Carl Zeiss Jena 300/4 Sonnar vs Carl Zeiss Jena 300/4 Sonnar

Anu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 879

I have two excellent copies, inside out, of Carl Zeiss Jena 300/4 Sonnar. One of them is the classing design - Zebra body, very big cemented glass group in the front. The other one is the newer version, All Black (hi to all the New Zealanders in these forums!) with somewhat smaller cemented group in the front and also about half a kilo less weight.

Both lenses are Pentacon six lenses and both are equipped with the cheap chinese m42-adapters. I do not recommend these adapters - the quality control is not too good - I'm only happy with one of the three itsems I got.

Ergonomics wise the new version wins hands down - it is clearly more hand holdable and the mount rotation has a superior design. On the other hand, the Zebra has the DOF-preview (or whatever) lever. Both are built like tanks and I would not hesistate to use either as a sledge hammer if I had to.

There is a twist in this comparison: I used a Carl Zeiss Jena 2x telekonverter. The reason for this is this: both lenses are really sharp, the differences in central image quality would likely to be hard to judge without magnifying the image.

Images were shot at about 4.5 meter distance (our American friends should learn the metric system). At this distance the Zebra design forces the aperture to be about f/5 when wide open, instead of f/4. The All Black on the other hand does not suffer from this kind of design limitation.

Images have basic capture sharpening, same amount for both.

Images:

I can't remember which is which, but I am sure the experts in this forum will easily be able to recognize the fingerprint of each lens.

Conclusion:
It seems that one of the lenses has quite a bit better local contrast. However, if were concentrate strictly on resolution, the lenses have, at this magnification, just about equal resolving ability in this test. The one with the lower local contrast may even have a little tiny bit higher resolution (though certainly within the margin of error of this test).

Anyhow, even at 600mm with a solid teleconverter, both of these lenses perform very well, when it comes to resolution and high pixel density APS-C cameras.

Both lenses get my highly recommended gold star award.

a20010494 · Joined: 15 Feb 2010 Posts: 396 Location: Perú.

I say the bottom one is slightly sharper. With the dreamy touch it has, would be great for extreme candid portrait shooting!

mflex-on · Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:01 am Post subject:

Bottom has slightly better resolution but also a bit out of focus and because of that seems a bit soft.

Anu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 879

I must apoligize all my fans here, but it seems that one of the two lenses has a dirty rear element, even though I had cleaned it once. Hopefully I have to energy to reshoot the lower contrast image again soon.

Anu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 879

I just did this crop - I don't have 20 euros any more, so I had to use a tenner Sad

If anyone wants me to redo this with a 20, send me the money Wink

Now, this was taken with the lens that seemed less contrasty - I cleaned the lens quite a bit. There was some really stubborn stuff on the last surface - luckily man has invented all kinds of toxics for cleaning elements.

I find it to be fascinating, how a solid lens with a cheap 4-element 2x-teleconverter (though from Jena) can create image which is of pretty much absolute sharpness (vis-a-vis the capability of the sensor). And some people claim they're just piece of crap...

The vertical bars on the top do indicate increase contrast over the previous shot with less welll cleaned element(s). If one zooms in 200% it is still possible to read the tiny text in the center.

Anu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 879

Zebra is the right answer to the poll - the apparent superiority surprised me quite a bit. I also did some outdoor shooting and the old lens had a lot less issues with purple fringing. This prompted me to re-check if I had cleaned the new version properly and of course I hadn't. It will be interesting to see if purple fringing has gone down now that lots of smudges were removed from the rear element.

Anyhow, I do slightly prefer the new version over the old one - the ergonomics (=lower weight) and half stop advantage when shooting at shorter distance objects are the key.

Anu · Joined: 14 Apr 2009 Posts: 879

446670h · Joined: 17 Jun 2012 Posts: 1

Older Sonnars for the Pentacon Six adjusted the aperture ring position to indicate the true aperture as the lens elements moved forward to focus close up. Since the focal length is actually changing All the Pentacon 6 Sonnars as well as any other lenses that focus this way (if not all lenses) change aperture if the blades don't adjust. The final versions do not have a diagonal path for the aperture ring path to compensate. I expect this only effects manual flash and external thyristor flash metering if regular metering is done through the lens.
Older Zebras and Black&Chrome Sonnars don't have a limitation in their close maximum f stop they actually indicate the aperture more accurately.

Pancolart · Expire: 2013-11-18

But please show samples without teleconverter. They reduce resolution by default.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

I have several MC lens oldest Olympic and Zebra , my Zebra copy was pretty average and bulky lens. MC lenses I had good and stunning both, oldest Olympic type is an excellent lens.