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German optical manufacturer Meyer-Optik-Gorlitz has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help it reintroduce its Lydith 30mm F3.5 lens. The original lens was launched in 1964 and the forthcoming version will remain true to the basic design of five elements in five groups, but the new company will be updating a number of its features.
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Meyer will use Schott glass, modern coatings and a 12-bladed iris instead of the 10 of the original lens. The modern Meyer Optik trades on the interesting ‘bubble’ bokeh of its Trioplan lenses and has gone to some lengths to ensure bokeh is equally exciting to the eye in its modern relaunched lenses.
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| The original Lydith from 1964 |
The Lydith will offer a closest focusing distance of just 16cm/8in, which is approximately half that of the 1964 lens, and although the company hasn’t said specifically it is likely that it will have a click-less aperture ring as well.
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The standard price of this manual focus lens on the Kickstarter page is $ 749, though some early bird offers were left at the time of writing. The earliest shipping date is December 2017, with the main batch going out in February 2018.
For more information about the company see the Meyer-Optik-Gorlitz website or the Lydith 30mm F3.5 Kickstarter page.
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Manufacturer’s newsletter
Meet our new lens – create magic
Dear Meyer-Optik-Görlitz friend,
We are very excited and proud to introduce you to the next in our oustanding line of art lenses – the Lydith 30mm f3.5
One of the widest lenses in the Meyer-Optik lineup, the Lydith will impress you with its versatility at all distances. Exceptional sharpness, contrast and colour fidelity and it’s wonderful ability to create images with that indefinable magic is how this lens can best be described. It is a lens that will allow you to creatively capture those “magic moments”.
Designed in the late 1950s and introduced in 1964, the modern version of the Lydith will be updated with high-perfomance lens coatings and a short minimum focusing distance of 8 inches (16 cm). Like all of Meyer-Optik’s lenses, the Lydith will be fully manual, 100 percent handmade in Germany.
We think you are going to fall in love with the way it renders colors, its exceptional sharpness and, of course, it’s signature creamy bokeh not only in the background but also in the front.
Don’t miss out – visit our Kickstarter now and be one of the first in the world to own the modern version of this classic lens.
Best regards,
Dr. Stefan Immes and the Meyer-Optik Team
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)