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Steinheil Munchen Magnostar 1:2.8 f=8cm VL Projector Lens Bokeh Test and Review



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We're back with another rare find. This time, it's a Steinheil Munchen Magnostar 1:2.8 f=8cm VL Projector Lens that we have mounted on a Nikon Z7 mirrorless digital camera, and tested this vintage lens for qualities such as bubble and swirly bokeh, lens flare, sharpness, and black-and-white photography. This lens was made by Steinheil München, one of Germany’s oldest optical manufacturers, founded in 1855 by Carl August von Steinheil. The company played a major role in early photographic and scientific optics, even contributing to foundational lens designs like the Aplanat (Rapid Rectilinear) in the 19th century. By the mid-20th century, Steinheil was producing a wide range of photographic, enlarger, and industrial lenses, many of which are now sought after by collectors and experimental photographers. The company’s photographic lens production declined sharply after the early–mid 1960s, when ownership changes shifted focus toward aerospace and military optics. Most Steinheil enlarger and projection optics found today date roughly from the late 1940s to early 1960s, and this lens in our hands is not an exception. This specific lens comes with a VL mark on it, which most likely refers to its promoted coating. It was used on a slide projector that was in high production in the mid-20th century, and our estimation is that it was manufactured sometime in the 1950s, making it the newest of the projector lenses we have tested so far. It's noteworthy that, like many other specimens of the vintage lenses we see nowadays, this one comes with its own dust inside, but still, the results are breathtaking. The image that this lens creates on the 35mm full-frame digital sensor covers the whole area, and therefore, vignetting is not much noticeable. Without further ado, let's move on to the photos and videos we took with this lens.


Color Photos and Bokeh

As you can see, the bokeh is bubbly with sharp edges, and the depth of field is shallow because, of course, there are no aperture blades on this lens, and the f-stop is an unchangeable 2.8. The images are sharp in the middle, and not that sharp towards the edges of the frame. However, as you can see, this lens doesn't give us a swirly bokeh (do we always want bokeh to be swirly?). Also, the bubbles (or some may call them coins) in the bokeh are almost perfectly circular all around the image, contrary to some Meyer Gorlitz lenses that yielded oval bokeh as we moved away from the center of the photo. There's also a halo that appears at certain distances, and, absent swirliness, it makes the resulting images considerably dreamy and otherworldly.




Black-and-White Photos and Bokeh

The same goes for black-and-white photos. Bokeh is bubbly and hollow with sharp edges. You can see the halo in B&W photography, too. Note that we slightly added contrast to the photos for the sake of aesthetics.




Lens Flare

My favorite flare is the one in the house-shaped bird-feeder photo, the black-and-white flare coming in second place. As you see below, the flare can create different effects with varying angles of the rays.





Videos

Here I'm posting videos that we took with this lens. I don't think there's any need to bore you with further explanations. So, please take a look at the videos, and don't forget to communicate with us in case you have any questions about the lenses or want to see more of the samples. Comments are welcome, too!



Color Video




Black and White Video



Flare in Videos



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