wlewisiii said:
Heheh. Now I know what to hold hostage if I find it at a yard sale for $5.00 ... 😀
More seriously, I can't imagine finding one, but I will keep an eye open just in case. Gotta admit I haven't heard of that one before. It just sounds to odd for words - a fast, long Biotar??? At least I remember reading of the 180/6.3 Tessar, but I really can't place that 75. (Googles) Ah, bless you Mr. Gandy, must have missed that page...
I'll have to also watch those yard sales for the LTM version - wouldn't that be a hoot on the Canon 7?
No 75mm finder frame for it. You'd need to use it on a Leica M or a Bessa.
And I speak with some authority here, because -- apologies for repeating a story I've told before, but it's the only time something like this has ever happened to me, and I enjoy gloating about it whenever I can -- I DID once own a 75/1.5 Biotar in LTM mount. And while I didn't quite get it for $5 at a garage sale, I
did buy it for $25 from a "junk box" at a local camera show.
This was back in the mid-1980s, and I had no idea then that this lens was rare -- I just figured it might be a nice fast portrait lens with which to take advantage of the 75mm frameline of the Leica M4-P I had back then. I had used a Contax IIa back in my college days, and knew that the Biotar (clearly labeled Carl Zeiss Jena) was a postwar East German creation, which accounted for its somewhat worn and ugly aluminum barreling.
But the glass was in decent shape, and the focus and aperture rings were a bit stiff but usable. It had some erratic spots in the rangefinder coupling, but I did use it successfully for a lot of portrait and theater pictures (one of which is in my RFF gallery.) Its optical character was interesting: at full aperture, the edges were soft, in an appealingly streaky way, but a circular central patch covering about 1/3 of the image was quite decently sharp (although a bit flarey.) As you stopped it down, the sharp area cleaned up and grew larger; by f/2.8, it covered 2/3 the height of the image, and by f/8 it was nice and sharp all over.
This meant it worked nicely as a low-light reportage lens as long as I kept the subject centered, and also made it handy for flattering portraiture: compose the image so the sitter's eyes were in the center and let the edges smear out.
Incidentally, the lens looked considerably different from the Exakta-mount version pictured on Mr. Gandy's website. It was considerably more compact, with a straight-sided cylindrical rear section about the same diameter as a Leica's lens flange that extended straight forward from the back. The focusing and aperture rings were on a tapered section at the front that accommodated the larger diameter of the front glass. The rings were evenly knurled, not alternately like the Exakta version's, and the aperture iris had an almost perfectly round opening, with something like 11 or 13 blades (don't remember exactly.)
Somewhere I must have a picture of it on my M4-P; if I ever run across it, I'll post it.
But, while it was fun to own, was compact and light, and made me some good pictures, it was just quirky enough that I couldn't use it with absolute confidence -- sometimes I'd get a soft image where I wanted it sharp, or vice-versa, and after I traded away my M4-P I no longer had a camera with a 75mm frameline.
Eventually, via an Internet photo mailing list, I discovered how rare it was. During a general discussion I had mentioned a picture I had taken and noted that I had used an LTM 75/1.5 Biotar on a Leica M. A list participant -- a recognized expert who has written books about Zeiss -- replied that I must be mistaken; the 75/1.5 in LTM mount was incredibly rare, with only two examples known to exist. But I quoted him serial numbers and descriptions, and eventually emailed him some photos, and eventually he had to concede that now there were
three known examples!
After some negotiations I sold it to him, and
not for an exorbitant amount -- quite a bit more than the $25 I had paid for it, yes, but certainly not for thousands or anything close. The barrel was rough, after all, and the focusing was erratic, and I was happy to have it go to someone who would appreciate it. Eventually he treated it to a costly mechanical restoration (which I would have liked to do but never could have afforded) and he later emailed me that this had restored the smoothness and accuracy the lens deserved, which made me feel I had done I had done a good thing by passing it on.
There are times I wish I still had it, now that I again have a camera (Bessa R3a) with a 75mm frameline -- but after all, I still have the pictures I took with it. And it gives me the chance to preen myself a bit as "the guy who bought an LTM 75/1.5 Biotar for $25"!
Now, if only I had gotten to that camera store in Kansas City a couple of days earlier, I ALSO could have been the guy who bought a clean Nikon SP and 50/1.4 Nikkor for $98! But that would have been two miracle buys in one lifetime; some of you may have pulled that off, but I don't have that kind of luck!
