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

Primotar 180mm f/3.5

Meyer-Optik Görlitz · Exakta + M42 + Pentacon Six + Other · 1956

Also known as: Primotar 180mm f/3.5 · Primotar 180mm f3.5 · Primotar 180mm f/3,5 · Primotar 180mm F3.5 · Primotar 180mm 1:3.5 · Primotar 180mm 3.5 · Primotar 180 3.5 · Primotar 180/3.5 · Primotar 3.5/180 · Primotar 3,5/180 · Primotar 3.5/180mm · Primotar 3,5/180mm · Primotar 3.5 180mm · Primotar 3.5 180 · Primotar 1:3,5/180 · Primotar 1:3.5/180 · Primotar 180mm · Primotar 180 · Primotar 18cm · Primotar 18 cm · Primotar 1:3,5 f=18cm · Primotar 3,5/18cm · 180mm f3.5 Primotar · 180mm f/3.5 Primotar · Meyer Primotar 180mm · Meyer Primotar 180 · Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primotar 180mm f/3.5 · Meyer-Optik Görlitz 180mm f3.5 Primotar · Meyer Optik Gorlitz Primotar 180mm · Примотар 180

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
6×6 reflexes (Primarflex, Meister-Korelle), aluminium Primarflex, Meister-Korelle and other 6×6 reflexes — — —
Exakta, preset, black with tripod collar Exakta 1956 2900366 (Wrotniak's own example) —
M42, preset, black with tripod collar M42 — — —
Praktina, preset, with tripod collar Praktina — 2566413 (Industrie- und Filmmuseum Wolfen, Op 0065/07 ifm) —
Praktisix, preset, black, no tripod collar Praktisix (the breech-lock later shared by the Pentacon Six) 1956 — Few: Bobsin says the known examples fall in only four small serial blocks
  1. Dates. Bobsin has the lens shown with the Praktisix in 1956 and Wrotniak dates his Exakta lens to 1956. Kröger says the 135 and 180 were offered for 35mm from 1955, once preset mounts had come in, and only for medium format up to the 1954 catalogue; Bobsin has the forerunners on 6×6 reflexes before the war but gives no year. The family year is the earliest year a source attaches to a lens, not the year of the design. Kröger says the long Primotars were quickly replaced after 1960 by the Orestegor 4/200 and the Orestor 2,8/135. The Wolfen museum dates its Praktina lens 1961–1965; no other source gives an end date.
  2. Finish of the Praktisix lens. Bobsin's text says the genuine Praktisix lenses are black lacquered, and his photograph shows a black one, but his summary table lists the 180 under 'Aluminium'. The text and photograph are followed here.
  3. Converted lenses. Bobsin says dozens of aluminium Meyer lenses made for older cameras were adapted to the Praktisix by outsiders, more or less crudely, which is easy because the older barrels differ only in an adapter held by a locking ring.
  4. Construction and weight. TRA, Bobsin ('Vierlinser') and Kamerastore give four elements in three groups; the Wolfen museum record says three in three. Weights run from 800 g (TRA, Praktisix) and 844 g (Bobsin) to 1019–1032 g for the 35mm lenses with tripod collar (Wolfen, Kamerastore); lengths from 153 mm (TRA) to 198–200 mm (Kamerastore Exakta, Wolfen), measured differently and with or without hood.
  5. Exakta 6×6 and other codes. The ihagee.org Exakta lens list (2021) carries Meyer Primotar 180/3.5 entries with manual and preset diaphragms under the codes 66H and 66V (read here, as the list does not spell them out, as the prewar horizontal and postwar vertical Exakta 6×6), under Kine (the 35mm Exakta) and under OB, the outer-bayonet Exakta fitting Wrotniak also notes. Bobsin names the Exakta 6×6 among the cameras the lens's forerunners served, but no source here pictures or numbers an Exakta 6×6 example, so it is not listed as a version.
  6. Telemegor lineage. The Wolfen museum calls the lens a further development of the Meyer Telemegor 5,5/180; Kröger and Bobsin instead describe it as a Primotar, a normally built Tessar type, which the Telemegor telephotos are not.
  7. Not this lens: the large-format Primotar 3,5/18 cm, which Kröger says is a different design; the Telemegor 5,5/180; the Orestegor 4/200 that replaced it; the Primotar 3,5/135; and the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 2,8/180.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Meyer-Optik Görlitz Primotar 1:3,5, 180 mm (Kröger also writes it 3,5/18 cm), a long, heavy barrel of normal (not telephoto) construction with a 67 mm filter thread
  • Read the rear: the same lens was made for the Exakta, M42, Praktina, Praktisix and 6×6 reflexes. The 35mm lenses have a tripod collar; the factory Praktisix lens is black and has none
  • Not the Telemegor 5,5/180, which is slower and a true telephoto, nor the Orestegor 4/200 that replaced it

6×6 reflexes (Primarflex, Meister-Korelle), aluminium:

  • Bright aluminium barrel of the older Meyer type; the camera adapter is held on by a locking ring, so the same head took different rear adapters (Bobsin)
  • No tripod collar on the lens Bobsin pictures on a Meister-Korelle

Exakta, preset, black with tripod collar:

  • Exakta bayonet at the rear; Wrotniak notes that it uses the outer Exakta bayonet
  • Preset diaphragm to f/22, 15 blades (Kamerastore; collection-appareils.fr), 2.2 m, 67 mm filter
  • Black, with a tripod collar and a hood; Kamerastore gives 198 × 94 mm and 1032 g

M42, preset, black with tripod collar:

  • M42 screw thread at the rear, fixed to the barrel (an mflenses owner)
  • Preset diaphragm, 15 blades, 2.2 m, 67 mm filter, rotating tripod collar, screw-on hood; Kamerastore gives 170 × 90 mm and 1030 g

Praktina, preset, with tripod collar:

  • Bayonet rear for the Praktina, as the museum describes it
  • Preset diaphragm f/3.5–22, 2.2 m, 67 mm filter, screw-on hood and tripod ring; the museum gives 200 × 85 mm and 1019 g

Praktisix, preset, black, no tripod collar:

  • Praktisix breech-lock fixed to the barrel; Bobsin says the genuine factory lenses are black lacquered
  • No tripod collar, unlike the 35mm lenses (Bobsin)
  • Preset diaphragm, no automatic-diaphragm pin; TRA says only the Primotar E 80 among the Meyer P6 lenses had one
  • TRA gives 2.2 m, 67 × 0.75 mm filter, 153 mm long and 800 g; Bobsin's table gives 171 mm, 79 mm across and 844 g

Serial-range notes

2241553..2907033
Bobsin's range for the Primotar 3,5/180, from lenses he and his co-workers observed, in a table of Görlitz lenses for the Praktisix. Wrotniak's Exakta lens 2900366 and the Wolfen museum's Praktina lens 2566413 both fall inside it, so the numbers were evidently shared between mounts; Bobsin does not say whether his range includes 35mm lenses. He warns that postwar Görlitz serials seem roughly chronological at first but later show large gaps, perhaps because big blocks were assigned long before the lenses were made.
2566413
The Wolfen museum's Praktina lens.

Specifications

Formula
Tessar type with the order reversed: a cemented positive group at the front, then the diaphragm, the negative element and a single positive rear element (Kröger; Bobsin)
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 lenses for the reflexes, with the cemented group turned to the front on the 18 cm
Construction
4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
15
Min. focus
2.2 m
Filter
67 mm (0.75 mm pitch)
Years manufactured
1956
Country
Germany (Görlitz); East Germany after the war (VEB Feinoptisches Werk Görlitz)
Original price
210 Mark (DDR retail list price, 1960, preset 35mm version), as transcribed by Marco Kröger

What reviewers say

History

The Primotar 180mm f/3.5 is a long-focus lens from Meyer-Optik in Görlitz. It is built on the four-element Tessar pattern and was made for many of the German reflexes of its day, from the Primarflex and Meister-Korelle 6×6 cameras to the Exakta, the Praktina and the Praktisix. Marco Kröger, writing on zeissikonveb.de, credits Paul Schäfter with laying out the Primotar 3,5/18 cm and its 13,5 cm sister for the reflexes, with the correction concentrated around the centre of the field rather than spread over a wide angle. He stresses that they are not the large-format Primotars of the same focal lengths. The 180 departs from the usual Tessar order: the cemented group is at the front, followed by the diaphragm, the negative element and a single positive rear element. It is a lens of normal construction, not a telephoto. That made it faster and better than Meyer’s own Telemegors, Kröger says, but also longer and heavier.

Carsten Bobsin, who wrote up Meyer’s Praktisix lenses in PHOTODeal in 2013, says forerunners of the lens served the Primarflex, Reflex-Korelle, Meister-Korelle and Exakta 6×6 as well as 35mm cameras, and that it was put back into production after the war with a barrel largely shared between formats. Kröger reads the Görlitz catalogues as listing it, officially at least, only for medium format up to 1954, and for 35mm cameras (again) from 1955, once preset mounts had come in. The 35mm lens is the one usually found: black, with a preset diaphragm to f/22, fifteen blades, 2.2 m closest focus, a 67 mm filter, a hood and a rotating tripod collar, at around a kilogram. It was made for the Exakta and M42, and the Wolfen film museum holds one it describes as for the Praktina. The 1960 DDR price list gives 210 Mark for the preset 35mm lens. After 1960 the Orestegor 4/200 replaced it.

The Praktisix version is rare. Meyer showed it with the camera in 1956, but Bobsin finds it in brochures and used-goods catalogues only in 1956 and 1957, and the known examples fall in four small serial blocks. TRA at pentaconsix.com notes that a Meyer brochure he dates to 1957 lists the 180 only in 35mm mounts. Bobsin suggests that its early end may be due to dealer price lists of 1957–59 announcing a ‘Biometar 2,8/180’ prematurely; Zeiss was able to finish its Sonnar 2,8/180 only in 1961. The factory Praktisix lens is black, has a fixed mount and has no tripod collar. Like every Meyer lens for the camera except the Primotar E 80, it has a preset diaphragm and no automatic pin. Bobsin warns that dozens of older aluminium Meyer lenses, whose camera adapters are held on by a locking ring, were converted to the Praktisix outside the factory.

Owners on the mflenses forum describe low contrast, smooth bokeh and little colour fringing, with resolution that is adequate rather than outstanding. Two of them would rather use the Zeiss Jena Sonnar 2,8/180. When buying, read the mount first. By Bobsin’s account a Praktisix lens in bright aluminium is most likely an older lens converted outside the factory; the factory lens is black and has no tripod collar. Check the long helicoid and the preset ring. One owner found that the barrel splits into two parts after removing two small screws in front of the tripod collar, with the optics and focusing staying in the front section, which makes cleaning the helicoid possible. Do not confuse it with the Telemegor 5,5/180, the Orestegor 4/200, the Primotar 3,5/135 or the Zeiss Jena Sonnar 2,8/180.

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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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Sources (9)

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.