Primoplan, a leading German company of the 1930s
「院落」Yinraku P8 50mm f1.65

2026.03.13

　Until the 1920s, various film lenses were designed in France and Germany, but in Hollywood, the British Cooke Speed Panchro, manufactured from 1931, was highly regarded, and the aberration configuration for professional filmmaking was becoming established. It is said that this was designed in consultation with Hollywood cinematographers, but how did cinematographers accumulate enough knowledge to have a unified opinion? Looking at past designs, there is a possibility that Goerz Cinegor had an influence. It is speculated that there were aspects that were highly valued and aspects that were not, and the major changes were the reversal of the excessive inversion and curvature of the upright spherical aberration and chromatic aberration. See Kino (Film) Lenses.
　Goerz was effectively succeeded by Hugo Meyer. Shortly after the Speed Panchro was released, Stephan Roeschein designed the Primoplan, an improved version of the Cinegor. It appears to be the opposite of the Speed Panchro, but in reality it's not; instead of simply flowing in the negative direction, it swings slightly in the positive direction before heading in the negative, so it's basically the same. However, in the manifest parts it looks the opposite.

　Historically, Goerz-Meyer's argument was not accepted, and aberration configurations similar to Speed Panchro were adopted. However, the distinction that spherical aberration is left-handed on continents and upright on island nations (the English-speaking world) remains even in the 21st century. This is the one thing that hasn't changed. The Primoplan was the last truly continental Kino. The Primoplan itself was redesigned after the war and became something different.

院落 Yinraku P8 50mm f1.65 JPY ??0,000　No estimate given

　The patent is for f/1.5 and was filed in 1936 (German patent DE1387593). Initially, about 100 units were manufactured for Arri, and then about 20 more for Leica. It may have been a prototype for market research. There is no f/1.5 as described; f/1.65 is the limit, and considering the manufacturing aspects, even that may have been impossible. The image shows f/1.65.

　It is likely that this was manufactured with the f/1.5 designation. However, for some reason, they were not satisfied, and the final product was f/1.9. Therefore, we will examine the aberration diagram using this f/1.9 designation.

　With this design, the spherical aberration is the same as that of the Cinegor and Kino Hypar, and it can be said that it has fully inherited Goerz's design. Also, the corners do not break down much even with 35mm stills. It is also suitable for mass production. Therefore, I think this might have been the pre-war f1.9. Although it is difficult to say for sure due to the large individual differences at the time, there is not much difference between f1.9 stopped down from f1.5 and the wide-open stock version. When reissuing it, we will try to make it as close to f1.65 as possible.


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