — — —
Primotar E 3,5/135, Praktisix (sample only) Praktisix (the breech-lock later shared by the Pentacon Six) 1956 02 999 905 (sample, in Bobsin's table) No series lens known to Bobsin; he knows a sample, no. 02 999 905, and thinks it may never have been made in series
  1. Dates. Wrotniak gives 1953 as the approximate year of introduction of the Exakta lens; Foto Köberl's listing of the M42 lens says 'introduced 1956'. Kröger says the Görlitz catalogues offered the 135 and 180 for 35mm cameras only from 1955, once preset mounts had been introduced, and only for medium format up to the 1954 catalogue. Bobsin has the lens on the Primarflex in the 1930s but gives no year. The family year here is the earliest year any source attaches to a lens, not the first year of the design. Kröger says the long Primotars were quickly replaced after 1960 by the Orestor 2,8/135 and the Orestegor 4/200; no source gives an end date.
  2. Zebra version. Kröger shows a Primotar 3,5/135 in the flat-knurled 'zebra' barrel (photographs by Ron Swiader) and says it should not exist, since the Orestor 2,8/135 was already in production when Meyer introduced the zebra style; he takes it that small remaining stocks of the old lens were assembled in the new barrel. Kröger does not name the mount, so the zebra lens is not listed as a version here.
  3. Blade counts. 15 blades on the Exakta, M42 and Praktina lenses recorded by Kamerastore, Foto Köberl, collection-appareils.fr and mflenses owners; 17 on the Primarflex lens (Bobsin); 6 on the Praktisix Primotar E (Bobsin).
  4. Closest focus. 1.6 m for the Exakta and M42 lenses (Wrotniak, Kamerastore, Foto Köberl, collection-appareils.fr), 1.7 m on collection-appareils.fr's Praktina lens, 1.5 m on the Praktisix sample (Bobsin).
  5. Exakta 6×6. Bobsin says the lens was also sold for the Exakta 6×6. The ihagee.org Exakta lens list (2021) carries Meyer Primotar 3,5/135 entries with the diaphragm code PS (apparently preset; the list has no key) under the system codes 66H and 66V as well as under Kine (the 35mm Exakta); reading 66H and 66V as the prewar horizontal and postwar vertical Exakta 6×6 is this page's interpretation of the codes, which the list does not spell out. No example of either was found, so they are not listed as versions.
  6. Spring-diaphragm samples. Bobsin knows three sample lenses with the automatic diaphragm, for the Praktisix, M42 and the Praktina, and notes that the automatic was evidently planned for the 35mm mounts too. Only the Praktisix one is in his table. The catalogue 35mm versions of 1956–58 were preset.
  7. Not this lens: the large-format Primotar 3,5/13,5 cm, which Kröger says is a different design from the reflex lens of the same name; the later Meyer Orestor 2,8/135 and Domigor 4/135; the Primotar 3,5/180, a separate design with the cemented group at the front; and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 3,5/135.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primotar with 1:3,5 and f=135 mm (older lenses may read 13,5 cm), a long, plain barrel of normal (not telephoto) construction with a hood and a 55 mm filter thread
  • Read the rear: the lens was made for the Exakta, M42, Praktina and 6×6 reflexes. An E after the name and a pin at the rear mean the Praktisix automatic, of which Bobsin knows only a sample
  • Not the Orestor 2,8/135 that replaced it after 1960, nor the Primotar 3,5/180, which is longer and takes a 67 mm filter

6×6 reflexes (Primarflex and others), manual diaphragm:

  • Bright aluminium barrel of the older Meyer type. Writing of the older long Meyer lenses (in his Primotar 180 section), Bobsin says they were made alike and differ only in a camera adapter held on by a locking ring
  • No automatic diaphragm; Bobsin counts 17 blades on the Primarflex lens, which give an almost round opening

Exakta, preset (aluminium and black):

  • Exakta bayonet at the rear
  • Preset diaphragm closing to f/22; 15 blades on the examples counted by Kamerastore, collection-appareils.fr and an mflenses owner
  • 55 mm filter thread; focuses to 1.6 m. Hood: collection-appareils.fr calls it integrated, while Wrotniak's list marks his black lens 'Hd', a detachable hood. Kamerastore gives 151 × 63 mm and 454 g, collection-appareils.fr 143–157 mm long, 60 mm across and 450 g
  • Made in bright (silver) aluminium and in black (Kamerastore; mflenses owners)

M42, preset:

  • M42 screw thread at the rear
  • Preset diaphragm, 15 blades, 1.6 m, 55 mm filter; Foto Köberl gives about 65 × 123 mm and 465 g

Praktina, preset:

  • Praktina breech-lock at the rear, held on by three screws (an mflenses owner)
  • 15 blades, f/3.5–22, integrated hood; collection-appareils.fr gives 1.7 m, 440 g, 134–149 mm long and 60 mm across

Primotar E 3,5/135, Praktisix (sample only):

  • 'Primotar E' in the name: Bobsin says the E marks the automatic diaphragm, worked by a pin from the camera as on the Primotar E 3,5/80
  • 6-blade spring diaphragm with a honeycomb-shaped opening, f/3.5–22, 1.5 m closest focus (Bobsin); TRA lists a 55 × 0.75 mm filter
  • Bright aluminium (Bobsin's table)

Serial-range notes

2794273, 2817817
Exakta examples: the first from a dealer's listing (PhotoCo Camera House), the second the black lens from Wrotniak's collection that his list cites. Two numbers say nothing about a range; Bobsin warns that Görlitz serials after the war are only roughly chronological.
3174864
An M42 lens listed by Foto Köberl; the listing mentions worn paint but does not name the finish.

Specifications

Formula
Tessar type: four elements in three groups (Bobsin, for the Praktisix lens; TRA)
Designed by
Schäfter Paul — Kröger credits him with laying out the Primotar 3,5/13,5 cm and 3,5/18 cm as long-focus supplementary lenses, as distinct from the large-format Primotars of the same focal lengths
Construction
4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Min. focus
1.6 m
Filter
55 mm
Years manufactured
1953
Country
Germany (Görlitz); East Germany after the war (VEB Feinoptisches Werk Görlitz)
Original price
195.20 Mark (DDR retail list price, 1956, preset 35mm version), cut to 149 Mark in 1960, as transcribed by Marco Kröger

What reviewers say

History

The Primotar 135mm f/3.5 is a long-focus lens from Meyer-Optik in Görlitz, built on the four-element Tessar pattern and made for several German reflexes, 6×6 and 35mm. Marco Kröger, writing on zeissikonveb.de, credits Paul Schäfter with laying out the Primotar 3,5/13,5 cm and its 18 cm sister as long-focus supplementary lenses, with the correction concentrated around the centre of the field. He stresses that they are not the large-format Primotars of the same focal lengths that Meyer sold at the same time. It is a lens of normal construction, not a telephoto. Kröger notes that this made it faster and better than Meyer’s own Telemegors, but also bulkier and heavier.

Carsten Bobsin, who wrote up Meyer’s Praktisix lenses in PHOTODeal in 2013, says the lens was already available in the 1930s for the Primarflex, with seventeen diaphragm blades giving an almost round opening, and that it was used on other 6×6 reflexes and sold for the Exakta 6×6. Kröger reads the Görlitz catalogues as listing it officially for medium format only up to 1954, and for 35mm cameras from 1955, once preset mounts had been introduced. J. Andrzej Wrotniak’s Exakta lens list, however, gives 1953 as the approximate year the Exakta lens was introduced. The 35mm lens is the one most often found: preset diaphragm to f/22, fifteen blades, 1.6 m closest focus, a 55 mm filter and a hood, in bright aluminium or black. It was made for the Exakta, for M42 and for the Praktina. In the 1956 DDR price list it cost 195.20 Mark retail, and by the 1960 list 149 Mark. Kröger says the price cut did not save it: after 1960 the Orestor 2,8/135 replaced it. He also shows a lens in the later zebra barrel, which he explains as old stock assembled in the new style.

The Praktisix version is mostly a catalogue entry. Meyer showed a Primotar E 3,5/135 with the camera in 1956, with the same spring-diaphragm mechanism as the Primotar E 3,5/80 and six blades, against seventeen on the Primarflex lens. Bobsin finds it in used-goods catalogues to 1957 and in wholesale catalogues for the last time in 1958. He had no series lens for his article, knew of three samples, for the Praktisix, M42 and the Praktina (his table gives the Praktisix one as no. 02 999 905), and thinks it may never have been made in series. TRA’s table at pentaconsix.com disagrees on the diaphragm: it lists a plain Primotar 3,5/135 with a 55 mm filter for the early Praktisix and says that, apart from the Primotar E 80, all the Meyer lenses for the camera were preset. Writing of the Primotar 180, Bobsin also notes that dozens of older aluminium Meyer lenses were adapted to the Praktisix outside the factory, which is easy because the older barrels differ only in a camera adapter held by a locking ring.

Owners on the mflenses forum agree on the character of the 35mm lens. It has pleasant colour, smooth bokeh and a glow on highlights. Sharpness is where they part: one owner found his acceptably sharp wide open but in another post called his black lens never really sharp at any aperture, and a second sold his black lens as too soft. When buying, read the mount first. A Praktina lens has its mount held by screws, and one owner planned to convert his to M42, so check for a conversion. A Praktisix lens without the E may be an older lens adapted outside the factory; TRA’s table, against Bobsin, implies a factory preset version, and no source shows how to tell the two apart. Check the long helicoid and the preset ring. Look for haze: Foto Köberl noted slight age-related clouding on the M42 lens it sold. Do not confuse it with the Orestor 2,8/135, the Primotar 3,5/180 or the Zeiss Jena Sonnar 3,5/135.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a Primotar 135mm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

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Sources (6)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.