Hood for Sonnar 50/1.5 on Leica IIIa ?

[Niko]

I spent last weekend in Budapest, Hungary. It happened that i bought a Leica IIIa with a CZJ Sonnar 50/1.5 there 🙂 Sweet.

I found a 40.5mm vented hood from Ebay: item 7606311083 I wonder if this hood can be used with my camera/lens combo? I´m worried that even this vented hood might block rangefinder or viewfinder window...

It´s not expensive, so i guess i could have just bought it and try it myself. But then again, i assume someone here might have already tried it ?

Niko

 

[darkkavenger]

Hi, this S&W 40.5 vented hood adapts perfectly on my following lenses : 50/1.5 Jupiter-3 & J-8, 50/2 Sonnar, 35/2.8 Jupiter-12, 135/4 Jupiter-11. I never tried it on my Helios-103 however. 🙂 It's a great hood, go for it!

my lenses are Kiev/Contax mount however I think the internal thread should be the same.

 

[Mike Kovacs]

I have a Hoya vented hood on my Leica IIIf w/ CZJ T Sonnar 50/2 collapsible right now. It does partially block the viewfinder, but the rangefinder is just slightly blocked at the bottom left corner (plenty to focus with). Since the front element doesn't rotate, I place the vents in front of the viewfinder and can see everything I need to see.

FYI, the viewfinder is so close that even the lens alone blocks the viewfinder, something familiar to Summitar/Summicron users too I'm sure.

I have to admit though that the view is much brighter, clearer and easier to frame with the 1:1 Cosina Voigtlander brightline finder on top. I don't see the lens hood at all, just a nice big view, with "floating frames" composing with both eyes open.

PS - can you provide more detail on your Sonnar? The rigid 50/1.5 are much easier to fake than the collapsible 50/2

 

[FrankS]

I have one of those vented hoods from ebay, and the venting is a bit bogus, because the front of the hood is not angled/tapered (like the Leica hood for Summicron is) so the hood still blocks part of the viewfinder.

 

[Mike Kovacs]

Here, a shot at home, in the flesh.

Leica IIIf RD, CZJ Sonnar T 50/2 collapsible (aluminum alloy mount)

 

[Niko]

PS - can you provide more detail on your Sonnar? The rigid 50/1.5 are much easier to fake than the collapsible 50/2

Thanks for all the responses. I think i will give that hood a try 🙂

Fake or not ? After coming back home i did some research. I really don´t know. All i know for sure is that is has coatings with blueish/purple tint, which i understood was an indication of the red T -coatings ? Then again, after developing the first roll of HP5+ exposed at the Budapest already, i am so happy with the "old timer" -appearance in the photos, that i don´t really care anymore if it´s a fake or what it is 😎

Niko

 

[Mike Kovacs]

To start:

1. Serial?

2. Red T marked?

3. Aluminum alloy or chrome plated brass mount?

4. Photos?

Charles Barringer or Marc Small at the yahoogroups.com Zeiss Ikon Collector's Group will be able to say for sure. This one is wartime production, T coated, aluminum collapsible mount, verified authentic. The only Soviet collapsible 50/2 are the ZK lenses, probably worth even more. Jupiter 3 lenses are much more common.

 

[Niko]

1. Serial?
2. Red T marked?
3. Aluminum alloy or chrome plated brass mount?
4. Photos?

1: 2846234
2: Yes
3: I guess aluminum alloy, since the finish is not as bright as chrome usually is, but kind of dull, well, aluminum 😀
4: Might take a photo of it for Gordy´s gallery after i get the strap for it.

Niko

 

[Niko]

Plus, "M" or "m" as for the distance scale.
M = fake for sure
m = more likely to be authentic although not certain

If it´s this easy to identify, then it´s a fake. It has a capital M !

Niko

 

[Mike Kovacs]

The serial is at least in the correct range for an aluminum, T coated LTM Sonnar.

I can't say for sure though. Write Barringer or Small. They can tell you if the serial at least came from a batch of LTM Sonnars and whether 50/1.5 or 50/2. If it came from a Contax mount lens, it could have been swapped. (they are all 40.5mm threads)

I don't claim to be a LTM connaisseur 😛 More of a LTM newbie 🙂 A postwar 3M serial number makes me suspicious.

EDIT: Capital M - that is indeed not good. Barringer asked me about that. In Hungary, I'm sure these sorts of fakes abound since they are swimming in FSU gear. Now, about this Leica IIIa? (unlikely to be a fake unless you are really new to LTM equipment)

 

[Mike Kovacs]

Any purchase of these LTM Zeiss lenses would make me nervous for sure, that is, unless the price was no more than 50% above the equivalent Soviet lens 🙂

Especially the LTM Biogons. Anyhow, why obsess over LTM when we have perfectly decent Contax bodies to mount them on 🙂

 

[Niko]

Actually, yes, i am really new to this stuff. But the body is not a fake. It was a lot easier to identify with help from a few sites !

I don´t know how should i feel about the lens being a fake... Perhaps i should just be happy that it is one of the fakes that, imo at least, takes some nice photos ? 🙂 Especially when the price still wasn´t too bad, and the body is all OK, even if quite used.

Now a real newbie question, how rare is the real Sonnar then ???

Niko

 

[Mike Kovacs]

There aren't too many of them but enough I think that they don't qualify as true rarities. Sorry, I'm sure the production numbers are known - Zeiss were fanatical in their good record keeping. I'll bet there are more fakes than real ones around!

You have to keep in mind they were only made for a short period just before and during the war. Zeiss had its own camera company Zeiss Ikon, and Leitz's Leica camera was the direct competition for the Contax 35mm RF camera. Its pretty unusual to manufacture a lens in your direct competition's patented mount, and I'm certain it arose from a need due to the war.

IIIa is a nice camera for sure, with very little real difference from the IIIf RD in terms of actually using it. I'd like one just to put opposite my Contax II of the same vintage. The IIIf RD I have is a good match for the Contax IIa BD, both ca. 1953.

 

[Mike Kovacs]

I have to add though - for decent quality aerial photography, especially with 1939 type films, 35mm really doesn't cut it! But f/1.5 does allow one to use slow film with a realistically high shutter speed and you are typically shooting at infinity anyway from the air, so DoF doesn't matter.

Barringer said the 50/2 collapsible is always the safest bet. There were no rigid 50/2 Sonnar LTM as far as I know, so any are Jupiter 8 fakes.

 

[outfitter]

Here is a quote from Minoru Saski from his book "Contax to Kiev":

"The Zeiss Sonnars in LTM available in the market today are often with barrels of crude finish, their serial numbers being in the range of 26xxxxx to 29xxxxx. Most of them seem to be non-genuine conversions that were made at the period of confusion after the war.

Kunio Kitano, a renowned Germanist and photojournalist, having visited in 1951 the Second Photokina and Zeiss Ikon, reports in a Japanese magazine" "I saw many Carl Zeiss lenses in LTM sold at German retail shops and was told that they were of dubious origin, because there were many thefts after the war, and workers and or engineers worked together to assign engravings of Carl Zeiss.

This means that the components in the inventory of Zeiss factory were pilfered in the post-war confusion and sold with unauthorized Carl Zeiss engravings."

Michael

 

[photovdz]

fake or not fake... the important thing is that they are useable ;-)
I own several sonnars in Ltm, some are fakes, some could be real... but the fakes can be period fakes... real zeiss lenses adapted for the more convenient and less expensive and more available leica
New fakes are made in russia... and look more like jupiters...

My sonnars LTM are the followin
- 1,5 T heavy chrome version 2724947
- 1,5 T bright aluminium version but non standard engravings 2789989
- 1,5 T dull aluminium version but clean 2859393
- 1,5 T dull aluminium but bit and pieces rings (brass f ring, no engraving on the focusing ring) 2839321
- 2 T rigid (but with a dubious mount ... not jupiter looking but big M) bright alloy 2687429
technically all thoses lenses left the factory as contax lenses... but the conversion are done with the same metal as the barrel...

and then there is the odd one
- a 2 non T LTM made from a contaflex lens...

I'm a collector and user... and I'm not bothered with period conversions... anyway HCB did use Zeiss lenses on his leica III (but with a converter...)