Old sonnar (e.g. Jupiter 8) vs modern Sonnar

[Dante_Stella]

That definition tries to make a brand name change a technical change. But these are all one family, there is no hard separation. The prototypical 1930's Sonnar front group was already in lenses branded as Ernostars, the (now) characteristic Sonnar rear evolved only a few generations past the name change.

You've identified essence of a problem with this whole discussion.

Does a modern Sonnar lens look like an Ernostar or the Sonnar-branded 50/2 or 50/1.5 lens? The answer is, "Yes." Bertele designed the 1926 Ernostar, and in the same year, he and the lens were acquired by Zeiss with the Ernemann buyout. The 1-3-2 and then 1-3-3 lenses are nothing but elaborations designed to overcome shortcomings of glass and (lack of) coatings in the 1920-30s. The patent is not for a "Sonnar," and it wouldn't be because Sonnar is a trade name. The patent is on a a particular lens arrangement that improves contrast without using coatings. And plenty of other designs of Sonnars were being made back even before the war, including sub-50mm versions for 24x24mm cameras. Sonnars do exhibit these qualities over 80 years: (a) being asymmetrical triplet derivatives, (b) having large apertures, (c) falling into the normal-to-long range for focal length.

The early Ernostar designs have little in common with any modern lens. The final (1926) version - when you examine Zeiss' various Sonnar-branded lenses over the years - is essentially the predecessor to the 1-3-3 and 1-3-2 lenses as well as its post-Contax III successor. I think given this, it would be difficult to draw any meaningful distinction between the 1-3-3 lens and a modern ZM lens that replaces a very low-index (or essentially no index) glass element - essentially just acting as a huge piece of optical cement - with no-power air space and multicoating.

And I think the more questionable rhetorical device (and I am guilty of this too) is to call any Soviet, Canon or Nikon lens in Leica mount a Sonnar. The first reason is that it is a trade name. "Sonnar-type" might be better. But these lenses branched off from actual Sonnars at the end of WWII, with varying results:

- The postwar Zeiss Jena Sonnar was based on a wartime aluminum-bodied Sonnar lens (adapted to the Leica) that was not a mass production item. It applied coatings to a prewar design.

- The postwar Opton Sonnar was computed from scratch around postwar coatings, since according to the trope, the Soviets stole the plant.

- The Soviet lenses, though sometimes for marketing purposes are described as being made of Zeiss glass, of Zeiss parts, from Zeiss tooling, etc., were essentially reverse-engineered products made with glass, metals and coatings that the Soviets had. It beggars belief that one Zeiss plant had enough duplicate tools to stock what, five manufacturing locations that produced tens of thousands of times as many of the lenses as Zeiss did? And the nature of the tools used to make lenses back then was probably nothing special: essentially lathes and drill presses. Maybe a special fixture for aligning triple-cemented lens groups. I'd wager that the Jena Sonnars are the only ones with an unbroken connection to anything original.

- The Nikkor and Canon lenses were reverse-engineered in part, likely from the patents - and otherwise designed/built with confiscated German technology (including vacuum coating). They may have directly received information on the refractive indices of the glass (which would not likely be in any patent), but they might have also worked it out themselves.

The performance of all of these lenses varies widely; the Soviet lenses are usable at normal magnifications - but with passports showing 30lp/mm, they are not in the same league as modern lenses (or arguably the Nikon or Canon "Sonnars"). And the out-of-focus characteristics also vary widely; the Nikons and Canons seem to have a lot more correction of spherical aberration, which makes them sharper but less bokeh-friendly. And veiling flare and focus shift definitely seem to vary among lenses with what are supposed to be the "same" design.

Dante

 

[David Hughes]

A IIIa and a Summitar did this:-

As for the Zeiss tooling, since it was given to the USSR as compensation for the destruction of their optical works by the Third Reich I reckon it was used to make the Sonnar/Jupiter lenses and the Contax/Kiev bodies. And when it was worn out I expect it was replaced by something that was an improvement. In the same way that the old USSR technicians etc replaced the Fed 1 with the FED 2; a camera body/design few would fault.

Regards, David

 

[uhoh7]

I have several vintage Sonnar lenses (1.5 and 2.0), and I love using them. They don't have a "modern look" to them. I prefer the old look anyways.

They are very different lenses.

My point on contrast only applies to the f/1.5 jena

Here we go, straight out of M9:


L1023008-2 by unoh7, on Flickr


L1023006 by unoh7, on Flickr

don't trust the exif. Which is cron v4 and which is "real" sonnar?

which has greater contrast?

 

[Wulfthari]

- The Soviet lenses, though sometimes for marketing purposes are described as being made of Zeiss glass, of Zeiss parts, from Zeiss tooling, etc., were essentially reverse-engineered products made with glass, metals and coatings that the Soviets had. It beggars belief that one Zeiss plant had enough duplicate tools to stock what, five manufacturing locations that produced tens of thousands of times as many of the lenses as Zeiss did? And the nature of the tools used to make lenses back then was probably nothing special: essentially lathes and drill presses. Maybe a special fixture for aligning triple-cemented lens groups. I'd wager that the Jena Sonnars are the only ones with an unbroken connection to anything original.

- The Nikkor and Canon lenses were reverse-engineered in part, likely from the patents - and otherwise designed/built with confiscated German technology (including vacuum coating). They may have directly received information on the refractive indices of the glass (which would not likely be in any patent), but they might have also worked it out themselves.

The performance of all of these lenses varies widely; the Soviet lenses are usable at normal magnifications - but with passports showing 30lp/mm, they are not in the same league as modern lenses (or arguably the Nikon or Canon "Sonnars"). And the out-of-focus characteristics also vary widely; the Nikons and Canons seem to have a lot more correction of spherical aberration, which makes them sharper but less bokeh-friendly. And veiling flare and focus shift definitely seem to vary among lenses with what are supposed to be the "same" design.

Dante

I don't understand where you take your "facts" since everybody knows that the Soviet took everything they could from Zeiss Jena and moved it to Kiev Arsenal in the early 40s, including the German personell to train the locals....so tooling, drawings, material as well (at the beginning) and even the managers!

 

[Dante_Stella]

As for the Zeiss tooling, since it was given to the USSR as compensation for the destruction of their optical works by the Third Reich I reckon it was used to make the Sonnar/Jupiter lenses and the Contax/Kiev bodies. And when it was worn out I expect it was replaced by something that was an improvement. In the same way that the old USSR technicians etc replaced the Fed 1 with the FED 2; a camera body/design few would fault.

Regards, David

That's a really euphemistic way to talk about what the Soviets did on their way out of Germany. You can see the article in the 11/11/1946 issue of the Chicago Tribune. A Soviet news agency announced via a DDR newspaper that the CZJ factory and the Schott glass works were being dismantled and shipped to the USSR. In other words, they looted it from a satellite country. The Zeiss plant went to Kiev. The technical workers were also taken (apparently as slaves).

And the same article noted that certain operations would remain in Jena to serve the civilian population. Since we know Jena Sonnars look a little different from Jupiters and were produced in the DDR, doesn't that put any specialized tooling for Sonnars in East Germany? Things get a little weirder when you read that the German employees were shipped to the USSR. So if Jena Sonnars were indeed made in Jena,* were they the leftover parts? Was the one set of Sonnar tooling in Jena until 1949, when the first Jupiters started coming out? But no matter when (or if) the tooling went to the USSR, it doesn't look like the original tooling was used to make the barrels or glass of production lenses.

To wit, Sovietcams.com has an interesting comparative view of the many variants of the Jupiter-3. Interestingly, the prototype model (PT1605) is labeled as being "calculated" by GOI (the State Optical Institute). The prototype also has little design continuity in its details with production units (note the aperture and focusing rings).

First question: why would you create a prototype with new glass and barrel parts if you already had tooling? There are two possibilities: (1) you don't have the tooling necessary to make the glass and the barrel or (2) taking the factory and kidnapping the technicians, with the tooling, was still insufficient to make a lens. The barrel would be an example on the second point; German camera companies have not - to my knowledge - been vertically integrated. If Zeiss was not making its own barrels, it would have no tooling for them. That would have to be looted elsewhere in the DDR (or West Germany, where the Soviets would have zero chance of getting those items).

It seems clear to me that additional work apparently had to be done to make the Jupiter lens work, apparently a lot more. PT1610 (the one with Zeiss-style ears on the aperture ring) is again listed as optically recomputed and came and went in less than two years. By 1949-1951, the ears were gone. Most Jupiters you can buy today are 1951 (PT1615) and later.

I think that the continuity is better for Kievs, though it too is imperfect. For the Leica-mount lenses, the differences in appearance, glass, and aperture ring mounting call into legitimate question what did (or could) make it into production Jupiter lenses from CZJ.

Dante

*I also wonder, when people are trying to draw this connection, whether many of "wartime Sonnars" are real or counterfeit. If the latter, then we might be comparing Jupiter-3s to Jupiter-3s and marveling at how similar they are and that they were made with the same tooling. Well, of course.

 

[sevo]

I don't understand where you take your "facts" since everybody knows that the Soviet took everything they could from Zeiss Jena and moved it to Kiev Arsenal in the early 40s, including the German personell to train the locals....so tooling, drawings, material as well (at the beginning) and even the managers!

No, they did not - that was the DRESDEN ZEISS IKON plant - different site (in a different state), different company, different products (cameras rather than lenses). The city of Jena (along with the entire state of Thuringia, over which CZJ were spread) was initially occupied by the US Army - when these withdrew after a few months in favour of the Soviets, they took along all relevant documents, experts and tools to Oberkochen (where they set up Opton).

Arsenal Kiev took over the Contax camera production - while most Zeiss derived lenses were made by KMZ, in the vicinity of Moscow. They did not carry home any functional CZJ main plant, but had to make do with whatever the US Army left in Jena, the odd experts, plans and tools the Soviets snatched in subordinate CZJ plants across initially Soviet occupied parts of East Germany, and the documentation the US placed in the public domain (as required by the Wannsee treaty). And they already had Zeiss derived lenses since 38-40, when Hitler and Stalin were playing friendly and they were given licenses to some lesser Zeiss lenses. The lens mounts, made in Dresden, are essentially Zeiss Ikon - the optical blocks initially were the Jena made inventory of the Dresden camera works. The one thing they really benefited from was seizing the Schott Jena glass works, which proved not transportable whether by the US or the Soviets - for the first decade or so KMZ made lenses with key elements from Jena made glass. The Schott Mainz factory which Zeiss West established as a replacement took three or four years to become functional.

 

[Wulfthari]

That's a really euphemistic way to talk about what the Soviets did on their way out of Germany. You can see the article in the 11/11/1946 issue of the Chicago Tribune. A Soviet news agency announced via a DDR newspaper that the CZJ factory and the Schott glass works were being dismantled and shipped to the USSR. In other words, they looted it from a satellite country. The Zeiss plant went to Kiev. The technical workers were also taken (apparently as slaves).

And the same article noted that certain operations would remain in Jena to serve the civilian population. Since we know Jena Sonnars look a little different from Jupiters and were produced in the DDR, doesn't that put any specialized tooling for Sonnars in East Germany? Things get a little weirder when you read that the German employees were shipped to the USSR. So if Jena Sonnars were indeed made in Jena,* were they the leftover parts? Was the one set of Sonnar tooling in Jena until 1949, when the first Jupiters started coming out? But no matter when (or if) the tooling went to the USSR, it doesn't look like the original tooling was used to make the barrels or glass of production lenses.

To wit, Sovietcams.com has an interesting comparative view of the many variants of the Jupiter-3. Interestingly, the prototype model (PT1605) is labeled as being "calculated" by GOI (the State Optical Institute). The prototype also has little design continuity in its details with production units (note the aperture and focusing rings).

First question: why would you create a prototype with new glass and barrel parts if you already had tooling? There are two possibilities: (1) you don't have the tooling necessary to make the glass and the barrel or (2) taking the factory and kidnapping the technicians, with the tooling, was still insufficient to make a lens. The barrel would be an example on the second point; German camera companies have not - to my knowledge - been vertically integrated. If Zeiss was not making its own barrels, it would have no tooling for them. That would have to be looted elsewhere in the DDR (or West Germany, where the Soviets would have zero chance of getting those items).

It seems clear to me that additional work apparently had to be done to make the Jupiter lens work, apparently a lot more. PT1610 (the one with Zeiss-style ears on the aperture ring) is again listed as optically recomputed and came and went in less than two years. By 1949, the ears were gone. Most Jupiters you can buy today are 1951 (PT1615) and later.

I think that the continuity is better for Kievs, though it too is imperfect. For the Leica-mount lenses, the differences in appearance, glass, and aperture ring mounting call into legitimate question what did (or could) make it into production Jupiter lenses from CZJ.

Dante

*I also wonder, when people are trying to draw this connection, whether many of "wartime Sonnars" are real or counterfeit. If the latter, then we might be comparing Jupiter-3s to Jupiter-3s and marveling at how similar they are and that they were made with the same tooling. Well, of course.

You might have a look at this article:

http://www3.telus.net/public/rpnchbck/zconrfKiev.htm

There is a bilingual technical drawing of a Contax in German and Russian.

I don't take too seriously what the Americans were writing about the "brutality" of the Soviet occupation, they had done the same in Western Germany (operation Paperclip), the Soviets were just more direct...but they fed the German civilians better....please look at the 90 years old gentleman who gave the interview and denied they were treated "as slaves" but they were de facto the overseers of the Ukrainian peasants "recruited" to work in the new optical factory.

Regarding the supposed "recalculation" of the Jupiter 3, that's written just on that website, I don't see the point of making a recalculation when you had the Germans working for you and remaking/translating the drawings for you.

 

[Dante_Stella]

I don't understand where you take your "facts" since everybody knows that the Soviet took everything they could from Zeiss Jena and moved it to Kiev Arsenal in the early 40s, including the German personell to train the locals....so tooling, drawings, material as well (at the beginning) and even the managers!

See my post above. There appears to be documentation of optical and physical changes (both of which implicate tooling) early on. In general, you can have every single piece of an industrial recipe, but if you cannot execute it in your production environment, cannot buy components from the same suppliers, or don't have the same raw materials used to make the glass, some things will have to change. And that's what I think happened.

Dante

 

[Wulfthari]

No, they did not - that was the DRESDEN ZEISS IKON plant - different site (in a different state), different company, different products (cameras rather than lenses). The city of Jena (along with the entire state of Thuringia, over which CZJ were spread) was initially occupied by the US Army - when these withdrew after a few months in favour of the Soviets, they took along all relevant documents, experts and tools to Oberkochen (where they set up Opton).

Arsenal Kiev took over the Contax camera production - while most Zeiss derived lenses were made by KMZ, in the vicinity of Moscow. They did not carry home any functional CZJ main plant, but had to make do with whatever the US Army left in Jena, the odd experts, plans and tools the Soviets snatched in subordinate CZJ plants across initially Soviet occupied parts of East Germany, and the documentation the US placed in the public domain (as required by the Wannsee treaty). And they already had Zeiss derived lenses since 38-40, when Hitler and Stalin were playing friendly and they were given licenses to some lesser Zeiss lenses. The lens mounts, made in Dresden, are essentially Zeiss Ikon - the optical blocks initially were the Jena made inventory of the Dresden camera works. The one thing they really benefited from was seizing the Schott Jena glass works, which proved not transportable whether by the US or the Soviets - for the first decade or so KMZ made lenses with key elements from Jena made glass. The Schott Mainz factory which Zeiss West established as a replacement took three or four years to become functional.

If you spend some time reading the link I provided there also are pictures taken at the Jena factory of a German worker assembling a "Kiev"...it also reports that Zeiss Ikon Dresden was bombed by the Allies and nothing had survived, so at that time the only functional plant was in Jena, where they took all the surviving documentation, they recreated what was lost and in the end they delivered the production line to the Soviets.

Also in this article:

http://www.zeisshistorica.org/sample.html

It is stated that Carl Zeiss Dresden could not build anything after the bombing, we are talking about Jena.

 

[Wulfthari]

See my post above. There appears to be documentation of optical and physical changes (both of which implicate tooling) early on. In general, you can have every single piece of an industrial recipe, but if you cannot execute it in your production environment, cannot buy components from the same suppliers, or don't have the same raw materials used to make the glass, some things will have to change. And that's what I think happened.

Dante

Funny, in real life I'm a mechanical engineer and I work in the automotive industry. We do it ALL THE TIME, but you tell me it's impossible. May I ask you what you do in real life?

BTW, here there's an image of the pre-war Sonnar:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?url=htt...Kuh2Nw&usg=AFQjCNGv9ELAP6XMv5g8DPPfqe7VWplAWw

That looks suspiciously like the "recalculated" PT1605...the one that changed is PT1610...probably to compensate for the different material and/or for giving the same performance with coating.

Also notice that in the same website it is clearly stated that the first Jupiter 8 were Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnars assemlbed by KMZ, so no optical change in all the production reported.

http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?-1424201095

 

[sevo]

If you spend some time reading the link I provided there also are pictures taken at the Jena factory of a German worker assembling a "Kiev"

Again: Carl Zeiss Jena (the lens maker) and Zeiss Ikon (the camera maker) were separate companies, in separate cities, in separate states, for the first months after the war under different allied occupation, and only linked by the non-profit Zeiss foundation. The most valuable assets of Jena ended up in Oberkochen.

ZI Dresden was destroyed - when the Soviets demanded the Contax as a reparation, they first had to rebuild the plant for transfer to Kiev. With the building in Dresden in ruins and the other major site of ZI in (US occupied) Stuttgart, CZJ jumped in and assembled the production line demanded by the Soviets in one of their remaining functional plants (or rather, supplied the ZI experts with the necessary rooms and facilities). Not in Jena (where the plant was bomb damaged, had already been dismantled and carried off by US troops, and had only ever been a lens factory to start with) but some 100km off in Saalfeld or Eisfeld (sources disagree where, they had plants in either town), where CZJ had former military equipment factories better equipped for setting up a camera production. Apparently the initial transport of the Contax production line failed and Zeiss experts were assigned to build the plant a second time, from scratch, in Kiev.

But that all is a separate strain from the lenses - as I said, the bulk of materials and experts involved there went West, to Oberkochen or straight to the US. The individual effort of KMZ into the J-3 and J-8 must be rated higher than that of Arsenal regarding the Contax, more like Nikon (whose Zeiss lens clones were also part wartime licenses and post war public domained patents).

 

[David Hughes]

I wouldn't use the word "looted" bearing in mind how everyone (the allies) suffered and so see it as compensation. I thought most people had, at least, a rough idea of recent history.

It raises an interesting point, were the Zeiss employees "kidnapped" by the Americans?

Regards, David

 

[sevo]

I wouldn't use the word "looted" bearing in mind how everyone (the allies) suffered and so see it as compensation. I thought most people had, at least, a rough idea of recent history.

It raises an interesting point, were the Zeiss employees "kidnapped" by the Americans?

Regards, David

The Soviets protested that they were. But most German managers and leading engineers actively tried to get captured by the US or British forces, knowing perfectly well how Soviet and French forced labourers had been treated by the Nazis, and fearing revenge or a trial for war crimes ...

written on the road

 

[Dez]

A IIIa and a Summitar did this:-

As for the Zeiss tooling, since it was given to the USSR as compensation for the destruction of their optical works by the Third Reich I reckon it was used to make the Sonnar/Jupiter lenses and the Contax/Kiev bodies. And when it was worn out I expect it was replaced by something that was an improvement. In the same way that the old USSR technicians etc replaced the Fed 1 with the FED 2; a camera body/design few would fault.

Regards, David

Is that perchance your Scott, David? It is truly gorgeous!

Cheers,
Dez

 

[David Hughes]

Is that perchance your Scott, David? It is truly gorgeous!

Cheers,
Dez

No, but I wish it was. OTOH, I know what problems keeping a few old cameras running can cause...

It's from the Shuttleworth collection and, like everything else in the collection they try to keep it in running order and bring it out and show it off from time to time. They still use a modified model T Ford to turn over and start some of the aircraft engines, f'instance.

Regards, David

 

[David Hughes]

The Soviets protested that they were. But most German managers and leading engineers actively tried to get captured by the US or British forces, knowing perfectly well how Soviet and French forced labourers had been treated by the Nazis, and fearing revenge or a trial for war crimes ...

written on the road

I'd answer but don't want to set off another internet rumour to plague us all for years. It's bad enough trying to point out that most people's opinions of FED are based on old, second-hand models and not brand new ones straight out of the factory.

Regards, David

 

[DominikDUK]

Sevo is correct but the allied forces and the Soviets probably too had special recruiting corps to help that decision some were downright kidnapped but quiet a lot went of their own free will.

My grandmother was a former KZ inmate and she once asked a female russian officer why the russians were treating the Germans/Austrian so badly in answer the officer took of her shirt and showed my grandmother the results of medical experimentations done by the NAZI on Russian prisoners of War who where send to the KZ and the higher Echelon of the NAZIS as well as some industrialist (though not all) and scientists were very much aware what was done to the Soviet prisoners (not all military) one also shouldn't forget the sheer number of Russian civilians killed during the war. Makes the rest look like small peanuts. The british and especially the US simple weren't treated as badly as the Eastern Europeans and were therefore a saver bet. Also tales of the Siberian Gulags were well known to the German/Austrian public.

David is also right FED are not bad cameras at all but somer 40 to 30 of neglect would have an effect on even the best Leica.

 

[David Hughes]

Thanks; now if someone would just like to confirm that all the Allies wanted compensation and it wasn't indiscriminate looting by the Soviets...

Regards, David

 

[02Pilot]

Thanks; now if someone would just like to confirm that all the Allies wanted compensation and it wasn't indiscriminate looting by the Soviets...

Regards, David

All parties intended that Germany pay for its part in the war. Where the policies differed was in their implementation - the Soviets pursued "Soviet first" approach which damaged the East German economy and strained relations between the two, while the western Allies quickly transitioned to a rebuilding program, primarily because of the perceived threat of the Soviet armies still in East Germany and the need to establish West Germany as a territorial buffer against Soviet invasion. Some brief evidence of this follows, but it is a well-researched area and has had numerous books devoted to its study.

*****

Yalta conference joint statement (excerpt):

V. REPARATION

The following protocol has been approved:

Protocol

On the Talks Between the Heads of Three Governments at the Crimean Conference on the Question of the German Reparations in Kind

1. Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war. Reparations are to be received in the first instance by those countries which have borne the main burden of the war, have suffered the heaviest losses and have organized victory over the enemy.

2. Reparation in kind is to be exacted from Germany in three following forms:

(a) Removals within two years from the surrender of Germany or the cessation of organized resistance from the national wealth of Germany located on the territory of Germany herself as well as outside her territory (equipment, machine tools, ships, rolling stock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial, transport and other enterprises in Germany, etc.), these removals to be carried out chiefly for the purpose of destroying the war potential of Germany.
(b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production for a period to be fixed.
(c) Use of German labor.
3. For the working out on the above principles of a detailed plan for exaction of reparation from Germany an Allied reparation commission will be set up in Moscow. It will consist of three representatives - one from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States of America.

4. With regard to the fixing of the total sum of the reparation as well as the distribution of it among the countries which suffered from the German aggression, the Soviet and American delegations agreed as follows:

"The Moscow reparation commission should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum of the reparation in accordance with the points (a) and (b) of the Paragraph 2 should be 22 billion dollars and that 50 per cent should go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The British delegation was of the opinion that, pending consideration of the reparation question by the Moscow reparation commission, no figures of reparation should be mentioned.

The above Soviet-American proposal has been passed to the Moscow reparation commission as one of the proposals to be considered by the commission.

*****

See also: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1291&context=bjil

And: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/penna.htm

And: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=420

 

[David Hughes]

Thanks, FWIW, whilst I was doing some research on a private matter (just after retiring in the mid or early 90's) I met one or two people involved in going to Germany in the mid 40's to decide what goods should be taken as compensation. They worked for the RAE.

As another aside one of them was pursuing the same line of research as I was because when he told people what he had done during the war, no one believed him...

Regards, David