Zeiss M42 club?

[vizjerei]

hmm I totally has no knowledge of these lens, can anyone please enlight me? what with all the different name of the Zeiss lens? I only heard that Zeiss lens are great.

[Arjay Bee]

There are lots of sites with the history of this company including the companiy's own web site, but a good starting point is WikipediaZeiss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[georgweb]

Hey Zeiss-junkies,

referring to the orignial question about Zeiss and M42, here's some more stuff to read if you are interested,

Carl Zeiss Jena East German M42 lenses:
PRAKTICA-USERS.COM - M42 Lens list

Most complete M42 lens list:
M42 is a site dedicated to M42 adaptator lenses. You will find here tests, from argentic to numeric cameras and oldest to newest M42 lenses. Members described their work and the used lens. Oldies, but goldies!

So, you are getting most Zeiss M42 from the East German Carl Zeiss Jena (and from pre-WWII-time).

However, there are some from Carl Zeiss West Germany also. AFAIK, these have been produced in the 1960s for Voigtländer and Rollei cameras, who at a certain point have had a joint-development camera (The Voigtländer VSL1 aka. Rollei SL35ME). Not a pretty camera, but: the Rollei version was only in Rollei mount, whereas the VSL1 was also available in a 'TM' (thread mount) version. This is the M42-version, and the old lenses for this camera have the name print 'Carl Zeiss' on them. Don't know if they are too cool for school cause they've come out before the multi-coating era. However, there are e.g. different versions of the Standard Lens Ultron, and the second version with concave front lens is kind of a sought after thing. The third version Ultron M42 is named Voigtländer Color Ultron 1.8/50 and that's the same as the Rollei HFT version. It is kind of 5-10 euros for the Rollei version and around 100euros for the Voigtländer M42-version, so you pay for the M42-hype. Beware, the Voigtländer comes in either Rollei or M42 mount and look otherwise the same, Voigtlander Historical Lenses and Cameras
The other naming is an engraving on the backplate, and there it says either Made in W.Germany or Singapore.

Sorry for long text but I found it so confusing to get this info and I hope it's not too clumsy to read it.

Georg (the other)

edit: Shame shame shame, forgot the Zeiss Ikon cameras! For example, "Zeiss Ikon Voigländer Icarex...". These had bayonet and M42 mount versions and there you had the west german M42 Zeiss lenses on them. Frank Mechelhoff/taunusreiter.de - (english translation) states that the lenses were worse crafted than the Asahi-Pentax Takumars, which just goes to show that Takumars are in many ways the pinnacle of lens-make til today, well deserved!
Here's is Frank's list of Zeiss lenses for these cameras, which he states have all had M42-versions.
* Distagon 4/25mm
* Skoparex 3.4/35mm,
* Panthar o. Tessar 2.8/50mm,
* Ultron 1.8/50mm (mit eigentümlich konkaver Frontlinse),
* Dynarex 3.4/90mm
* Super-Dynarex 4/135mm
* Super-Dynarex 4/ 200mm
* Telomar 5/400mm
* Zoomar 36-82mm

[ftpaddict]

Georg (the other.. hehe),

I've known of most of those links for over a year now, and they're all very interesting reads for collectors and enthusiasts alike.

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8/50 This is my lens. My version is the last one at the bottom. I love the simplicity of the Tessar design, and it's utter inability to flare or fringe, regardless of lighting conditions.

[Arjay Bee]

My pair of Tessars are the bright fluted versions - No manual overide on the aperture as far as I have discovered when on the DSLR. Set the aperture, focus, then push down the lever to set the aperture manually. Anyone worked out a reversible 'fix' so that the aperture responds always to the ring?

[georgweb]

Stu (little laker),
about the CZJ Sonnar 2.8/200 serial numbers, found something here,

"The serial numbers from this lens are from 10.227.907 to 10.954.978 for the production from 1977 until 80. At the begin of the 80's the serial numbers got reset to 1001 and there has been a production from 1984 to 1989 with serial numbers from 1001 to 6901"

Hope this helps
Georg
PS: Got a disassembly set on my flickr for this lens

[Arjay Bee]

Had the time and opportunity this morning to put a Tessar on the DL2. These two samples were taken in M mode at about F5.6 hand held. The metering button under exposes about 0.3 of a stop. A small white balance correction but the dof, contrast and sharpness were as shot. The single flower was cropped a tad and both images converted from raw to Tiff in Silkypix and reconverted to jpeg and resized in CS3.





Manual stop down is another step to add over using the Super Takumars but soon got the hang of it:
Focus wide open, make a decision on the amount of dof wanted and preset the aperture ring, check dof by working manual lever on lens and adjust the ring as needed, still while holding the lever press the AE-L button to accurately meter, then operate shutter button. A bit like doing a steep hill start in a manual gearbox. Became somewhat automatic once I took a few images.

[jsherman999]

.


Just got mine yesterday, pleasure to join the club!

Did some wide-open testing today:






cropped:

[Arjay Bee]

Nice ones here JSherman - I'll have to give my examples more of an outing - means I'll have to take one of those Viv 28s off the body though!

[morfic]

So excited i won a Flektogon for a decent price and no place to let it out, looking forward to shooting it on the K20D and almost more so on the Super Program. Finally found one of the low (sub 100K) serials i was looking for and in the 95K Range it's even a little newer than the 53K(?) Flektogon i had and let go, not this time, expect at least one more excited post once this lens gets here, and unbelievable i had to dig this deep to find the thread, don't let it die people!

[lbam]

Good to see this thread back again.
I painstakingly took my Flek 35mm F2.4 apart recently in order to free up the aperture blades that had gotten stuck wide open.
Now a couple of weeks later, when I play with the aperture control it seems sometimes the blades close fully, and some times to a lesser amount (by just viewing the lens off the body).
Seems I might have to re-soak the blades in a de-greaser and hope for the best.

[georgweb]

Hello Ibam,

as for the degreaser, lately it was confirmed by trusty users of the forum.manualfocus.org that it is best practice to first use lighter fluid as a degreaser. They recommended high quality lighter fluid, like 'Zippo'.

Then, do the usual procedure: Applicate fluid on the blades/into the blades' housing (only as much as it can take without starting dripping), better hold it face down to eventually have the dripping away from the lenses. Apply and clean with cotton swabs without any grease, pure cotton.

Then, with blades fully closed, start circular wiping on the blades round the outside, ever opening the blades more and more. Like this, you never run the risk of jamming the blades, cause you always wipe around the outside, were the blades are being held by the housing. Repeat the rinse-and-wipe-dry procedure as long as your enthusiasm prevails Finish with alcohol, if residues are being noticed.

They also said on the manualfocus forum that it is common to have to clean the blades once and then another time after some months, and then should be fine for a while.


Yours truly through Carl Zeiss Jena MC Pancolar 1.8/50 full open 1600ISO on K100D. Tough white balance due to differently colored light sources.

All the best, Georg (the other)

[lbam]

Cheers George, when I get a nice window of time I'll give the blades a second clean.
I'm sure the glass on this lens is in very good condition, so it's worth it to have another go.

Nice colours in that shot, your face seems nice and sharp for wide open too. I'm not completely sure about the bokeh, but different trees/plants seem to present different challenges to a good blur.

[georgweb]

Cheers Ibam,
I'm not fond of this bokeh either, but could not stop it down more, it was 1/30s. like this. Here's another example in similar circumstances, but one stop down (other lens anyway, dull colors but nicer bokeh). Those plants do pose problems, as well as the specular highlights.
All success with your cleaning,
Georg (the other)

[ddhytz]

Some shots this morning. It was after rain and poor lighting. RAW to jpeg via PPL and resized in CS3. No other PP.