Leica Hektor P2 85mm f/2.8
If you just want to see some photographs, skip straight to the examples section.
This lens conforms to Leica's more recent naming conventions for projector lenses: The brand name has changed from Leitz to Leica, 'Hektor' refers to Leica's lower tier of projector lenses, and 'P2' means it's one of their last generation of projector lenses before they finally decided to give up on slide projectors. It has the standard 35mm projector lens focal length of 85mm and aperture of f/2.8. The bode is made out of modern black plastic rather than the metal Leica used for earlier generations of projector lenses. But as you'd expect of Leica, the construction is still of a very high standard.
Unlike all the other Leica/Leitz projector lenses I have review so far, this lens worked perfectly with my standard adaptation technique for projector lenses. See the 35mm slide projector lenses home page for more details. It focused to infinity with a standard M42 lens adaptor… no need to hunt down the ultra-slim variety!
In my opinion this lens was every bit the equal of the more storied Colorplan lenses, but of course with an aperture of f/2.8 instead of f/2.5 the depth of field was a very little less shallow.
Example photographs
This first set of images are just standard photographs lightly processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic.
This second set of photographs were all shot using the freelensing technique. This involves not actually mounting the lens at all, but rather holding slightly away from the camera lens mount and focusing by simply moving your hand. You can also tilt the lens to vary the effect. This has the great advantage of not needing any kind of adapters at all! I then processed the images in Adobe Lightroom Classic with a set of curves designed to mimic the effect of cross processing slide film in the chemicals designed for normal negative film.
