Vintage Zeiss 50mm Sonnars for use with Leica M bodies

Biggles

Biggles

My cup runneth amok.
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Refresh my memory, please: Were both the Zeiss f/1.5 and f/2 50mm Sonnars made in Leica screwmount, back in the day? And were any ever made in M-mount?

What should one expect to pay for a Leica-compatible coated f/2 Sonnar?
 
They are pretty rear, and kind of expensive, and I fear that most you may see are actually Jupiters. Real ones also are from WWII era with light aluminum barrels, not to the same quality of pre or post war Zeiss products. Due to this I went looking for an adaptor, and some here have them, but the cost too of the adaptors, though some are not as bad as others, is also considerable. My final decision was to just buy a Contax IIa, cost of camera and lens is similar to the cost of the LTM lens and adaptor. No Sonnars were made in M mount.
 
Had a IIa, briefly. Loved the f/2 Sonnar, but disliked using the meterless, thumbwheeled body.
 
Biggles said:
Refresh my memory, please: Were both the Zeiss f/1.5 and f/2 50mm Sonnars made in Leica screwmount, back in the day? And were any ever made in M-mount?

What should one expect to pay for a Leica-compatible coated f/2 Sonnar?
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No M mounts. A variety of LTM mounts, there is a 50/1.5, a rigid 50/2 and a collapsible 50/2.

If you want a coated one, end of war-time lenses are easiest to find, but they normally have an aluminum barrel and look very similar to early
Jupiter 8 and Jupiter 3 lenses. The coating is soft, so it's difficult to find a clean lens. There are a lot of fake ones out there. Make sure that the
front barrel has a Zeiss serial number (seen when un-screwed from the focus mount), and that
the focus scale has a small "m".

Also, many of the LTM mounts out there might have been home-adapted (during war-time, see MJ Small's book on non-Leica LTM lenses), and
not by Zeiss.

Kevin has both a 50/1.5 and 50/2 listed on *bay for US 450 or so. He also has several others on his web-site. Expect to pay between US 300 to 500.

An early Russian lens (ZK) or a newer one adjusted by Brian or Kim
are very good alternatives.

Another alternative with very similar signature, but better built is the Canon 50/1.5. Also, from what I've seen from the new
ZM Sonnar, the signature is very similar with more modern coating.

Best,

Roland.
 
As rover wrote, real 5cm/1.5, 5cm/2, & 8.5cm/2 Sonnars were only made by Carl Zeiss Jena for LTM in small quantities during WWII & are generally made from lightweight alloys, due to wartime shortages of brass & chrome--some wartime lenses, though, will be made from a mixture of brass, chrome, & the lighter alloys. Normally Zeiss & Leitz were fierce competitors, & it is my understanding that Zeiss only did this under direct gov't/military orders. All are coated (marked w/a red "T"), & the 5cm/1.5's are more common than the others. Unfortunately for collectors today, these wartime LTM Sonnars bear a strong resemblance to post-WWII Soviet Jupiters, which were, after all, basically straight copies of the WWII/early post-WWII CZJ Sonnars down to the lightweight alloys.

Also, because Zeiss fast lenses were clearly superior to the Leitz products in the 1930s-early 1950s, people did occasionally pay to have Sonnars converted to LTM by 3rd-party optical shops (folks also had lenses coated, though that was more commonly done than conversion). These can be coated or uncoated, & differ in appearance from the official Zeiss production (they often just had the Zeiss optical unit installed in a Leitz helical).

Cartier-Bresson is known to have used a 5cm/1.5 Sonnar in LTM in the early '50s, but I don't know whether it was Zeiss production or a conversion.

As far as prices, I have seen the 5cm/1.5 Sonnars in LTM go for the $300-500 range on eBay depending on condition. Of course, it's difficult to tell from eBay whether any of them were fakes.
 
Another alternative with very similar signature, but better built is the Canon 50/1.5. Also, from what I've seen from the new
ZM Sonnar, the signature is very similar with more modern coating.
Click to expand...

Another good point, Canon 1.5, Nikkor 2.0 and 1.4, Jupiter 8 is pretty good out of the box too. All Sonnar designs made in LTM mount and not as rear as the original bird.
 
I have a Zeiss 50mm/2.0 in LTM (rigid). DAG worked on it three times to clean it and to get it to focus properly. He was surprised by how clean the lens was optically but also surprised by the low level of mechanical built quality. According to Mr. Small from the Zeiss Historic Society, my lens came from a batch of 200 lenses made for Sweden in return for ore. The history behind the lens makes me keep it. I may have paid $225~$250 (plus DAG's fee). A lens hood is always needed to reduce flare. A correctly shimmed J-3 may be a better alternative for photography.

It was funny to read all the different comments by people having "extensive" expriences with such lenses. I posted a thread with photos of my lens on photo.net. While nobody pointed out a clear sign that it was a fake, a couple of people pointed out that genuine Zeiss lenses in LTM are simply to rare to be found. Accordingly, pay for the lens as if it were a fake.

In the end, Small asked me for additional photos of the lens, and then he gave me the "good news". I don't want to know any other news now. I will pretend forever that I have a rare lens. The feeling is good, and I will keep it that way.
I can think of the Swedish photographers who have used this lens until someone sold it to that particular ebay seller. Isn't this interesting (or even funny)?

Optically, the lens is OK. It held itself well against other 10 or so 50mm lenses in my never ending comparisons of 50mm lenses. With color, it is a warm lens. I hate the aperture setting being at the front of the lens. With a slide on lens hood, it is impossible to change the aperture.



Raid
 
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I also like the IIa however I decided to buy a Contax to M adapter from John Luk on ebay. It's wasn't cheap, I paid 200. including shipping in the dead of August when no one was around- but when you factor in the low price for sonnar lenses in general the price works out. The adapter works perfectly and I can use my 50mm sonnars on my M bodies, which is really cool.
 
They come both ways, Joe. I have an aluminum barrelled CZJ 50f2, while the one you got from me is definitely chrome on brass. (It's probably rare and uber-valuable.)
 
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"Accordingly, pay for the lens as if it were a fake."

Damn me if that isn't one of the most succinctly-worded bits of advice I've ever received.
 
FrankS said:
They come both ways, Joe. I have an aluminum barrelled CZJ 50f2, while the one you got from me is definitely chrome on brass. (It's probably rare and uber-valuable.)
Click to expand...


rare & valuable...hhhmmm...
 
Yours is post-WWII, & definitely not the norm. The post-WWII Jena lenses for Contax RF were usually lightweight alloy construction (like the Jupiters, but w/better workmanship). However, as I wrote in my earlier post here, many wartime & early post-WWII lenses were cobbled together from different parts. For example, I have a c.1946-47 5cm/1.5 Sonnar (Contax mount), that is a hodge-podge. The barrel is some kind of heavier metal, maybe brass, maybe something else, & only the focus ring & sides are finished w/chrome (rear section is finished in gun-metal gray). The aperture ring is some kind of light alloy, just like my wartime 5cm/1.5 Sonnars (1 Contax RF c.1941, 1 LTM c.1942-43), but the filter thread is brass/heavier metal, just like my pre-WWII Sonnars (& my c.1941 Contax RF Sonnar).

back alley said:
my czj 50/2 seems a bit different in that it's heavy, like chrome on brass.
i understand that's not the norm?

jjoe
Click to expand...
 
Biggles said:
"Accordingly, pay for the lens as if it were a fake."

Damn me if that isn't one of the most succinctly-worded bits of advice I've ever received.
Click to expand...

Biggles: After reading comment after comment with conflicting messages, I reached my conclusion ... It is a good advice.

Raid
 
zeissjenaltm.jpg



zeissjenaltm2.jpg


If you want to read some detailed comments on evaluating a Zeiss 50mm lens in LTM lens for being genuine of a fake, here is my two-year old thread:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AwhI


Raid
 
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What about my lens?

What about my lens?

FrankS said:
They come both ways, Joe. I have an aluminum barrelled CZJ 50f2, while the one you got from me is definitely chrome on brass. (It's probably rare and uber-valuable.)
Click to expand...

Frank: My lens looks different from yours or Joe's, doesn't it?
It seems that there is a chance that either it was custom created from a Contax Sonnar into a Leica lens barrel, or that at times of material shortages, it is a rare Zeiss proto-type. Who knows, and who cares.

Raid
 
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That, Mr. A, is the rarest of things: a *courteous*, contentious, informative, and lively photo.net Leica Forum thread.

I think I'm going to look for a used modern black Elmar. Just need a sharp little "travel fifty".
 
raid said:
Frank: My lens looks different from yours or Joe's, doesn't it?
It seems that there is a chance that either it was custom created from a Contax Sonnar into a Leica lens barrel, or that at times of material shortages, it is a rare Zeiss proto-type. Who knows, and who cares.

Raid
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Hi Raid, yours is definitely different. The lenses Joe and I are talking about are in Contax mount, not LTM like yours.
 
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