Pix with Sonnar 135mm Lens

[GeneW]

My M42-EOS adapter arrived in the mail today so I was able to take out the beautiful Zeiss Sonnar 135mm f/3.5 lens Peter donated to the competition and try it on my Canon 300D body. It was mainly rainy today so I dashed out between showers. This is not perhaps the best test I could have given it -- I handheld all these shots at close-focus range. I'm impressed with the sharpness of the lens, the realistic col palette, and, can I say it, the bokeh? ;D

Day Lily


Sundrop (Oenothera)


Nigella (herb)


Rugosa Rose


Purple Coneflower (Echinacea)


Black-eyed Susan


All shots at f/8. If I'd had more time I'd have used a tripod ...

Gene

[doubs43]

Gene, those are very impressive shots, all the more so because they were hand-held. Who made the Sonnar...... East German, West German or is it new? I have one made in EG but it's in Exakta mount.

BTW, the bokeh in every picture is quite nice IMO. (Not trying to stir up anything but the OOF areas are pleasing to my eyes.)

Walker

[GeneW]

Thanks Walker. If Peter sees this perhaps he can answer your question about whether it's E or W German. It's an older lens but I don't know from what approx year.

Gene

[Randy]

Wonderful "captures" Gene, nice "bokeh"...LOLOLOLOL!!! The Lily looks just like the ones next to my front porch.

[mickeyobe]

Gene,

Nice Boke, eh.
Impressive pictures, eh.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Hi Gene. Nice pictures, and a steady hand. Do you remember the shutter speed? Bokeh? ....... Okeh!

To the best of my knowledge the lens was made in Jena which, of course, was the original home of Carl Zeiss and was in the DDR or East Germany. Can't remember now, but does it say 'Carl Zeiss Jena' on the front of the lens?

Peter W

[nikonbob]

Gene

Great handheld shots with nice boke, yeah I said boke word. Really makes you wonder if you need lenses especially designed for the more finicky angle of acceptance of a digital sensor. From your photos I would guess this is not always the case.

Bob Hammond

[doubs43]

peterw said:

Hi Gene. Nice pictures, and a steady hand. Do you remember the shutter speed? Bokeh? ....... Okeh!

To the best of my knowledge the lens was made in Jena which, of course, was the original home of Carl Zeiss and was in the DDR or East Germany. Can't remember now, but does it say 'Carl Zeiss Jena' on the front of the lens?

Peter W

Thanks, Peter. I suspected it was a Jena lens but, of course, couldn't be 100% positive. I have the same lens in Exakta mount but haven't really given it a workout. I need to as I think it should be a fine performer if Gene's outstanding shots are any indication.

Walker

[PeterW]

Hi Walker,

I was talking today with a friend and fellow collector, a Gernan living in the UK, who is very knowledgeable about the German camera industry, particularly the Dresden companies. He said he hadn't heard of a 135mm Sonnar in M42 fit made by Carl Zeiss in the west, at Oberkochen.

He told me that despite the official animosity politically between East and West in the 1950s and 1960s, and despite the legal battle over the Zeiss name, co-operation between the original Carl Zeiss in Jena and the 'new' Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen was much closer than most people realise. Understandable, I suppose, as many of the top people at both factories had been colleagues only a few years before. Politicians came and go, but business is business.

He said that most of the glass, and sometimes even the finished elements, for lenses made by Carl Zeiss Oberkochen came from Carl Zeiss Jena.

BTW, he also pointed out that the Prakticar series of lenses came from Meyer, in Görlitz, and not from Zeiss, as is wrongly stated on someone's website, but he couldn't remember which one. Oh well, the person who never made a mistake never made anything.

Peter W

[GeneW]

Randy, Mickey, thanks! Okay, sorry I mentioned the B word ...

Peter, I don't recall the shutter speeds, but being digital, the camera recorded them, even though it doesn't know the apertures. I'll look them up in a minute.

Bob, with the APS-size sensors found on most of the Canons and Nikons, there is a cropping factor of 1.5 or 1.6, which means that the sweetest part of the lens is getting recorded. All the vintage lenses I've tried out on digital look pretty nice. With the full-frame sensors, e.g. Canon 5D, there's likely a fair bit of light fall off at the edges. Nothing against modern optics, but I *do* like what I see from the older lenses.

Peter, here we go. The shutter speeds were all over the map:

Day Lily: 1/40
Sundrop: 1/640
Nigella: 1/500
Rugosa Rose: 1/200
Purple Coneflower: 1/250
Black-eyed Susan: 1/250

I had the camera set to ISO 400.

Gene

Edit: forgot to add, the lens says Carl Zeiss Jena on the front

[nikonbob]

Gene

That iso 400 looks really good. What I had meant about the film lenses on digicams was that I had read somewhere that film lenses may allow light to strike the CCD receptors at an angle rather than straight on causing some problems. I found this hard to believe because as you said you are using the sweet spot of a film lens to record the image on the sensor. It is looking like it is more advertising hype to sell designed for digital camera lenses. At least that is in the normal to longer FLs anyway, wides might be different. If I ever cough up the dough for a D200 I may find out myself. The only thing wrong with modern optics is that they cost alot more than the lenses that I already have in Nikon fit. I too like what I see coming off older lenses.

Bob Hammond

[John Parry]

Peter,

I don't distinguish between the Meyer-Optik and Carl Zeiss Jena lenses - they are equally superb.

Regards - John

[doubs43]

peterw said:

Hi Walker,

I was talking today with a friend and fellow collector, a Gernan living in the UK, who is very knowledgeable about the German camera industry, particularly the Dresden companies. He said he hadn't heard of a 135mm Sonnar in M42 fit made by Carl Zeiss in the west, at Oberkochen.

He told me that despite the official animosity politically between East and West in the 1950s and 1960s, and despite the legal battle over the Zeiss name, co-operation between the original Carl Zeiss in Jena and the 'new' Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen was much closer than most people realise. Understandable, I suppose, as many of the top people at both factories had been colleagues only a few years before. Politicians came and go, but business is business.

He said that most of the glass, and sometimes even the finished elements, for lenses made by Carl Zeiss Oberkochen came from Carl Zeiss Jena.

BTW, he also pointed out that the Prakticar series of lenses came from Meyer, in Görlitz, and not from Zeiss, as is wrongly stated on someone's website, but he couldn't remember which one. Oh well, the person who never made a mistake never made anything.

Peter W

Peter, thanks for the information. I've often wondered just how much exchange of information and materials there might have been between the East & West German optical companies. It's not surprising that the two Zeiss companies conducted business but I am surprised that the East German Zeiss at Jena produced glass for the West German Zeiss. I wonder if it was as finished lenses or raw glass? Or even uncoated but ground lenses?

Just yesterday I received a 135mm f/2.8 Meyer Orestor pre-set lens in M42 mount. I need to clean the elements as they have haze inside but I think disassembly will be relatively easy.

I"ve checked the optical formula for the Meyer lens as opposed to the Sonnar and the Meyer lens has 6 elements vs the 5 elements of the Sonnar. That, in and of itself, is not a firm indication of the quality of results to be expected but my experience with Meyer lenses has been generally very good. Once cleaned, I expect the lens to give good results.

Walker

[doubs43]

johnrparry said:

Peter, I don't distinguish between the Meyer-Optik and Carl Zeiss Jena lenses - they are equally superb.
Regards - John

John, I tend to agree based on my experience with both. Meyer, especially, produced a better product than many gave them credit for. Many of their products later became "Pentacon" branded when the East German optical companies were combined under one name.

Walker

[John Parry]

Walker,

Was about to reply to your last post - I understand that although the 'Japanese' Pentacons were fabricated in Japan, the glass was from Dresden.

Regards - John