Very Early Coated Lenses- the first 10 years from 1935 to 1945.

Erik van Straten said:
I have a coated nickel Tessar 1:2,8 f=5cm Nr 130815 (Contax mount). The coating is blue. The lens is however unusuable due to scratches. It seems that only the front lens is coated.

Erik.
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Erik- are the scratches limited to the front element? The Certo Dolina also used a 5cm F2.8 Tessar of similar design, and the front optic is interchangeable with the original Black/Nickel Tessar for the Contax. You can also use a later front element from the Contaflex 1.
 
I was going through my CZJ lenses, and came across several that did not fit the title of this post, but are just the opposite, i.e., not so early lenses that are not coated, and do not have a T mark. The lenses are 13.5cm f4 Sonnar and a pair of 13.5cm/4 Triotars. The serial numbers all check out according to the Thiele book
 
Another view of the lenses, and a pic of my dog with one of the Triotars. Yep, the triotar vignettes a bit wide open at f4.
 
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I've also noted that the 13.5cm F4 Sonnar was one of the last of the uncoated lenses that Zeiss produced. I figure the narrow FOV made it less prone to flare. I converted a 1937 13.5cm F4 Sonnar to LTM- and the color is magnificent from it.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
Erik- are the scratches limited to the front element? The Certo Dolina also used a 5cm F2.8 Tessar of similar design, and the front optic is interchangeable with the original Black/Nickel Tessar for the Contax. You can also use a later front element from the Contaflex 1.
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Thank you, Brian, I'll look for those!

Erik.
 
dexdog said:
Bingley, I think the pic with the woman wearing a garment almost the same color as the car is pretty cool.
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Thank you!! There’s an Alfa Romeo repair shop in midtown Sacramento called Barber’s Shop, which has an annual open house including a chili cook-off. Vintage car owners park their vehicles in front of the shop, and local photogs assemble and drool over and photograph the cars. This photo was taken at the open house in 2019, and the Citroen was one of the cars parked on the street in front. The lady with the outfit matching the color of the car was pure serendipity.
 
I have a 1937 Sonnar F1.5 in contax mount with blue coating. It's a little rough cosmetically but otherwise fine.

I have an Amedeo Contax-LTM adapter for it, which seems to have more focus shift than my previous adapter, Amedeo's contax internal mount to M-mount. I haven't used it much since I got the LTM mount unfortunately, because of the shift.

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I wonder what my Amedeo adapters are designed for. They are labeled Contax - M and Nikon-M. They may be for external lenses and not for internal lenses.
 
I just acquired a fully coated and 'T' marked 1937 2016xxx Zeiss Jena 5cm 1.5 lens for the price of a Jupiter 3. The red T tells me it's been factory coated. I have not seen an earlier lens with the T on it, but other people in this thread have handled and seen many more Sonnars than I ever will.

The name ring is in nice condition, few marks on the notches, nothing brutal. The glass is also in decent condition. Some cleaning marks on the inside, but front and back look nice. I can tell by the many tap holes in the mounting thread and beneath the aperture ring that many people have tried to calibrate this lens over the years, so it is definitely not untouched. I managed to roughly calibrate it by changing the shims, using a digital camera and my 189xxxx uncoated Sonnar as reference. Luckily I found the matching holes to set the aperture index right. So now I'll shoot some film in the Leica with it and do the fine-tuning after, if necessary.

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I posted a pic of this lens in an earlier thread. A coated 8.5cm f2 Sonnar made in 1937. In response to this thread, I have partially disassembled this lens, and think that the first 3 lens elements nearest the front of the lens are coated, while the rearmost elements are not.
 
dexdog said:
I posted a pic of this lens in an earlier thread. A coated 8.5cm f2 Sonnar made in 1937. In response to this thread, I have partially disassembled this lens, and think that the first 3 lens elements nearest the front of the lens are coated, while the rearmost elements are not.
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A cool lens, is it T marked? I really want a Zeiss 85 in my collection, but I'm not sure whether to get the original 6-element version (unlikely to find a coated one), or the Opton (most sought-after it seems).
 
This lens is not marked with a T on the name ring. I have both the Zeiss-Opton and a post WW2 CZJ version of the 8.5cm f2. I think that the ZO version is the best performer.
 
I have 2 early coated Sonnar 5cm F1.5 that I can show here. On the photo you see 3 Sonnars.
  • 2134948 - 1936 all Chrome version and it seems to be uncoated since it is missing the red T
  • 2675918 - 1940, partly aluminum? is coated since it has the red T
  • 2858645 - 1945, partly aluminum is coated, has red T
The 1945 one was the first I've got and the coating is a little bit damaged. It has some haze but I saw worse Sonnar lenses. I'm not sure if the haze is caused by the damaged coating. I decided to keep it as it is since it renders very vintage, low contrast and sometimes Rembrandt styled images. The image of the trees and the butterfly was taken with this damaged lens. It came bundled with a Kiev 2a camera so the seller suspected that it was a fake Sonnar lens. Because of this I've got it for a good price. As soon as I got my hands on it I was sure it is an original Zeiss. On a side note. The lens has un uncommon detail. The black filter ring is uncommon for end of WWII Sonnar lenses. Most of the time they had a silver filter ring. There where a lot of variations in this last years...
 

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David Hughes said:
Zeiss kept very quiet about the coating; it was used for military spec. cameras and not available to the public, as I understand it. I've a collection of magazines from the 30's to 40's and there's just one mention of coatings and it's very vague (deliberately?) and only mentions the US version, not Zeiss. The coated ones from Zeiss probably were used for horse trading after the war by individuals who'd got their hands on one, somehow Something similar happened with Lugers and with SE25's in the 1920's...

Regards, David
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I read that it was possible to add the coating for money to uncoated Sonnar lenses. So Zeiss was not as quit about it as it seems. There have to be coated lenses without the red T too.

I'm sceptical about the Nr. 2016056 in this thread. I saw the auction for this lens and it is a little strange. It is the earliest Sonnar lens with a red T mark I have seen so far. It dates to 1937 and the next Sonnars with red T mark I know of are from 1939. There is this huge gap... Maybe the TO can sheet some light on this as he has seen more Sonnar lenses as we all together. :-D Did Zeiss add coatings AND put a red T on the name ring on previously sold uncoated lenses? This would be the only legit explanation for the red T on Nr. 2016056. Otherwise someone might have created a fake name ring or T mark.
 
The vacuum deposition equipment was installed in 1935. I have a 175xxxx Sonnar with coated front element, and have worked on a second one from the same batch. The 1909xxx Sonnar is hard-coated on all surfaces. It was like wax paper when received, and the retaining rings were all unmarked- no spanner marks. No red T.

The Black rim filter ring started in the 272xxxx batch. I have a couple from that batch, 27250xx silver and 2726xxx is black.
 
Räuber said:
I read that it was possible to add the coating for money to uncoated Sonnar lenses. So Zeiss was not as quit about it as it seems. There have to be coated lenses without the red T too.

I'm sceptical about the Nr. 2016056 in this thread. I saw the auction for this lens and it is a little strange. It is the earliest Sonnar lens with a red T mark I have seen so far. It dates to 1937 and the next Sonnars with red T mark I know of are from 1939. There is this huge gap... Maybe the TO can sheet some light on this as he has seen more Sonnar lenses as we all together. :-D Did Zeiss add coatings AND put a red T on the name ring on previously sold uncoated lenses? This would be the only legit explanation for the red T on Nr. 2016056. Otherwise someone might have created a fake name ring or T mark.
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Yes, the low serial number in combination with the T seems very early. The technology was there in 1937, undoubtedly. The T looks very straight and precisely machined, I have no indication of it being a fake, other than the fact that it's very early. I may ask Chris Andreyo of Skyllaney what his verdict is, though he is generally not too concerned about fakes.
 
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