BrianS: Tell us about this LTM Sonnar!

It could be real....a few of these were scratch assembled from left-over parts by individuals in Germany at the end of WW II and sold or traded for needed necessities (like food) to American or British armed forces personnel .
 
I'd go with xayraa33 on a scratch built as the fonts don't match between the aperture control ring and the rest of the lens.


PF
 
It is from the same batch as mine, and is very likely an original wartime LTM Sonnar.

Some fine points:
Black LINE for the aperture index instead of a dot;
Chrome nose, not a black nose of the 285xxxx lenses;
Extra (4th) screw in the focus ring is the stop screw for focus. It screws deeper into the barrel. Different from the Jupiter-3 which uses an internal mechanism to control focus stops.

If you took this apart- the originals have numbers stamped into each of the three pieces of the helical. The rear triplet has the last digits of the SN stamped into the fixture. There are hidden set screws to hold the namering in place and hold the rear triplet in place.

(I spent all day working on my wife's smartphone, which refused to power-up. In 4.5yrs, she never downloaded a picture. I don't use smartphones, but fixed the power jack, figured how to enable downloads over USB despite the instructions for the phone being wrong, got enough charge into it to boot up, and got 2400 images off it. Stupid 21st century OS.)
 
Brian beat me to it, for the reasons stated. I think this one is legit. Serial number also shows up in a batch of f1.5 sonnars made in LTM in Hartmut Thiele's book
 
Also lower case "m" on the focus ring instead of usual upper case "M" on a J-3 lens barrel. Ears on aperture ring typical of sonnars and very early J-3s. None of this is dispositive, but only way to know for sure is to buy it and take it apart.
 
I took a lot of pictures of my original LTM Carl Zeiss Jena 5cm F1.5 Sonnar. I rebuilt this lens, including the loose middle triplet that caused a lot of focus problems.






The scribed SN not always present, but was in this one.

Each part of the helical is numbered.


I've never seen that done on a regular J3, but the ZK lenses have it.


Slot for the 4th screw in the focus ring. The Jupiter-3 is a much better design, uses an internal screw.
 
Hidden set screw for rear fixture, you can see the small scribe I made to realign the tap with the screw on the left.



I worked on one lens that the set screw was now in all the way, caused the barrel to jam in the focus mount. I fixed it.

And a Later 285xxxx LTM Sonnar, notice the Black Nose-


This lens was full of grit- it had received very heavy use. The helical is worn, had to use vacuum pump grease and make a liner for the focus mount to stop the wobble as it is focused.


1945 lens- numbering scheme is the same for the inner parts,


My 1949 ZK and 1950 J-3's with "ears" all have the Black rim of the later Sonnar.
The one in the auction is a chrome nose, I believe it is real.
 
This brings back nice memories of the times when we hunted for such lenses

This brings back nice memories of the times when we hunted for such lenses

Sonnar Brian said:
It is from the same batch as mine, and is very likely an original wartime LTM Sonnar.

Some fine points:
Black LINE for the aperture index instead of a dot;
Chrome nose, not a black nose of the 285xxxx lenses;
Extra (4th) screw in the focus ring is the stop screw for focus. It screws deeper into the barrel. Different from the Jupiter-3 which uses an internal mechanism to control focus stops.

If you took this apart- the originals have numbers stamped into each of the three pieces of the helical. The rear triplet has the last digits of the SN stamped into the fixture. There are hidden set screws to hold the namering in place and hold the rear triplet in place.

(I spent all day working on my wife's smartphone, which refused to power-up. In 4.5yrs, she never downloaded a picture. I don't use smartphones, but fixed the power jack, figured how to enable downloads over USB despite the instructions for the phone being wrong, got enough charge into it to boot up, and got 2400 images off it. Stupid 21st century OS.)
Click to expand...

Thanks, Brian. Such points are important to know for prospective buyers of similar lenses online.
 
This was uploaded for the other thread on Sonnars and Jupiters:


Left-Right,
1943 Sonnar, 1949 ZK, 1950 KMZ J-3, 1945 Sonnar, and 1950 KMZ J-3.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
It is from the same batch as mine, and is very likely an original wartime LTM Sonnar.

Some fine points:
Black LINE for the aperture index instead of a dot;
Chrome nose, not a black nose of the 285xxxx lenses;
Extra (4th) screw in the focus ring is the stop screw for focus. It screws deeper into the barrel. Different from the Jupiter-3 which uses an internal mechanism to control focus stops.

If you took this apart- the originals have numbers stamped into each of the three pieces of the helical. The rear triplet has the last digits of the SN stamped into the fixture. There are hidden set screws to hold the namering in place and hold the rear triplet in place.

(I spent all day working on my wife's smartphone, which refused to power-up. In 4.5yrs, she never downloaded a picture. I don't use smartphones, but fixed the power jack, figured how to enable downloads over USB despite the instructions for the phone being wrong, got enough charge into it to boot up, and got 2400 images off it. Stupid 21st century OS.)
Click to expand...


Someone should buy this lens. The price seems pretty reasonable...
 
i bet it brings over $700 by time auction closes tomorrow. Don't see a lot of this in such relatively good shape. I have seen one other with a BIN of $550, and it is in much rougher shape.
 
The CZJ 5cm F1.5 from about SN 268xxxx through to 286xxxx: improved optical formula and a newer type of glass than the earlier ones. It's not just the Coatings that improved performance. The field curvature is much lower than earlier lenses. Chris at Skyllaney confirms this with his tests, I've been using these lenses for almost 20 years now. My pair of 1950 J-3's: both are Zeiss, one from the 272 block and the other from the 286 block. After working on them and getting the spacing between front and rear group corrected: they are as good as my 1943 Sonnar. But that required a lot of work to sort out.
 
Look at the scratches on the namering in the above auction.
Looks like they should have looked for the hidden set screw before trying to take the lens apart.
AND- looking at the back fixture, they should have removed the set screw holding the rear in place.
Whoops.
 
The lens that Stephen asked about in the openin post of this thread sold for $661 USD. It was a pretty nice looking example.
 
Considering how rare original LTM Sonnars are, and the condition this lens is in- that is a good price. I've seen inner helicals stamped just over 1000 in lenses completed after the war.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
This was uploaded for the other thread on Sonnars and Jupiters:


Left-Right,
1943 Sonnar, 1949 ZK, 1950 KMZ J-3, 1945 Sonnar, and 1950 KMZ J-3.
Click to expand...


Hey Brian, very interesting ensemble!
I'm currently eyeing a "ZK" 1948 Jupiter/Sonnar and was wondering about a couple of things:


1. The focus mount appears to be already the Jupiter-3 type, meaning improved.

2. The focus scale is in Cyrillic "M"
--> Does that mean the lens already Focuses to the Zorky standard? 52.4mm?
--> Or is it still LTM 51.4mm standard? How about yours?
 
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