Tessar or Elmar?

brachal

brachal

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I believe that the early FSU collapsibles (Fed-50, I-10, I-22?) are usually refered to as Zeiss Tessar copies that look like a Leica Elmar. I started thinking about this over the weekend ... As I understand it, the Fed/Zorki Leica copies were produced under license from Leica as early as the 30's. Wouldn't it make sense that the lens was also a licensed Leica copy? As far as I know, the Soviets didn't produce any Zeiss-derived designs until after the war. Were the lenses redesigned after the acquisition of Zeiss designs and technology, or were they, for whatever reason, Zeiss all along? Or are they Elmar clones?

Does anybody really know for sure? I know this isn't a terribly important issue; my FED-50 is a gem, regardless of the design, but I get curious about the strangest things sometimes. Any thoughts? :)
 
It is curious that one might expect the designs to have been licenced from Leica !! Also, the early lenses are not facsimile copies of the Leica Elmars.

The basic "Tessar" family design (four elements in three groups) was well known for decades before that, and the diaphragm is at the back on the soviet lenses and at the front for the Elmars. The barrel design is certainly very "similar" however, along with the whole of the rest of the FED/Zorki -1 cameras of course !
 
I don't think the Soviet cameras were licensed by E. Leitz. The Communist philosophy generally denied the existence of property rights to individuals in favor of society (or the State). I think that before the fall of Nazi Germany, the USSR merely appropriated or reverse engineered what it felt was necessary from other manufacturering countries.

However. the USSR did lawfully acquire Intellectual Property rights to many German photographic patents (as well as many other non-photographic patents) as part of the war reparations process. This included many Zeiss patents as well as Zeiss technical knowledge acquired from Zeiss employees who were "guests" of the USSR.

I suspect the Industar lenses are Zeiss based designs. See the following paper.

http://www.schott.com/ft/german/download/sonstiges7.pdf

-Paul
 
This is a very interesting question - a while back one of our members compared the I-10 and the I-22, and found that they were significantly different, suggesting they were not (as generally thought) the same lens design. I wonder if the I-10 is an Elmar copy (as Princelle says) and the I-22/I-50 a Tessar?

Cheers, Ian
 
I wonder how applicable the word "copy" is to these designs. All the collapsibles seem to be referred to as "Elmar copy" by eBay sellers and the like. I'm no lens expert but I can't help wondering if this is akin to, say, describing a Pentax SLR as being a copy of a Nikon because they both have a lens/mirror/screen/pentaprism arrangement. Is it just the case that contemporary lenses of the period used similar optical arrangements?
 
I think the main reason for referring to it as a copy is because they look similar. Similar to how the Buran is said to be a Space Shuttle copy, when in reality you have completely different functionality as soon as you start looking beyond the superficial exterior similarity.
 
Good points raised by all. Thanks. I'm mostly curious about the optical formula of the lenses rather than the external appearance.

I think Ian may be on to something. If Princelle thinks the I-10 is an Elmar, and a forum member has noticed considerable differences between the I-10 and the I-22, there may be something there worth considering. I wonder if the FED-50 continued the I-10/Elmar design while the I-22/50 went down the Tessar path, or if the FED-50 was changed to a Tessar after the war? I suspect that the answer might have something to do with which design was easier/cheaper to produce. That's a tricky question to answer. I wish I had an actual Elmar and an I-22 to compare to my Fed-50.
 
Some interesting information, from the wikipedia of all places.

FED 1 lens type information
100mm f6.3 Fed lens first made in 1938. Supplied with viewfinder less than 20,000 produced.

100mm f5.9 1937- 38 Fed lens, best used at f6.3 or smaller aperture.

50mm f3.5 Industar-10 copy of the Leitz Elmar 50mm f3.5 manufactured 1934-46 and fitted to most FED 1a, 1b, 1c and 1d. Old-style apertures f4.5, f6.3. From 1949 coated. From 1948 or 49 new international f stops, f4, f5.6 and so on. A four-element design. The most produced lens and even fitted to the next generation Fed 2 camera and supplied to China for fitting on Chinese made Leica copies - Dai Lai "Popular" (Fed 1 or Zorki 1 copy), Shanghai and Chang Chiang "Yangtze River" (Fed 2 Copy).

50mm f2 Fed copy of Leitz Summar 1938-41. A 6-element design with f2 to f18.

28mm f4.5 Fed wideangle lens 1938 -39. A 6-element design with f4.5 to f18. A viewfinder was produced in 1939 in very small quantities.

A number of 50mm f3.5 macro lenses existed.

Some time probably between 1947 and 1949 when the first KMZ Fed-Zorki cameras were being assembled at the KMZ factory in Moscow with the collaboration of Fed engineers the copy of the Leitz Elmar 50mm f3.5 was replaced by a copy of the Tessar 50mm f3.5 in the same collapsible mount. This probably happened due to technical information taken as spoils of war from the Zeiss factory, which was in the Soviet-controlled zone of East Germany. The KMZ version of this Tessar lens was the Industar-22.

The original Industar-10 lens manufactured between 1934-46 was a more or less exact copy of the Leitz Elmar 4-element lens that first appeared in 1924. This was based on the earlier 5-element Leitz Elmax which had been patented by 1920. The Industar-10, Elmar & Tessar had completely different focal lengths. The Industar-10s made between 1934 and 1948-49 were 50mm. Those manufactured after 1948-49 based on the Zeiss Tessar were 52.4mm. The later KMZ Industar-22 was 52.4mm. The Carl Zeiss standard is 52.4, the same as the Sonnar (Jupiter 3 & 8) and later the Industar 26M, Industar-50, Industar-61—all used the standard CZ focal length.

FED (& GOMZ) started using coated lenses as late as 1949-1950 (Maizenberg Book), KMZ (1947 onwards - Zorki Zenit camera line) probably never produced uncoated lenses because they continued the Carl Zeiss line.

Pre-World War 2 lenses have a slightly different lens-to-film register different from that of as Leica lenses. Consequently early Russian lenses should not be used on postwar cameras as they will not focus correctly, although results may be adequate when stopped down.

I'm not sure about the source for this information, but it seems to be pretty well researched.
 
Some fascinating points to ponder above. I don't know exactly what my Fed 50/3.5 "Elmar type" is... in terms of design. It IS a gem of a lens, so much so, that when I sent Oleg a Fed-2c for CLA, I sent the 50/3.5 along for him to check R/F alignment with
that lens.

In another Thread a day or two ago, it was generally agreed that the Soviets did not change lenses, to the extent that we westerners do... especially with around 2-1/2 LTM turns!

Also, I read in a Google doc, in 1945, the trains from Jena and Dresden stretched for miles, with everything Zeiss and Contax the Russians could carry into the "Motherland."

Cheers, Mike
 
One difference between an Elmar and a Tessr that is easy to verify is the placement of the diaphragm. On Tessars it is located between the second and third lens group (from the front). On Elmars it is located between the first and second group.
 
pshinkaw said:
One difference between an Elmar and a Tessr that is easy to verify is the placement of the diaphragm. On Tessars it is located between the second and third lens group (from the front). On Elmars it is located between the first and second group.
Click to expand...

I'm going to stare deeply into my Fed-50 when I get home ... maybe compare what I see to an I61 (only known Tessar I have). I do know that the Fed-50 has an elmar-type aperture nub, not the ring found on tessars and later industars. My Fed is a pretty late example; it came on a '55 Fed2. Maybe an earlier example would be better, but you work with what you have!
 
they are all copies of the Tessar including the Elmar.
the 1902 Zeiss design was patented for two dacades and after that many optical companies around the world made their own version including the Soviets.
remember, the Tessar, or any copy of it, in varied focal lenghts, was used for lenses that went on cameras of many different format besides the 35 x24 mm format cameras.
 
The aperture on my late-model FED-50 appears to be toward the back of the lens; it looks to be in about the same position as my I61's. So later FED-50's are probably based on the Zeiss rather than the Leitz.
 
brachal said:
The aperture on my late-model FED-50 appears to be toward the back of the lens; it looks to be in about the same position as my I61's. So later FED-50's are probably based on the Zeiss rather than the Leitz.
Click to expand...
The early, uncoated ones, are also of this construction.
 
brachal said:
Looks like it. I wonder what practical effect, if any, the location of the aperture would have?
Click to expand...


Perhaps the placement of the aperture iris is due to what the designers theorised about lens vignetting. Perhaps Leitz designers felt that putting the diaphragm in a slightly more forward position would reduce the possibility of vignetting.


Jay
 
The Tessar design was produced in 1902, and awarded a US patent in 1903. When the patent expired in 1920 there were many variants on the Tessar design released by other companies, such as some of Kodak's Ektars and Schneider's Xenars.

The Leica 50mm f/3.5 Elmar lens patented in 1920 and released in 1925 was a Tessar type lens but structurally different. . Zeiss Tessar and Leitz Elmar are both four element three group designs, with a rear cemented doublet, but there is major difference between the Tessar and Elmar: the position of the diaphragm. The Tessar lens has two elements in two groups in front of the diaphragm and a cement doublet behind the diaphragm; on the other hand, The Leitz Elmar lens has one group in front of the diaphragm, and one group plus one doublet behind the diaphragm.

Michael
 
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One more thing, regarding the aperture setting devices found in the collapsible Industar types: only the Industar-10 (FED-50) retained the lever device found in Elmar. The later I-22 and I-50 used a ring similar found in the uncommon collapsible Tessar supplied for the Contax. It is also found in the Tessar lenses of other Zeiss 35mm cameras.
 
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