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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Vintage

The Bokeh From This $59,000 Vintage 102mm f1.9 is Stunning!

Chris Gampat
No Comments
09/23/2020
3 Mins read
Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9-16

The Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9 can’t really be found very affordably on eBay.

We’re betting that most of you haven’t heard of the Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9. We’ve talked about it before, though, and have seen a few crazy mods for it. But this rare one is for Sony E mount. Better yet, it has full-frame coverage. So if you adore vintage glass, then get your wallet ready. Actually, get the money bags out–because you’ll need them. This particular Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9 lens is going for a cool $59,000. With bokeh like this, you don’t need a college education, rent, a car, vegetables, or house renovations. All you need is to fall in love with dem buttery smooth tones.

Before you ask, we searched eBay for more of these lenses. None came up. But the similar lenses are also very pricey too.

“Not much is known about the Dallmeyer lenses apart from the high regard by lens collectors and the astronomical prices they usually fetch today. A quick Google search, however, led to a forum post about a Dallmeyer Super Six 102mm f1.9 lens. There, we learned that these rare lenses were made in a special double gauss design by English lens company J.H. Dallmeyer. They have six elements in four groups, and were made with “extremely expensive rare earth glasses” that earned them the designation “Super Six.” A series of these lenses, which the item on sale most likely belongs to, ranged from one inch to about eight inches in mostly quarter inch increments. All had the same design with a maximum aperture of f1.9.”

A quote from This Rare Dallmeyer Super Six 125mm f1.9 Lens Converted to Hasselblad V Mount Is Up for Grabs on eBay

Blogger Toby Marshall claims that the Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9 has a unique look. What’s more, it covers a 6×9 medium format area. That’s bigger than 6×7, 6×6, and 645 formats. The 645 format is the biggest medium format digital option that’s commercially available. On the 6×9 format, MMCalc tells us that you’ll get around a 45mm f0.77 equivalency. But on full-frame 35mm cameras, it will render a 102mm f1.9 scene. That’s both very unique and rare. There are images to support that over at Ugly Hedgehog.

The specific lens listed by jbintervintage comes with an adapter for the Sony E mount. And the images on the listing were shot on the Sony a7r II. It’s undoubtedly got a unique look to it. There’s also not much that can compare. Sigma has a monster 105mm f1.4 for E mount. There’s also their 135mm f1.8 G Master, that’s very good. However, we’ve heard that folks like the character of the older Sony 135mm f1.8 more. There’s also the Zeiss 135mm f2.8 Batis. Of course, none of them are as expensive as the Super-Six. Personally, I’d love to use this on Fujifilm GFX cameras. The vintage look combined with Fujifilm’s Film Simulations is way too tempting to pass up. Just imagine a portrait in Classic Chrome! That’s basically an 81mm f1.4 lens equivalency!

If you purchase this vintage lens, then you’re going to have trouble using it. It’s a manual focus telephoto lens. In our experience, these lenses are best used with tripods. Turning the focusing ring will move the lens and camera otherwise. That makes stability not very useful even with IBIS.

Further, Sony’s autofocus peaking isn’t spectacular. You need to use focus peaking, the magnification feature, and your eyes. When something is sharp enough for you, go ahead and shoot.

Be sure to check out the listing. All images are from jbintervintage.

102mm f1.9 Bokeh Dallmeyer Super-Six 102mm f1.9 eBay lens Manual Focus medium format sony sony a7r telephoto vintage vintage lens
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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