The Seven Sonnar-ai

[Dante_Stella]

I am working on assembling representatives all all major Sonnar variants to see a couple of things: how sharp, how much focus shift, focus shift with filters on an M typ 246, etc. This, of course assumes that Leica lets me have back one or both of my two Ms that went in for RF adjustment. I'm not holding my breath, but I do have a Lensalign ready.

So far, I have assembled:

- 5cm f/2.0 prewar Jena Sonnar uncoated (via Amedeo)
- 50mm f/1.5 postwar Carl Zeiss (Opton) (via Amedeo)
- 50mm f/1.5 Canon
- 5cm f/1.4 Nikkor-SC (early)
- 50mm f/1.5 Jupiter-3 (1970s)
- 50mm f/1.5 C-Sonnar (modern)
- 50mm f/1.1 Sonnetar

(and no, the faster Nikkor 1.1 and Zunow are not really in the cards, though I think I know where I might be able to borrow the Zunow locally).

Am I missing anything that is a real-world lens? They would have to bolt onto a Leica M camera to be in the running. And yes, I know that the Jupiters are hit-or-miss.

Thanks!
Dante

 

[nongfuspring]

Rollei 40mm 2.8?

 

[sevo]

The Jupiter-8, for one. The Jena and Oberkochen lenses do deliver more different results than explicable by coating, both in the f/1.5 and f/2 version. And the Jupiters saw some glass formulation changes over the course of time as well. As far as 50mm lenses go, Tanack also made quite a variety of Sonnars, mostly in LTM - they started with a f/2 Zeiss clone Tanar, pushed that six element design to f/1.9 and (briefly) f/1.8, and they also had a copy of the seven element f/1.5.

And then there are the 85 and 135mm ones... Didn't Zeiss also make a non mirror box version of the 180mm for a while?

 

[Dante_Stella]

Great ideas... Was going to stick to 50s so that things would be most easily comparable. And because I thought of testing using multiple LTM adapters on some to see if things got better or worse.

I'll see where the Tanars are. They're a bit out of the mainstream, but one or more might be doable.

D

 

[ferider]

If you don't mind the overhead, please include both early and late 1950s Nikkor 50/1.4 - in my experience they are very different. If you are missing one, I'll send you one for the duration of the test. I can also add an early Nikkor 50/2. Thanks.

 

[Mackinaw]

Didn’t Raid do a test like this several years back?

You may want to include a Nikkor 50/2.0.

Jim B.

 

[uhoh7]

Nikkor 50/1.5? perhaps unobtanium.

Anyway, love the effort and can't wait to see what happens 🙂

I hope you also test with a color M, and in fact one of the most interesting comparisons would be color rendering both at open and closed apertures. Sonnetar is highly unique in this way.

I'm sure you will test them down to F/11, where the edge performance has highest potential and results valuable.

 

[PAN F]

An example of any early collapsible 5cm f2 Nikkor H.C. in Leica screw thread mount would be very interesting.(Serial nos.starting with 609,708, 806 or 811).
It could be compared to the results from an early rigid 5cm f2 Nikkor version (Rolands for example?).

 

[Dante_Stella]

I got my two M bodies back from Leica tonight, and ran a few of these lenses against a LensAlign and some other targets to see where the focus comes out. I'm starting to have some doubts about whether a huge and systematic test would turn up anything useful.

- The top three resisters of focus shift are the 50/1.5 Opton, the 50/1.1 Sonnetar, and th 50/1.4 Nikkor. Then the Canon and the Jena uncoated Sonnar. The ZM Sonnar and Jupiter have the most shift.

- The Sonnetar is hard to test objectively for focus accuracy because the focal length is infinitely variable. That said, the mechanics of the lens focus past infinity (i.e., the RF spot goes past) - but the focus is accurate even at f/1.1 when the RF spot says infinity.

- My ZM looks like it is set up for f/2, which does not make sense (at f/3.2, which is supposed be optimal, it is back-focusing). Not sure that this will be valid as a basis for comparison.

- The performance of most of these lenses is very close.

I also need to so some checking to make sure that various tests will work (particularly the LensAlign, which may not be 100% reliable with lenses that have massive field curvature).

Stay tuned.

Dante

 

[Bingley]

As the owner of a very nice Canon 50/1.5, I'm eagerly awaiting the results of this test.

 

[splitimageview]

An example of any early collapsible 5cm f2 Nikkor H.C. in Leica screw thread mount would be very interesting.(Serial nos.starting with 609,708, 806 or 811).
It could be compared to the results from an early rigid 5cm f2 Nikkor version (Rolands for example?).

I can supply #8111000, if Dante has interest (1948)

 

[Robert Lai]

My Zeiss C-Sonnar 50 1.5 is also optimized for f/2.

 

[Dante_Stella]

As the owner of a very nice Canon 50/1.5, I'm eagerly awaiting the results of this test.

I'm in the process of replacing that one for the test; the one I drew seemed to have an oil haze on the second group. Should have another one in hand soon.

Dante

 

[Dguebey]

The 1953 50/1.1 Nikkor, designed by Saburo Murakami, is not a Sonnar, but a Planar (complexified by double element at both sides).

 

[uhoh7]

I think my sonnetar is the same way regarding infinity. I would be fun to see the lenses in a variety of conditions, beside a set piece test. For color the Sonnetar is very saturated with a unique signature, unlike any other lens I own, let alone the Sonnars.

My own Nikkor and CZJ sonar are very different, with the 1937 uncoated CZJ really crisp at infinity in the central frame, more so than the Nikkor, which seems to be sharpest at about MF to 3 meters. Bokeh has similarities, but quite distinct. The Sonnetar I will put the lead there, as it has that german aperture which is always a perfect circle 🙂