3rd party lenses for PEN F series

[Sonnar2]

Hi,
anybody here knowing about 3rd party lenses for the PEN F SLR?
I just managed to buy a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 54mm f/2 in a PEN F mount and to me it looks like it went out of the factory this way (no automatic diaphragm yet)
Anyway it's not that easy to get a Sonnar lens for the PEN F!
Obviously it was not that interesting to make lenses for the PEN F because Olympus lenses were quite low-priced in the 60's (albeit excellent). Since in East Germany (GDR) the value of USD's were extremely high, it could have been an interesting job for Carl Zeiss Jena though.

cheers, Frank

 

[Sonnar2]

 

[Al Kaplan]

That's a new one to me! C.Z.Jena was making auto diaphragm lenses in other mounts by the time the Pen F was marketed.

 

[historicist]

That's interesting, I've never seen third party lenses for the pen before, it even looks cosmetically rather like a proper pen lens.

 

[Disaster_Area]

drool... droooooool... mind telling where you got it and what you paid? I've never heard of Zeiss glass for the Pen either... but now I want 🙂

 

[Al Kaplan]

I wonder if they made any 20mm and 25mm Flektagons in that mount?

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

 

[Disaster_Area]

Yeah.. I saw that... I'd just love to know where they got the Zeiss glass. I couldnt find any reference to a 54mm f2 Zeiss lens in any other mount that could be adapted to Pen F. It looks like they just took the helicoid from the Zeiss lens and mounted it in the 38mm or 40mm Pen f lens body... it doesnt look like just a mount switch job.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Most lenses are marked witth a nominal focal length, not the exact focal length of that particular individual lens. The target focal length for the original 50mm Summicron was 51.9mm. Few are exactly that focal length. If you examine the brass ring in the rear that contacts the rangefinder roller you can see where a very slight secondary cam is ground into it to correct for the variance.

This may have been a "fifty" that measured a true 54mm. The picture doesn't show enough of the front ring to see the marked focal length. Even more likely, the 54mm in the caption was a typo.

I notice that the distance scale is only metric.

 

[Sonnar2]

The mount don't remind me to any other (i.e. Russian) lens, the Russians didn't made similar looking 54/2 lenses either, did they?
The S/N is later than my Contax SLR preset Biotars - that would fit.
Most lenses CZJ build without spring diaphragm were made with two aperture rings, but this one has only one - but the mount is smaller either. The stops aren't equalized.
I'm quite uncertain about this one, that's why I asked.
They were actually some "Zeiss Ikon Dresden" labeled 57/2 Sonnars made in the early stage of the Contax SLR (M42 mount), pictured on my website, but they were made a decade earlier.
Quite puzzling stuff....

 

[CameraQuest]

When in production the Pen F mount was patent protected. There were no 3rd party lenses as Olympus did not license them. That's an adapted lens, not regular production.

Stephen

 

[Sonnar2]

Are you sure about it, Stephen? I've spent some time at Google Patents for the work on my website and did find a lot of patents for the PEN-F but nothing regarding lens mounts. The Leica M mount was patent protected for a long time.
Anyway Carl Zeiss Jena had lots of juridical troble with Zeiss Oberkochen in the late 1950's, this was probably reason enough to avoid troubling with Olympus...
If it's adapted the question is for the initial mount. The S/N fells into the 1954' era due to Rick Oleson's Zeiss postwar S/N history guess as discussed in photo.net 2004. This is too early for a Olympus PEN F mount lens anyway, except they had a crystal ball in Jena back than... 😉

Anyway; I will wait until I made the first pictures with it. It's rare enough for my virtual museum!

Thanks!

 

[splitimageview]

A proprietary bayonet doesn't necessarily mean it's been patented. A bayonet must have some unique feature or design to make it different from all other bayonets in order for it to be patented. Leica also patented the viewfinder magnifier of all things. Not sure how that one got through the patent process. 🙂

 

[Al Kaplan]

I seem to remember T-mount adapters for the Pen F lens mount.

 

[raid]

I would like to see some images posted from that lens.

 

[Sonnar2]

I will compare it with my Contax II 50/2 prewar Sonnar, Raid. After all they should be close related lenses. The shutter of my Contax isn't working well but it will probably work on my Nikon S2. Maybe I find an easy way to measure the focal length too.

 

[Sonnar2]

It feels like a typical 1950's Zeiss Jena lens in my hands, but not as flimsy like some alloy lenses. It isn't a Olympus Pen remount. The black focussing ring looks like black painted brass, no anodized alloy. It focusses precisely from infinity to about 0,5m (exactly 1 turn). The f-Stop ring is alloy. There is a 43mm filter mount (like most Pen F lenses have). The lens is short (same length as the 40/1.4). The lens mount looks fabric made, no remount. Except there is no automatic diaphragm. The rear optical group is quite close to the mounting end. A 50mm probably would be too close to the mirror. The front glass looks bigger than my 50/2 Contax prewar Sonnar.

Everything on the lens looks like a factory prototype except of one thing: the lens looks like it has seen regular use.

I've started to take pictures with it on my black FT. From looking through the finder one can expect very sharp results at f/4-5.6 in medium to long distances, and nice OOF behavior. When compared to the 40/1.4 the color looks "warmer", but this is also common with the Jena T-coated Biotars (58/2) of the 1950's.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

All of the glass of the postwar CZJ 5cm F2 Sonnars is larger in diameter than their pre-war counterparts. The diameter of the optics module is bigger. I tried fitting one in a J-8 LTM mount, did not work.

That is one gorgeous lens!

54mm. Strange.

 

[Sonnar2]

54mm. Strange.

Indeed. 54 in half format is 75mm in full frame.

When Carl Zeiss Jena stopped delivering lenses for West German Zeiss Ikon cameras (i.e. lenses for Contax IIa/IIIa)? Maybe they made it in search for new business oportunities? Olympus' 60 and 70mm's were much larger in size...

 

[Sonnar2]

This (much bigger lens) is an Exakta mount 58/2 Biotar attached to a Olympus "F-Mount" (Exakta) adapter. Olympus made a lot of Pen F adaptors: for Exakta innert bayonet, M42, Nikon F, Leica M39 and probably others.

 

[DanOnRoute66]

This (much bigger lens) is an Exakta mount 58/2 Biotar attached to a Olympus "F-Mount" (Exakta) adapter. Olympus made a lot of Pen F adaptors: for Exakta innert bayonet, M42, Nikon F, Leica M39 and probably others.

There also is an adapter to use the OM system lenses on the Pen F, too. Unless the price of that comes back within Earth's gravitational field, though, I'll never get a chance to own one.