The Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 100 F2.8 II ($999) revives a nearly century-old lens design and puts it into a freshly made manual focus lens with absolutely sublime mechanics. It captures photos with a signature look, defined by a soap bubble bokeh effect of defocused highlights with brightly defined edges. It has some boutique appeal, and should please shutterbugs who lean toward arty and impressionistic imagery. If you're in that niche, and don't mind missing out on autofocus, the Trioplan 100 F2.8 II is a very exciting lens.

Triplet Optics

The Trioplan's optical design is far from new—the formula dates back to the 1930s, when Meyer Optik started producing Trioplan lenses based on the Cooke's triplet optical formula. The lens netted photos with a shallow depth of field and nominal distortion, and with a soap bubble bokeh effect.

In recent years the brand re-emerged as a Kickstarter darling, only to fall shy of promises and dissolve. Today it's under new ownership, German firm OPC Optics, and has gone from crowdfunding to photo retail. PetaPixel's reporting goes into more detail for photographers interested in reading about the fall and rebirth of the brand.

It's good news for fans of the Trioplan look. While it's possible to seek out vintage lenses that net similar results, or even go the DIY route and make your own, neither is a proper substitute for a new, well-engineered lens.

Of course, you pay for it. The $999 price is in line with similar manual focus lenses from other German brands like Voigtländer and Zeiss, but a lot less than you'll pay for a new lens from Leica.

To reinforce its premium position, the lens ships in an oversized presentation box. It's a hinged, piano black case with the Meyer Optik Görlitz logo in silver on the top, and a plush interior. Warranty, information, and quality assurance cards are there too, each with a photo taken with the lens printed on the reverse side.

It covers full-frame sensors and is available in a number of lens mounts. For SLRs you can get it for Canon EF, Nikon F, and Pentax K digital and film cameras, as well M42 thread mount film bodies.

The popular mirrorless systems are supported, too—versions of the lens are available for Fujifilm X, Leica L, Micro Four Thirds, and Sony E cameras. Canon RF, Canon EOS M, and Nikon Z systems don't get their own versions, but can use any SLR edition with an appropriate adapter.

There's also a version for Leica M rangefinders. It's not coupled, though, so you won't be able to set focus via an optical viewfinder. You'll need to add a Visoflex EVF to your digital M to set focus. M cameras don't include frame lines for the 100mm focal length, so the EVF nets accurate framing too.

Fit and Finish

Regardless of which mount you opt for, you'll get a lens with a black anodized aluminum barrel and all manual controls. There's no electronic communication with the camera, so you need to enter the focal length in a menu to activate IBIS if your camera has it, and trigger focus magnification manually.

The SLR version of the lens comes in around 3.3 by 2.1 inches (HD), while mirrorless lenses are a little bit longer, around 4.5 inches, necessary to keep the lens optics the same distance from the image sensor, regardless of camera system.

The front element supports 52mm threaded filters. A metal hood is included, giving some protection from flare and stray thumbprints for those times you're not using filters. The optics feature modern anti-reflective coatings, but there's no anti-smudge protection or any sort of weather protection.

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Everything is mechanical, including the focus system. The ring turns smoothly and has a very long focus throw, about 330 degrees of rotation, to move from the close-up distance to infinity. I paired it with a mirrorless camera and found manual focus to be no big challenge. A high-resolution EVF and frame magnification help a lot.

The aperture control ring is at the front of the barrel. It turns smoothly, without detents. You'll want to use the lens wide open to get the most dramatic bokeh. Highlights remain circular when stopped down; the 15-blade aperture forms a perfect circle all the way down through the minimum f/22 setting.

Focus is available to about 3 feet (0.9m), fine for some close-up work and portraits, but by no means macro, netting magnification around 1:8.6 life-size. You can always net closer focus by adding extension tubes between the lens and camera, but you'll lose the ability to focus on distance subjects when doing so.

Soft, With Soap Bubbles

I paired the Sony E mount edition of the Trioplan II with the full-frame a7R IV for evaluation. With this type of lens, real-world results are more important than lab tests, but I did run our standard Imatest resolution tests.

At f/2.8, the lens captures photos with a glowing, soft focus effect. Detail shines through under the point of focus, but everything that is in focus shows a soft halo.

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At f/4, the soft focus look is gone and the central sharpness is good, even with a 60MP sensor camera. The lens scores better at f/5.6, netting excellent results at the center that soften as you look toward the frame's edges. It delivers the sharpest photos at f/8 and f/11, but the character that defines the lens at wide apertures is no longer apparent.

The soap bubble bokeh look—defocused highlights with hard, bright edges—is most visible when working at a wide aperture and with some direct light hitting your background. You may want to add some light to backgrounds on dull days, but with some sun and the right background, you'll get results that pop.

There's some flare too, especially if you're pointing the lens toward the sun. It's a pleasing effect, though, and in the right conditions can be used to add a little warm light to your shots.

A Lens for Creatives

Photographers who are interested in going off the beaten path when shopping for lenses should take note of the Meyer Optik Görlitz Trioplan 100 F2.8 II. Its throwback triplet optics draw photos with sharply defined, yet perfectly circular, highlights. It's a look that's downright opposite of the way modern lenses draw bokeh—the emphasis today is all on soft backgrounds without distracting elements.

The lens is different enough so that its photos stand out in the crowd. It's got some appeal for video too, especially for cutaways and scene setters where you want the artistry to shine through.

The Trioplan 100 F2.8 isn't the only lens Meyer offers. If you like what you see from this one, but prefer a wider view, you can get one in the 50mm focal length, the Trioplan 50 F2.8 II, available for $900. It also has the Primoplan F1.9 series, in 58mm and 75mm focal lengths, with a slightly different optical formula, but similar bokeh.