Sonnars and Genius Lensmakers

[naruto]

Mods, please move this thread if it isn't appropriate.

-- An Ode to Brian Sweeney --
Attend the tale of Sweeney Brian.
His lens was old and his tools was odd.
He shimmed the internals of lenses
who never thereafter were heard of again.
He trod a path that few have trod
did Sweeney Brian
the genius lensmaker of zeiss street.
He kept a shop in RFF town.
Of fancy clients and good renown
and what if none of their souls were saved
they went to their maker impeccably shimmed.
By Sweeney,
by Sweeney Brian
the genius lensmaker of zeiss street.

* apologies to Stephen Sondheim

Now for a few images from a CZJ 50/1.5 ~1936 that Brian re-fitted into a Juptier shell.

M6 TTL + Fuji Xtra 400 scanned with Vuescan on a Epson 4870. No changes in contrast just adjusted levels and resize. sorry for the dust marks, I am too lazy to clone it out. 🙂

first a mug shot with the Nikkor - notice the glow

next wide open with the zeiss

obligatory shot of the better half. nice background focus at 6 ft, f1.8. 3D ?

f/5.6

f/2 at a distance of 10 ft

f/1.5 close up

straight-up messaging

over the shoulder

Thanks Brian. I love this lens.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Ha ha!, love it! Brian is ace, the 1.5 Sonnar is the best lens ever, and your S. O. is very pretty.

 

[naruto]

Ha ha!, love it! Brian is ace, the 1.5 Sonnar is the best lens ever, and your S. O. is very pretty.

yeah. he's done a great job on this one.

I will pass on the compliments. 🙂

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I'm glad that you are enjoying the Sonnar. This really is a very simple procedure, and I'm amazed that not more people have done this conversion. The most complex piece of equipment used is a hand-drill for making new taps for the set screws when re-aligning the aperture.

As far as Genious- I was at the parents night meeting for the 5th Grade Science Fair projects, and one parent announced there was a mistake in the "example" experiment being presented. I read through the notes and pointed out the child was correct, the experiment was done correctly. So, I'm at least as smart as a 5th grader.