Some Sonnar examples

[nikonbob]

These are again from our trip where I forced myself to use only the 5cm 1.5 Sonnar in a vain attempt to like using a 50mm lens. Let's just say it is a less antagonistic relationship now. The usual tourist shots. Sorry for the many images but I think this area of North America needs to be promoted more.

Bob

[John Parry]

Hi Bob

Well I read your caption and started thinking - 'Bob knows better than that - I bet that lens can focus'. Went through the first four and thought 'Well these are nice', number 5 and I'm thinking 'Mmmm - more like it', and number 7 'Yep - thought so'.

All lovely crisp photos. There are more ways than one to use a 50mm, and most people don't even try all the options. For one thing, the 50mm was the flagship of most lens manufacturers range - they put their best shot into it.

Have you actually checked what the closest focus on that Sonnar is Bob? Looks to me as though you had quite a bit to spare on shot number 7 (from the DOF alone). Plus I like shots of tree stumps and fungi!!

Regards - John

[GeneW]

Beautiful images, Bob! Wondering which body you were using -- a Contax?

Gene

[PeterW]

Ronnie wrote:

At least all we older photogs did learn, not only on an all manual camera, but also using the manufacturer's standard-supplied lens. This generally ranged from 50-58mm and usually 1.7-2.0; depending on the brand of camera.

When I was learning my photography f/3.5 was a fast lens for most impecunious photogs like me with fixed-lens cameras. The normal was f/4.5 or f/6.3. And the average film speed was 100 to 125 ASA.

To get back to the thread, I love these Sonnar pictures both for the excellent choice of subject and treatment - well done, Bob - and for the performance of the lens (well, being a Zeiss fan I had to add that bit!). When Bertele designed the Sonnar he had black and white pictures in mind, but his control of colour aberration was so good that it copes superbly with colour, coating or no coating. And he did it long before the days of computer-aided calculations and 'mathematical models'. The man was a genius.

PeterW

[nikonbob]

Thanks for the very kind comments guys.

John

The closest focus is 0.9 meters but the old body really does not want to bend down that much anymore.

Gene

It was a Kiev 4a, I am still waiting after about 1 1/2 years for my Contax II to come back from Henry's spa. I have high hopes to get it as a retirement present next year.

Ron

I am still learning the 50mm FL and it is tough going but I am finding it is more flexible than I first thought.

PeterW

I agree that the man was a genius especially considering how the work was done in those days. I have new respect for a fast normal with relatively slow 100 speed film. Being able to do F1.5 at 1/10 second handheld with a Kiev 4a that has a grungy shutter release was fun.

Bob

[mickeyobe]

Bob,

"I think this area of North America needs to be promoted more."

With superb pictures like that I think you and your Sonnar are doing the best possible job of promotion.

Mickey

[PeterW]

I read somewhere that the lens designers at Carl Zeiss before the war, Bertele, Klughardt, Wandersleb & Co, used a small army of human 'calculators', some of them women, who took the designers' basic work and then flogged out the answer using seven-figure log tables. They didn't trust the mechanical calculating machines of the time, and even the two-metre long bench-mounted slide rules weren't considered accurate enough for final working out - too much chance of human error.

BTW, Ludwig Bertele was never actually on the Carl Zeiss payroll. As a young man he started with Ernemann in Dresden, and while still in his twenties headed the team which produced the ground-breaking Ernostar f/1.8 lens in 1924. He specialised in large-aperture lenses, and when in 1926 Ernemann became part of Zeiss Ikon Bertele went freelance at the age of 26 and worked for Carl Zeiss under long-term contract.

He designed the 28mm f/2.8 Biogon for the Contax, another landmark design, and longer focal length Biogons in 1954. All the patents for his lenses are in his name. The Biogon design was taken up by Nikon for some of their later lenses. He also did a lot of work on Zeiss microscope and binocular lenses, notably the large-aperture 'night glasses' binoculars.

It's said that Bertele was something of a Prima Donna, and often got into heated arguments with Klughardt and Wandersleb when they were 'opening up' the maximum aperture of the Tessar and Planar, though each respected the other.

When the first prototypes of his designs were made Bertele spent hours on an optical bench checking them and suggesting slight changes to the curvature and/or spacing of the elements based on 'gut-feel', the standard procedure when he was learning his job in the old Ernemann works. When these changes were later checked by calculation they were usually proved to be correct.

Bertele died in 1985 and, to mis-quote Shakespeare, 'We shall not see his like again'.

PeterW

[nikonbob]

Mickey

Thank you very much.

PeterW

Thank you again for sharing your wealth of knowledge on German optics. I guess some people are just naturals in their chosen fields and the rest of us just plod along at it. I was wondering if you would happen to know whether the Jupiter 9 is an exact copy of the CZJ Sonnar 1.5 or did they take some liberties with the original lens layout?

Bob

[PeterW]

Bob,

I was wondering if you would happen to know whether the Jupiter 9 is an exact copy of the CZJ Sonnar 1.5 or did they take some liberties with the original lens layout?

I don't know, Bob, and the Russians aren't saying as far as I know. They didn't use the same glass as Zeiss, and the examples of Sonnar and calculations they took back to Russia would have been for early coated lenses using Schott glass, so I imagine that there was quite a lot of re-computing to do.

I've heard that some of the elements for the early Kiev lenses were made and ground in Jena under contract, but haven't seen any proof of this. I've also heard that some of the lens elements for the early west German Contax IIa and IIIa were ground in Jena.

I doubt if immediately after the war the Jena works could have handled the huge number of Jupiter lenses Russia needed.

Whatever the Russians did on the Jupiter they made a good job of it. Russia had, and still has, some excellent lens designers. IMHO the Jupiter range are all good, with the proviso of course they're put together properly, but Russian lenses seem to have better quality control than many of the cameras. Certainly the three Jupiter 8s I have on Zorki 4s are very good.

PeterW

[nikonbob]

PeterW

Thanks yet again. All the Jupiter lenses that I have are very good image takers. Yes, I have had much better luck with FSU Kiev mount lenses than with getting a Kiev that is 100%.

Bob

[herron]

Bob -
Nice shots! That lens seems spectacular!







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...and I know what you mean about not bending down that much anymore. Getting down is a problem, but getting up is worse!

[doubs43]

nikonbob said:

PeterW, Thanks yet again. All the Jupiter lenses that I have are very good image takers. Yes, I have had much better luck with FSU Kiev mount lenses than with getting a Kiev that is 100%. Bob

I have what can only be described as a mint Jupiter-3 50mm f/1.5 lens for the Kiev cameras. I really haven't given it a go but plan to. I've never owned a Jupiter-9 but I do have two examples of the Jupiter-21 200mm f/4 lens in M42 mount. One is pre-set and the other automatic. IMO, after some use, the pre-set is sharper and a very fine lens. Construction seems to be of excellent quality.

Walker

[nikonbob]

Walker

I was looking for a J-3 but when I saw what they wanted for one I looked around and found the CZJ 1.5 for the same price. That is the only reason I have the CZJ instead of the J-3. I was more than satisfied with the performances of my J-8, J-12 and J-9 lenses. So far there as been no issues with construction quality either. These lenses are/were IMHO very under rated.

Bob

[PeterW]

Bob:

I was looking for a J-3 but when I saw what they wanted for one I looked around and found the CZJ 1.5 for the same price.

This thread has got me interested in Russian copies of Zeiss lenses, so I did a spot of digging in my files (aka cardboard boxes with folders in them). According to some notes I made some years ago, the J-8 is a copy of the Sonnar f/2 which is a six-glass lens, and the J-3 is a copy of the Sonnar f/1.5 which is a seven-glass lens.

Why the J-3 should fetch as much, sometimes more on ebay, than an f/1.5 Sonnar I don't have the faintest idea, but I half-remembered some adverse comments on the J-3 and eventually tracked them down to a thread some years ago on the rangefinder forum.

Some people there praised the J-3 but others weren't so happy with it, and general consensus seemed to be that the J-3 is the only Jupiter lens anyone there had come across where there were good and not so good ones. Apparently you pay your money and wait for the wheel to stop spinning. Most people on the RF forum were talking about the screw-thread J-3, but possibly the same applies to the Contax/Kiev mount ones. Unless I came across a J-3 at a silly low price I think I'd be inclined to put my money in a 1.5 Sonnar.

Still on Russian lenses, but changing tack a little, I kept reading excellent reports on the 52mm f/2.8 Industar I-61 with people, including Wayne on his website, praising it highly.

So I was rather pleased some years ago to find a very cheap FED 4 in mint-looking condition with an I-61 on the front. But when I tried a film in it I was very disappointed. The focus on the rangefinder seemed way out, and didn't agree with the scale markings on the lens. So I tried the I-61 on a Zorki 4K and got brilliant results!

Back to the FED 4. I thought at first that someone had taken the lens flange off and lost some shims, but the distance back to the film plane checked out OK.

Then I was idly looking at the rangefinder arm and the cam didn't seem to stick out as much those on my Zorki 4s. The cam is riveted to the arm, and should be tight, but this one was only stiff. I could push it round with my fingers.

I didn't fancy dismantling things to re-rivet the cam as I doubted if I'd get it in the correct position, so I set it using a depth caliper to have the point the same distance from the film plane as the Zorki and (shock! horror!) I dropped a spot of Superglue on it.

Since then it hasn't given any problems, at least not with three films, and the lens is up to expectations on it. I've since seen other FED 3s, FED 4s and FED 5s with I-61 lenses going very cheaply on ebay.

On the RF forum, and on another FSU forum, I've seen the FED 3, FED 4 and FED 5 described as 'big ugly rear lens caps for the I-61'. OK, witty, but in the case of my FED 4 rather unfair. It's big and it's bulky, but it's got a nice big viewfinder (for an RF camera), a very clear rangefinder spot and the shutter works smoothly. Even the selenium meter works. I quite liked using it.

Of course, if I'd read Jay Javier's website more closely I'd have known what the trouble was immediately. He's come across the same thing.

PeterW

[nikonbob]

PeterW

I have the impression that there are more complains concerning screw mount FSU lenses than Kiev mount ones. It is also possible that FSU screw mount cameras are more popular than Kievs and therefore seemingly generate more complaints. I don't really know, just guessing. My favourite Fed is the Fed3 with wind lever and a nice adjustable eye piece diopter. Now if only I could get mine to work! If you like the I-61 then you would love the I-61LD.

Bob