Carl Zeiss Jena Prototypes, Experimental, and Transition Lenses,

milescl said:
page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp

希少品 カールツァイス Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar... - Yahoo!オークション

商品 詳細 ご覧いただきありがとうございます(*^^*) ★大特価★ カールツァイス Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar T 5cm 50mm F1.5 Lマウント ‐付属する商品 ■写真に写っている物のみとなります。 【コンディション】 ◆外観 スレやキズがございますが、比較的綺麗です。 手に取った
page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp

Very neat barrel design on this one.
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Yahoo is blocking the pages for Europe without VPN.


Neat design but the barrel is not made by CZJ. The aperture ring turns in the wrong direction. And it does not look in any way like a a wartime LTM Sonnar 5cm f/1,5. The wartime LTM Sonnar is made of aluminum and very light. the offered one looks heavy and shiny chrome. And yes all the numbers and engravings do not match the CZJ fonts. If I had to guess it is made by our favorite German black market shop post-war. The lens block is from CZJ though. So the optics are made by Zeiss.

Another new offer from Japan has the same issue.


Wrong engraved numbers on the barrel, black filter rim, and wrong number of grooves on the small aperture grippers. And even the name ring is fake. The serial is not valid. The lens seems not coated. So this one was tinkered completely in a German black market shop.

But I will not let you go without to show you an absolutely gorgeous find ( Thanks to @simonOWO ).

闲鱼 - 闲不住？上闲鱼！

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www.goofish.com www.goofish.com

I would have bought this one in a blink of an eye if it was not for the insane price. This is one of maybe 5 or 7 LTM Sonnar 5cm f/1,5 made by CZJ in 1933 / 34. I have seen 3 of them and it seems Zeiss made them in different painted variations. Extremely rare (and missing in my guide 😅 ). I guess Zeiss made them as presents to get some favors. You see Leica was the arc enemy of Zeiss at that time, why build a Leica version of your most important lens in your lineup?!
 
Räuber said:
Yahoo is blocking the pages for Europe without VPN.


Neat design but the barrel is not made by CZJ. The aperture ring turns in the wrong direction. And it does not look in any way like a a wartime LTM Sonnar 5cm f/1,5. The wartime LTM Sonnar is made of aluminum and very light. the offered one looks heavy and shiny chrome. And yes all the numbers and engravings do not match the CZJ fonts. If I had to guess it is made by our favorite German black market shop post-war. The lens block is from CZJ though. So the optics are made by Zeiss.
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I know the reason for the shiny post-war barrel. Originally this was an R-Sonnar. And before you state the obvious that the name ring does not say R-Sonnar. Zeiss added the R-Sonnar later to the name ring. The R is engraved on the rear part of the lens. Someone got this lens after WWII and gave it an aperture and a new body to be used on a Leica instead of a Tenax.

Another unusual detail is that the aperture ring does not contain the scale but the marker. The aperture scale is on the top part of the focus ring?! So you move the aperture mark with the aperture ring. But what happens if you focus the lens? Do you change the aperture by focusing?! Probably the whole top part moves when focusing (with aperture ring). And how many aperture blades does this thing have? A CZJ aperture could not be used here or could it?

dexdog said:
Rauber, I dont think a price of 69,999 is insane, about 470 USD. I have seen much more common lenses than this one sell for more money.
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It is not Japanese Yen. It is Chinese Yuan. I wish it was Yen... 🥲
 
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It looks like a real hack job- there is no way the RF coupling can work, and I doubt it will focus at all given a 50mm mount was used for a 75mm lens. I've seen stuff like this before- just for show.
 
Yeah the sellers language actually says as much - they say it's for use on digital cameras. Such as the M10 and M240. At least from the little Chinese characters that I can read - he says for mirrorless use and .. uh Leica M? My read might be wrong though I can read like 1 in every 8 characters or so.

Edit: Also that LTM Sonnar price seems.... reasonable? Maybe not Zeiss reasonable but Leica reasonable. Look what a original "Steel Rim" Summilux now costs. And that's a lens they made thousands of. According to my Thiele... they made one. This one. The price is reasonable.

I mean there's no way in heck I will buy a 7 thousand dollar lens... but this is also not for me
 
Räuber said:
I know the reason for the shiny post-war barrel. Originally this was an R-Sonnar. And before you state the obvious that the name ring does not say R-Sonnar. Zeiss added the R-Sonnar later to the name ring. The R is engraved on the rear part of the lens. Someone got this lens after WWII and gave it an aperture and a new body to be used on a Leica instead of a Tenax.

Another unusual detail is that the aperture ring does not contain the scale but the marker. The aperture scale is on the top part of the focus ring?! So you move the aperture mark with the aperture ring. But what happens if you focus the lens? Do you change the aperture by focusing?! Probably the whole top part moves when focusing (with aperture ring). And how many aperture blades does this thing have? A CZJ aperture could not be used here or could it?


It is not Japanese Yen. It is Chinese Yuan. I wish it was Yen... 🥲
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The lens has many other problems, too.

For example, look how close the marks for f/1.5 and f/2.0 are together. I am not sure what's going on there but one of these markings is 100% wrong. It just can't work that way - that's just physics.

Also there's a thread on the cam that drives the rangefinder. It's visible on some pictures. But if the Sonnar was adjusted for 51.6 and if the whole lens rotates why is another secondary thread needed? Funny business....
 
With regard to the 1933/1934 5cm F1.5 Sonnar in Leica Mount: Thiele list batch 3625 as having 50 Leica-F 5cm F1.5 lenses produced. One RFF member loaned me his lens to shoot with. It was apparent that someone used this lens after the Leica M3 came out: the mount was ground down to clear the M3 lens release. Glass in great shape. Very "engineering demonstrator" about it, the helical being exposed. I remember a discussion on RFF long ago that stated Zeiss Documentation indicated the focal length was too long to be accurate on the Leica across range.
 
Yeah however the one sold in China predates that series which indeed comprises 50 lenses. According to Thiele the batch size for that batch is 1. It would be interesting to see if it's of similar construction, but I guess that's not something we are likely to ever find out.

I have an LTM Biotar from that same prototyping period and it works well across the range. It has an intermediate helical in there to translate the 42mm or whatever the FL actual is to 51.6mm.

The internal construction is definitely one-off though. No focus delimiter screw or anything. The notches (through which the rod that links the two helicals together goes) for the secondary helical are cut just ... so and that's what limits focus travel. Not something you could feasibly do for series production given the effort involved. I guess the same is true for the 50 and most likely that 1 Sonnar. Definitely some sort of pre-series.
 
Sonnar Brian said:
With regard to the 1933/1934 5cm F1.5 Sonnar in Leica Mount: Thiele list batch 3625 as having 50 Leica-F 5cm F1.5 lenses produced. One RFF member loaned me his lens to shoot with. It was apparent that someone used this lens after the Leica M3 came out: the mount was ground down to clear the M3 lens release. Glass in great shape. Very "engineering demonstrator" about it, the helical being exposed. I remember a discussion on RFF long ago that stated Zeiss Documentation indicated the focal length was too long to be accurate on the Leica across range.
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The 51.6 vs 52.4 thing? Didn’t know that was documented by zeiss
 
I have seen 3 of those 1933 LTM Sonnars.

1444970 (belongs to a RFF member)
1444970c.jpeg
1444971
1444971b.jpg
Anyone noticed the (additional) scratched 10m and 20m mark? One of the users seem to have added it since it was originally missing.

1502652
1502652.gif
This one has feet instead of meters.

And as a bonus an even earlier Nickel Sonnar that was adapted. I'm not sure if the adapter part is modern or original.

1429349
1429349b.jpeg1429349e.jpeg
 
That's the lens loaned to me on my M9...
It did not focus to infinity at F1.5, had to be stopped down to F4 or so. It bevahed like one of my pre-war Sonnar conversions using a J-3 mount.

readleaf1_f15.jpgreadleaf1_f15crop.jpgtreeetop_f4.jpgtreeetop_f4crop.jpgtreetop_f15.jpgtreetop_f15crop.jpg


sonnar3.jpg
 
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Sonnar Brian said:
That's the lens loaned to me on my M9...
It did not focus to infinity at F1.5, had to be stopped down to F4 or so. It bevahed like one of my pre-war Sonnar conversions using a J-3 mount.



[images removed]
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Well I assume that Zeiss could hardly make a phone call to Wetzlar and say "Hey give us your technical specifications for your new fangled Leica thing, we wanna make lenses for that camera, too?"

So they probably conducted several tests, creating several prototypes in the process as they figured things out by trial and error.
 
www.ebay.de

Carl Zeiss Jena SONNAR 1,5/5cm (red T) M39 Gewinde 1,5/50 Leica M39 Screw Mount | eBay

Dieses renommierte Objektiv aus der ZEISS Sonnar T Serie zeichnet sich durch seine außergewöhnliche Lichtstärke und die robuste Verarbeitung aus. Die Marke Carl Zeiss Jena bürgt für Qualität und Langlebigkeit, was dieses Objektiv zu einer hervorragenden Wahl für anspruchsvolle Fotografen macht.
www.ebay.de

Another transition Sonnar 5cm f/1,5. This one has a unique body and engraving. Haven't seen this kind before. When you look at it you clearly see that it was not made by Zeiss and their standards. The distance scale shows shaky numbers and the infinity sign is engraved in the wrong direction. Looks like they simply put an 8 in place of the infinity sign. The field-of-view scale is missing completely. And they put black dots on every mark they needed.

If you ask me this is Soviet production. If you look at the distance scale and look at the number zero it looks boxy. It reminds me a lot of the numbers you see on Jupiter lenses. The lens block is from Zeiss though. Name ring and aperture ring show the typical Zeiss engravings. So Soviet worker got an incomplete post-war Sonnar lens block or maybe even a finished Contax Sonnar in their hands and decided to put it in a LTM body. But it looks like a beginners work.
 
Since we collect a lot of data about the Sonnar 5,8cm f/1,5 here in this thread I have something for you guys.

I've got my hand on a third one of those. This time it is one of those rare Contax mount Sonnar 5,8cm lenses. Again not marked as Sonnar 5,8cm but 5cm. But it is obvious that this one is a 5,8cm or 6cm Sonnar just from the bulky look.

DSC06858.jpg

Side by side with 2 other LTM Sonnar 5,8cm f/1,5. Left without any engravings. Middle Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 5cm f/1,5 Nr. 2.554.716. Right Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 5cm f/1,5 Nr. 2.211.945.

DSC06860.jpgDSC06861.jpgDSC06862.jpg

I added a photo of a Chrome Sonnar 5cm f/1,5 in the mix. You sse the difference in size, chrome and coating.

Some words about this Contax 5,8cm Sonnar.
  • it is not marked 5,8cm (or 6cm) but 5cm
  • the serial is valid and belongs to an existing production batch (that is very rare, most of those 5,8cm Sonnar have an invalid serial)
  • it has no red T engraved but the serial sits right besides 5cm Sonnars with red T engravings
  • side by side comparison between all 3 5,8cm Sonnars: all share the same focal length, the contax is the sharpest so far
 
@Räuber - what size filter does your Contax mount lens use? Mine uses 40mm screw in filters, compatible with Canon lenses. Mine also stops down to a marked F16.
 
Since this has come up again, I guess I can share this. This is a relatively well known article by now - but I thought it would be nice to have a higher resolution version of it.
It's CZJ's statement concerning these 5.8cm Sonnar lenses. I finally managed to get ahold of the magazine and verify it's veracity.

I also made a high resolution PDF scan which I have attached to this post.

Relevant portions highlighted in red.

highlight_magazine.jpg
 

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