Lens design of Carl Zeiss Jena ?!

The desing is "traditional" indeed (not to say "old). But it doesn't change the fact that those lenses are very good, even jodging by today's standards. Read Mr Keppler in "Popular Photography" (no. 4/90 or so about VEB Pentacon "empire", and other articles, where form time to time the 180 mm f/2,8 makes appearance with very good marks). I use both lenses and I'm alway very pleased with results. As a matter of fact I find the Pentacon's lens system opticaly very good and I'm going to stick to it for time being. The only thing I hope to change is the camera body: the weakest elemnt of this system. One can buy an adapter which makes the use of Pentacon's lenses with Mamyia 645 possible and going to buy a body. If you want to know more about the optical construction of Pentacon lenses, write Herber Keppler from the "Popular Photography" magazine. Even if he doesn't know all the details, he wil be able to point a source of information about those lenses. Sincerely, J. Sawicki

Far from being "poor" the Carl Zeiss Jena lenses are all of excellent quality. They are, admittedly quite old designs, but I would refer to them as "Classic". (The 180mm Sonnar 'Olympic Sonnar' was designed for the pre-WWII Berlin olympics.) They were designed in the days when optical performance was put above things like weight, and how much glass was used in manufacturing them. The Sonnar and many other Zeiss Jena designs can be found in Arthur Cox's 'Optics' (Focal press, no longer in print.) I own both the 180mm Jena Sonnar and 50mm Flektogon, and can assure you that results from both are of the highest standard. The weight and filter size are a small price to pay. Incidentally the Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 lens for 35mm (generally regarded as a very fine modern lens) has a design surprisingly close to that of the Olympic Sonnar. Best Regards, Pete Andrews.

I would like to add to the other comments on the quality of Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. Some years ago, I owned a Pentacon Six with the f2.8 standard lens. I also owned, and still do, a Hasselblad 500 Classic. I compared a series of slide photos of identical or near identical scenes using both the Carl Zeiss Jena standard lens and the Zeiss Planar (Hasselblad). As far I could tell, there was no observable difference between the two lenses. The (then) West German lens did show better flare control because of its superior coatings. But for the notoriously unreliable shutter mechanism of the East German cameras, I would have kept the Pentacon Six.

I have a Ricoh KR-10 with a Carl Zeiss Jenazoom 35-70mm mc macro. I have taken some pictures with it, but have not as yet established any superior pattern to it, contrast and sharpness are pretty ordinary. Is the jenazoom lenses (made in japan under license) any good.

To answer the original question: "Where can I get the design informations about Carl Zeiss Jena lenses ?"

This page gives lens optical diagrams for Kiev (called "Revolution" here) & Zeiss Jena (Pencacon-Six) designs, versus western Zeiss (Hasselblad) - the page is in Chinese but the diagrams are what you are looking for: http://cccp.rich2000.com.tw/report/test-revolutionvszeiss.htm ...it is striking how close the eastern and western designs often are. One gets no sense of Zeiss Jena designs/technology being "poor" from this page.

Also try the Kiev Report, and links posted there by Zeiss Jena users: http://forums.delphiforums.com/kievreport/