In recent years two Ukrainian manufacturers, Arsat and Hartblei, have introduced shift and shift/tilt lens in the Pentacon Six mount.  There are also some shift and shift/tilt lenses from “Wiese”, a German firm based in Hamburg.  However, it appears that all of the Wiese lenses are re-branded Hartblei lenses.

Notes
(1)  The data source from which I obtained this information indicated a closest focus of 0.35m on the Hartblei 45mm shift (only) lens, the same as on their other two 45mm lenses.  However, the shift-only lens that I have has a minimum focussing distance of 0.5m.
(2) With this lens, some vignetting is likely to be observable on the full 6 × 6 format with shifts in excess of 10mm.  11mm & 12mm are marked in red to remind users of this.  The full 12mm of shift can be used for 6 × 4.5 format.
(3) The rear element projects beyond the rear edge of the lens mount, so the lens should never be stood on the back of the lens without a lens cap first being fitted in order to protect the rear element.
(4) With this lens, some vignetting is likely to be observable on the full 6 × 6 format with shifts in excess of 10mm.  However, on the Arsat 45mm lens, there is no colour coding to remind users of this.
(5) The rear element projects beyond the rear edge of the lens mount, so the lens should never be stood on the back of the lens without a lens cap first being fitted in order to protect the rear element.
(6) With this lens, some vignetting is likely to be observable on the full 6 × 6 format with shifts in excess of 9mm.  10mm is marked in red to remind users of this.  The full 10mm of shift can be used for 6 × 4.5 format
(7) The rear element projects beyond the rear edge of the lens mount, so the lens should never be stood on the back of the lens without a lens cap first being fitted in order to protect the rear element.
(8) I have not yet seen this lens.  Its optical specification is likely to be identical to that of the 65mm Hartblei shift lens.

It is reported that the 45mm and 65mm Hartblei shift lenses use the optical elements of the Arsenal Mir-26B and Mir-38B, respectively.  Hartblei adds an excellent multi-coating that looks far superior to that on the original Arsenal lenses.  To see a test of the 45mm Hartblei shift-only lens, click here.

Arsenal in Kiev produce their own “Arsat” 55mm shift lens, which is one of the sharpest lenses available in the Pentacon Six mount.

The Arsenal (“ARSAT”) Shift lenses

Arsenal are now also producing 45mm & 65mm shift lenses, bearing their ARSAT brand name.  I do not know if the 65mm lens is optically the same as the Hartblei shift lenses, but this is very probable. I now have the 45mm Arsat shift lens, and, without disassembling it, it appears that the optical elements are identical to those in the 45mm Hartblei shift lens.  A report on the Arsat 45mm shift lens can be seen here.

All five lenses (the 45mm lenses from Hartblei and from Arsat, the 65mm lenses from Hartblei and Arsat, and the 55mm lens from Arsat only) are in mounts that rotate – so it is possible to shift down as well as up, sideways, or even in other diagonal directions if required.  In all the shift (and shift/tilt) lenses that I have personally handled so far, rotation is the full 360°, with click stops every 15°.

All the shift and shift/tilt lenses have a manual preset diaphragm.  The Hartblei PCS 45mm f/3.5 shift-only lens has détentes at half and full stops throughout its entire range all the way down to f/22.  Other shift and shift/tilt lenses that I have handled have détentes at half stops and full stops down to f/11, and then only at full stops to f/22.  The 55mm shift lens has a socket for a cable release.  Using a double cable release, it is possible to automate the aperture shut-down on this lens.

For more information on shift lenses, click here.

To see a report on two shift lenses and one shift-tilt lens from Wiese Fototechnik in Hamburg, click here.

As well as their shift-only lenses, listed above, Hartblei advertised the following shift & tilt lenses:
 

Notes
(1) With this lens, it is possible to shift in any direction, and tilt downward only.
(2) With this lens, some vignetting is likely to be observable on the full 6 × 6 format with shifts in excess of 10mm.  11mm & 12mm are marked in red to remind users of this.  The full 12mm of shift can be used for 6 × 4.5 format.
(3) The Hartblei Super-Rotator allows completely independent rotation of the tilt and shift axes, so that you can shift in any direction and tilt in any direction to adjust the depth of field.
(4) There are other minor restrictions at full tilt, when shift against the tilt direction should be limited to 9mm.  In practice, this limitation is not likely to be significant.
(5) Looking at a 2002 Harblei lens leaflet, just received in 2022, it seems to me that the 65mm shift/tilt Hartblei lens was not offered in the Pentacon Six mount, only in the 645 mounts for Contax, Mamiya M and Pentax cameras.
(6) With this lens (if it exists), some vignetting is likely to be observable on the full 6 × 6 format with shifts in excess of 9mm.  10mm is marked in red to remind users of this.  The full 10mm of shift can be used for 6 × 4.5 format.

To the right, the middle of the three lenses in the above two pictures, the Wiese “Technoplan - T” version of the tilt/shift lens, has been focussed at 0.45m, with zero tilt and zero shift.  Click on the image to see it larger.  We could have got substantially closer, if we had wished, making this very nearly a “macro” lens.  Even without tilting the lens, depth of field is substantial, helped by two factors:

• wide-angle lens have greater depth of field than longer lenses;
• we have stopped the lens down to f/22.

This was a hand-held “grab shot” in the street, in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England.  The image could be improved by cropping it, but here we show the whole frame.

Shift-only lenses are generally used for architectural and landscape photography, for which the minimum focus of 0.5 metres is more than adequate.  Tilt lenses are often used for product photography, where the closer minimum focus of 0.35 metres will be appreciated.

[C570_1-2_TS.jpg]

In the image to the left, we have used the same lens and have applied maximum (downward) tilt and a shift up of just 3mm to reduce vignetting in the top corners, which we suspect might become visible when the lens is tilted (see here).  Again, this was a hand-held street shot, this time in Ironbridge, Shropshire.  Retaining our 1/250 sec shutter speed, overcast conditions made it necessary to open up the lens to f/9.5.  Better depth of field would have been obtained if we had shot at 1/125 at f/14.  Focussing distance not recorded for this shot. Some vignetting is indeed visible in the top corners.  Here we reproduce the entire frame.  Click on the image to see a larger version, rotated slightly and cropped to improve the composition.  With more time, and stopping down to at least f/16 or possibly smaller, we could probably have achieved satisfactory sharpness all the way to the flowers at the back, but using the corresponding slower shutter speed would have necessitated the use of a tripod.

As can be seen from the above, Hartblei offer (or have in the past offered) three different 45mm shift and shift/tilt lenses.

All of these lenses use the optical elements of the Arsenal 45mm f/3.5 Mir-26 wide-angle lens, more details of which can be seen here.  We look at each of these three lenses below.  However, the Mir-26 elements are mounted in three different lens barrels, all of which are designed and manufactured by Hartblei.

The potential optical quality of lenses manufactured in the former Soviet Union has a justifiably high reputation.  Unfortunately, the actual manufacture and assembly of the lens barrels was often shoddy, and there appeared to be zero quality control, so that lenses were sold that should have never got out the factory gate, since at the quality control stage, they should have been scrapped and thrown in the bin.

By contrast, the quality of the design and manufacture of the barrels of Hartblei lenses is superb, and it would appear that they also applied superior multi-coating to the Arsenal lens elements that they used.

In all three lenses, the optical elements are the same.  However, the coating applied by Hartblei appears to be different on the shift-only lens (on the left) from that on the other two lenses. The middle lens here bears the name “Wiese Technoplan-T”. [3x45T01.jpg]

Hartblei appears to use abbreviations with the following meanings: MC = Multi-Coated; PC = Perspective Control  TS = Tilt-Shift.  “PCS” would appear to mean Perspective Control - Shift.

This is a shift-only lens, with no tilt possibilities.  I am familiar with two versions of this lens: the one bearing the Hartblei name, illustrated in the black-and-white picture above from a Hartblei lens instruction manual and also at the top of this page, and a lens that is also from Hartblei and has similar characteristics but that bears the Wiese name.  The Wiese version is described in more detail here.  Here we shall compare the Hartblei and Wiese versions.

The Hartblei 45mm shift-only lens (left), beside the equivalent Wiese lens.
Even though the Wiese lens almost certainly originated with Hartblei, the lens that here bears Hartblei's name is a significant improvement.
It’s as though the “Wiese” lens were a “Mark I” version and the “Hartblei” lens an improved, “Mk II”, version.
[ht45_03.jpg]

The Wiese-branded lens appears to have re-used components from the original Mir-26 lens barrel, or to have copied them unchanged, so, for instance, the bottoms of the numerals on the focussing ring are cut off by the ring behind it that contains the depth-of-field markings.  On the Hartblei-branded lens, all components of the barrel are new, as are the numerals. [ht45_05.jpg]

From above, the similarities of the two lenses can be observed.  However, it appears that the Hartblei-branded lens may have a different or additional coating, to judge from the colours of the reflections. [ht45_02.jpg]

Rear view, with both lenses in zero-shift position.  As with the three previous pictures, the Hartblei-branded lens is on the left. [ht45_04.jpg]		The Hartblei PCS shift (only) lens as supplied, with the soft pouch that has been standard with most lenses from Kiev since about the year 2000, a standard Ukrainian rear cap and a spring-loaded front cap. [ht45_01.jpg]
To see a test of this 45mm Hartblei shift-only lens, click here.  To see the results of this 45mm Wiese shift-only lens, click here.

MC TS-PC Hartblei 3.5/45mm Shift/Tilt lens

This Hartblei lens offers shift in any direction, thanks to a rotating mount, plus tilt downwards only.  Of course, with a square format it is possible to turn the camera through 90 or 180 degrees, although operating it upside down is not easy and in this position use of a tripod becomes impossible (which is where the Super-Rotator comes in! – see below).  The same lens has been seen with a Wiese name ring.

This example of the tilt-shift lens bears a Wiese name ring, but appears to be exactly like the Hartblei version in all other respects.  Wiese himself stated in his “KIEV Handbuch” that “his” lenses were the result of collaboration with Hartblei.  See here. [wiese45TS01.jpg]

User’s-eye view, infinity focus, zero shift, zero tilt.  Lens rotation in the “default” position, with all index marks at the top.  Note the indication of rotation in degrees on the rearmost ring. [wiese45TS02.jpg]

Fully shifted.  Note that the dot after “10” and the numeral “12” on the shift lens are in red, to remind users that some vignetting is to be expected at the image border opposite the shift if the full 6×6 format is being used.  There will be no vignetting on cameras that use the 6×4.5 format. [wiese45TS03.jpg]

As indicated here (see “Requirement 2”), the most common shift direction is up, so here the lens has been rotated through 90° in order to achieve this.  See a picture taken at very nearly this setting below. [wiese45TS04.jpg]

Here the lens has been returned to its “default” position, with all index marks at the top.  Zero shift, zero tilt. [wiese45TS05.jpg]

Here we have zero shift but full tilt down – the only tilt direction offered by this lens.  However, as indicated here, the most commonly-required tilt direction is indeed down, so that is not a problem. [wiese45TS06.jpg]

In the image on the right, the lens has been set to its closest focus of 0.35m. The Wiese version of the shift-tilt lens, beside the shift-only version (on the left).  Wiese seems to have changed the designations of his lenses on verious occasions and here we note that the name ring has been engraved “SHIFT” (why not “SHIFT-TILT”?) and “TECHNOPLAN-T2” but the numeral “2” has been blacked out (or not painted in the first place?).  Similar changes of designation have been seen on some other Wiese lenses.  See, for instance, here.  (Scroll down to “Different Wiese 45mm shift and tilt lenses”.) [wiese45TS08.jpg]

[wiese45TS07.jpg]

Rear view of the Hartblei/Wiese Tilt/shift lens, with zero tilt but full shift [wiese45TS09.jpg]		Full shift, viewed from above.  Note that the lens rotation ring (observe the numerals that are marked with the degrees symbol) is behind the shift control ring but in front of the chrome-coloured tilt control rod or spindle, which is why the lens can shift in any direction, but can only tilt downwards. [wiese45TS10.jpg]
P6 Fuji PRO400H King Street, Ludlow 45mm Wiese "Technoplan-T" T/S 0 Tilt,  4mm shift up 1/125 f/22 [C569_3s.jpg] Examples of shifting the lens up In the image to the left, we have used this Wiese example of this lens, and have shifted the lens up by just 4mm.  This has enabled us to: reduce the amount of the image occupied by the road surface increase the amount of sky avoid converging verticals, which always occur when a wide-angle lens is tilted up. We observe an absence of vignetting on this setting.  Click on the image to see a larger version, cropped horizontally.    In the image on the right, we have shifted the same lens up by 10mm, a significant amount and the maximum recommended by the manufacturers for covering a full 6 × 6 frame. Although we have tilted the camera up slightly, in the interests of composition, keystoning (converging verticals) is greatly reduced, compared with what we could have achieved, if we had not had a shift lens. Click on the image to the right to see it larger.  However, even this “larger” version is tiny, compared with the original file, which is 10,398 pixels wide × 10,398 pixels high.  This would enable us to print the image 88cm (nearly three feet) high × 88cm (3 ft) wide, even using a cautious 300 pixels per inch.  At a perfectly-acceptable 200 px/in, we could print the image much larger, if required. P6 Fuji PRO400H Hay-on-Wye 45mm Wiese "Technoplan-T" T/S 0 tilt, 10mm shift up 1/250 f/16 [C570_4_10mmups.jpg] At such massive degrees of enlargement, some of the limitations of the lens may be observable, if we examine the image from extremely close up.  However, images printed that large are normally viewed from a greater distance (the same as larger-screen televisions), and at such distances, these optical limitations are just not visible.  Here we are referring to chromatic aberrations, in which bright white lines on a darker background (or the inverse) reveal colour fringeing in the form of green or reddish edges.  These days, such limitations occur with most lenses, and manufacturers frequently do not even bother to correct them, leaving such corrections to software.  However, in pictures on this website, I do not apply any such corrections.  I show to the right a massively-enlarged detail of the bottom right-hand corner of this image.  However, in real life, people viewing images taken with this lens (including me!) are unlikely to see this detail. Click on the image to the right in order to see this section larger still.  The result does not look good, but it is virtually invisible at normal sizes and viewing distances.  I can’t see it in the flower shots higher up this page, which were taken with the same lens, nor in the Ludlow and Hay-on-Wye pictures even when substantially enlarged.  However, if the result is unacceptable for a given image, it can be corrected in routinely-available software. [C570_4_10mmupcs.jpg]

This is Hartblei's top 45mm tilt/shift lens.  It incorporates two rotating mechanisms, one in front of the other, so that both shift and tilt can be independently controlled in any direction.  This lens was also available under the "Wiese" brand name, as can be seen here (scroll down to near the bottom of the page).

The Hartblei Super-Rotator, here shifted to the left [c370_31a_s.jpg]

The same lens mounted on a Pentacon Six and fully shifted [c387_26a_s.jpg]

The Super-Rotator mounted on a Pentacon Six and fully tilted down [c387_25a_s.jpg]

You can see further information on the Super-Rotator and results of tests of it here (for shift only) and here (for tilt).