Carl Zeiss Jena Prototypes, Experimental, and Transition Lenses,

dexdog said:
kinda hard to see, but there is a vetical line scratched into the helical that the focus ring uses. There is also a hand-scratched '2' to the right of the slot
Click to expand...
Looking at your messages and images it appears our lenses are very similar in construction. With the main differences that I can see being that yours is marked as "5cm" and the fact that it has six spanner slots as opposed to two.

Mine also has the same screws and even the same lines scratched down the aperture/lens-mounting helical.
My 5.8cm does not have a "2" scratched but an "x". Otherwise it is very much identical.

I wonder if taking out that 0.15mm shim would be enough to resolve your focus issues.
Mine did not come with any shims. The shims that you see in the picture were added by yours truly.

At this stage it is of course impossible to say, but to me the effort required to make these lenses and mounts versus the apparently rather sloppy attitude towards the lens register distance strikes me as odd.
 
TenEleven, I removed the 0.15mm shim from the lens, I think it helped get sharper images. Wide open, point of focus is blue garbage can at center of frame, distance about 90 meters.

Crop of above photo. Name on the garbage can is AAA. The number on the mail box is 10402
 
Last edited:
Close focus still works, wide open, point of focus is head of sheet metal bird, about 9 meters.

Crop of above photo
 
The funny thing about the shim is that I think it was put in the lens to keep the aperture ring from jamming, and not for optical purposes! After I removed the shim, I noticed that the aperture ring was very difficult to turn, but easy to turn if I unscrewed the optical block a little. So I changed aperture with optical block loosened, and snugged it up to focus. I doubt that much engineering design or prototyping was done to enable the construction of this lens and its kin. Kinda fits well with the desperate times in Germany after WW2. This has been a fun project, but I think I am done tweaking the lens for now. The lens more or less works on the Sony and Nikon mirrorless cameras, and I like having a historical oddity.
 
Last edited:
This thread has more information on this mystery lens than available on the entire Internet. These lenses sell for ridiculous prices on Ebay. This thread provides valuable information on this Sonnar.

Dexdog and TenEleven, thankyou for this valuable information.
 
dexdog said:
The funny thing about the shim is that I think it was put in the lens to keep the aperture ring from jamming, and not for optical purposes! After I removed the shim, I noticed that the aperture ring was very difficult to turn, but easy to turn if I unscrewed the optical block a little. So I changed aperture with optical block loosened, and snugged it up to focus. I doubt that much engineering design or prototyping was done to enable the construction of this lens and its kin. Kinda fits well with the desperate times in Germany after WW2. This has been a fun project, but I think I am done tweaking the lens for now. The lens more or less works on the Sony and Nikon mirrorless cameras, and I like having a historical oddity.
Click to expand...
One thing I guess you could try (I assume you already did since it's kind of obvious) is trying to "hike" the aperture adjustment ring further up.
Again from memory but I think you can only take it up so far before you bump into the lens retainer. But maybe yours has the extra turn in it that's needed to render this lens fully working?
 
A lens meant to be a bomb-sight stolen out of Zeiss factory, mounted in a desperate attempt to get food-money is not up to modern ASPH lens standards on a digital sensor which it of course was never computed for. That is ... not .. a shocking development.

Also mine is quite very good on film! Unsurprisingly there is a large gamut of quality.
Here is a random grab bag that I have found in 5 minutes of searching. The woman and the tea bottle are at or near full aperture. The raven is at f/4 or so, the landscape f/8..

stuvi_frame_13.jpg
stuvi_frame_37.jpg
stuvi_frame_08.jpg
stuvi_frame_11.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have seen a number of these 5.8cm F1.5 "Leica Sonnars", and most start with the SN 14xxxxx. This is obviously far away from the 285xxxx batch from Zeiss that had regular production LTM Sonnars.
This Sonnar was loaned to me years ago- it is from a trial batch of 50 Leica Mount Sonnar 5cm F1.5 lenses made ~1933, according to Thiele. The SN starts with "14". My personal speculation- someone making the 5.8cm F1.5 Sonnars knew this, and picked this range for a reason.

early_ltm.jpg


ltm2.jpg
 
Yeah I had the same thought. In this serial range there's also other trial LTM gear - 4cm Biotars, Triotars, Tele-Tessar and the like. Also as far as I am aware they only made two of each. So that lens (I assume it's dexdogs) is ridiculously rare!

And yes, I think your assumption is correct. Considering there were ex-Zeiss workers among these people it's not too outlandish for them to know about this batch of LTM lenses since it was not just Sonnars but almost every lens Zeiss made at that point. It makes me wonder what the idea there was. I mean two each, that's clearly not for selling or anything. Maybe they were considering going screw-mount with their next camera? Who knows!

I just looked into my Thiele and the batch of two lenses are:
  • Biotar 4cm f/2
  • Biotar 5cm f/2
  • Sonnar 5cm f/1.5
  • Sonnar 5cm f/2
  • Sonnar 13,5cm f/4 (two batches of two)
  • Sonnar 8,5cm f/2
  • Tessar 5cm f/3.5
  • Tessar 5cm f/2.8
  • Triotar 8,5cm f/4
Also several small batches of the Biotar 5cm f/1.4 - the most plentiful of these super early LTM lenses.

The 3.5cm f/2.8 Biogon is notably absent because it simply did not exist yet, remember this is Contax I era. Their "fast wide" position was filled by the 4cm Biotar which is indeed represented. The Tessar 2.8cm f/8 is also absent, but considering that the Contax mount version was just starting to trickle out (a first batch of 50 then 100) it probably was simply too new. Otherwise all their prestigious lenses are there.
 
Last edited:
Sonnar Brian said:
I have seen a number of these 5.8cm F1.5 "Leica Sonnars", and most start with the SN 14xxxxx. This is obviously far away from the 285xxxx batch from Zeiss that had regular production LTM Sonnars.
This Sonnar was loaned to me years ago- it is from a trial batch of 50 Leica Mount Sonnar 5cm F1.5 lenses made ~1933, according to Thiele. The SN starts with "14". My personal speculation- someone making the 5.8cm F1.5 Sonnars knew this, and picked this range for a reason.

View attachment 4816838


View attachment 4816839
Click to expand...
Oh wow, I remember @dexdog posting his lens in the rare collector's items thread. I have yet to see any other images from such a lens, and I looked around. The Zeiss mysteries are endless.
 
lukx said:
Oh wow, I remember @dexdog posting his lens in the rare collector's items thread. I have yet to see any other images from such a lens, and I looked around. The Zeiss mysteries are endless.
Click to expand...
If I had to take a wild guess - it probably renders like its Contax mount brother.

That means it's very different from the later Sonnars. The most noticeable difference that I can quantify without going into esoteric descriptions which may or may not be verifiable is that the flare looks completely different, which is verifiable and is what basically cemented my view that these are special lenses and as soon as the they changed the mount into the (frankly mechanically better) version they either subtly reformulated the lenses or changed glass types. Even if the Thiele says otherwise.

I have compared a very early transition (it's still half-black) lens of a 1.6million serial to a late 1.53million serial "Contax I era" lens. And another 1.7million one as a sort of sanity check, the 1.7 is one of the very last before the Sonnar 1.5 was (supposedly!) re-computed. And then recomputed again for the war-time series which again have their own look.
 
lukx, I know that Sonnar B and RFF member furcafe have taken photos with the 1933 lens on Leica cameras. Pretty sure that furcafe used a film camera, too. I recall seeing furcafe's pics on one of his photo accounts (possibly flickr) and he had done some good work in a concert venue with the old lens. Furcafe is a really good photographer.
 
Last edited:
Just so that I am not just talking out of my behind. I just snapped these using a sturdy tripod just now.
All lenses at full aperture, same focus spot and framing for all. Some coated, some not but that does not have any effect on the flare shape - just the intensity. (First gen Chrome is not coated/ Second gen Nickel is.)

I observed this flare behavior on film also, so this is not just a sensor quirk. Besides the flare there are other differences (excluding the fact that the last lens is the most scratched and thus the flare bleeds out the most) - namely the first generation Sonnar corrects for spherical aberration at full aperture. (Look at the 'Canon' type on the black camera.) I know some war-time lenses also more aggressively go after spherical aberrations, but they have a different rendition, yet again. I didn't include them here because well I am only this bored.

comparison.jpg
 
Last edited:
This is hardly an exciting photo, on artistic merits, but I wanted to throw it in here for good measure.
Shot on my black and nickel Contax with the above 1.51m lens on Kodak T-Max. Full aperture of course. (Otherwise the flare would have not appeared, even at f/1.6 it goes away.) Also noteworthy is the complete absence of the otherwise sonnar typical bleeding of bright areas at full aperture. (Spherical aberration)

film_flare_bn.jpg
 
These are from the 5cm F1.5 LTM Sonnar, above. This lens was used for a Long time for photography- the side of the mount was filed down to clear the lens release on the Leica M3. This modification was also necessary on the early Nikkor 8.5cm F2 in LTM, was also done on my 1949 lens.

The lens was spot-on for my M9. Distance shots best when stopped down, same as converting a Contax mount lens to LTM.
fence_f15crop.jpgfence_f15.jpggrass_f15.jpggrass_f4.jpgtreetop_f15.jpgsonnar6.jpg

Connection with the 5.8cm F1.5 Sonnar, the subject of this thread: the Serial Number Block is the same range as this experimental lens.
 
Yeah this is something that (almost all) Sonnars (and many other lenses, actually) have in common I found. The 5.8 does it too.
Regardless of maker most lenses are usually "happier" at distances short of infinity. The early Summicron and Summitar behave the same way.
 
A few more pics taken with the 1933 sonnar in LTM. Point of focus is taller of the two crystal candlesticks in the center of the frame, about 2.5 meters. Wide open, f2 and f4. Sony a7iii, all the lens correction features (vignetting, distortion, etc) have been disabled




 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom