Manual Focus Lenses Forum

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

Last night I cleaned / repaired a few Eastern German normal lenses from the 1950s and early 1960s which had been laying on my shelves for years:

While the Meyer Domiplan 2.8/50mm - which had come with an Exa II some years ago - just required a thorough cleaning, the other three lenses were partly or completely disassembled, cleanded, re-lubricated and re-assembled. It was quite fun; starting around 9 PM in the evening I had finished the second lens (the Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 2/50mm) around 10:30 PM - but then I decided to do a few more ... The final lens, the CZJ Biotar 2/58mm, however proved to be more tricky than the Pancolar 2/50mm and the CZJ Tessar 2.8/50mm: Its focusing was completely blocked (which, along with the special construction of the lens, made disassembling a bit challenging), most lens surfaces were either fogged or had some fungus, and the aperture blades not only were displaced, but damaged as well. Therefor it was 04:30 AM when I finally went to sleep ... But those repairs are the subject of another, forthcoming posting.

Having re-assembled and adjusted everything, I went on comparing those lenses with a more "modern" Minolta MC 1.4/50mm, the famous Zeiss Oberkochen Planar 1.4/50mm for Yashica/Contax, and the known "performer" Yashica ML 2.8/55mm Macro.

While I had compared a few German Tessar-type normal lenses before (with quite interesting and varying results, see corresponding thread at mflenses.com), I wasn't really prepared for the outcome of this test. Unlike with most earlier comparisons I used the 43 MP Sony A7RII here. Knowing that this sensor would be a challenge for any vintage lens I didn't expect too much from these 1950s lenses. But boy was I wrong! Compared to the later Minolta and Zeiss Oberkochen 1.4/50mm, at least the Biotar and the Pancolar had quite a bit a better corner resolution at f2 and f2.8. Looking at the borders (area from 12mm to 18mm from the image center), the Planar and the Rokkor had a better resolution and better contrast, though (especially at f2.8; results not shown here)

As many others have noticed before, both the Biotar 2/58mm as well as the Pancolar 2/50mm are excellent portrait lenses if used wide open and in b/w mode. While their overall contrast is low, the resolution is pretty high and relatively uniform over the entire FF image, including the extreme corners. There's little astigmatism, but (at least with the Pancolar) a distinct "noisy" bokeh as well as a swirling and "tunneling" effect. The latter can be useful, but this effect should be monitored closely when creating / framing an image. Some samples showing this effect will follow later on.

For time being here the test results, comparing 100% crops from the corner of JPGS out of the 43 MP Sony A7RII:

(AS USUAL I STRONGLY RECOMMEND TO CLICK TWICE ON THE IMAGE, DOWNLOAD THE FULL RESOLUTION IMAGE [2100 X 2900 PX], AND LOOK AT IT IN A CORRESPONDING SOFTWARE SUCH AS PHOTOSHOP)

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LittleAlex · Wed Apr 23, 2025 1:08 am

Biotar did there amazingly good.

But Tessar, well.. I have been long ago disappointed with that lens.

Even the USSSR Industars were much better generally.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

Here's a typical from the Pancolar at f2 (wide open) - taken with the 43 MP Sony A7RII.

First the entire image, re-sized to 1500x1000px:

And then a 100% crop from the field:

The resolution is remarkably good, and the overall rendering very pleasing for portraits like this one.

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stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

The bokeh of the Pancolar 2/50mm is a bit on the "noisy" side, with some swirling too:

In this case, though, it's contributing to the overall effect of the image, IMHO.

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lumens pixel · Expire: 2021-06-25

Very interesting.

Not surprised about the Minolta MC poor performance in the angles. Maybe a less "extreme" angle would allow to save the lens' reputation.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

blotafton · Joined: 08 Aug 2013 Posts: 1783 Location: Sweden

Yes interesting test! I thought the C/Y planar would be better.

Baekmann · Joined: 28 Feb 2021 Posts: 89

That's a test well done! It also confirms how I feel about Tessar lenses. They get so much praise, but I find the sharpness rather disappointing.

Ernst Dinkla · Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Posts: 487

blotafton · Joined: 08 Aug 2013 Posts: 1783 Location: Sweden

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

Cleaning / repairing / re-lubricating the CZJ Biotar 2/58mm shown above:
https://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic,p,1591571.html#1591571

Cleaning / repairing / re-lubricating the CZJ Pancolar 2/50mm shown above:
https://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic,p,1591573.html#1591573

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Ernst Dinkla · Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Posts: 487

e6filmuser · Joined: 12 Nov 2010 Posts: 1150 Location: Reading UK

The Biotar results are very encouraging. I obtained one (17 blades) recently and yesterday I obtained an adapter and a hood.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

@ Ernst Dinkla:
Thank you very much for sharing your vast experience with us! It's always a joy to read from those who have really used those lenses on film ... (my own photographic experience basically starts with 1980s MF and AF lenses).

Right now it's pretty rainy here, but next week we should have stable weather here (if the forecast is OK ... but all models seem to agree about the next ten days!). That hopefully would allow me to run the "final" 135mm test as well, with about 25 or so 2.8/135mm lenses.

D1N0 · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 2717

Domiplan has a poor aperture mechansim that is prone to getting stuck basically 100% chance it will happen at some point. Also the rear element is held in with three small screws that also serve for centering it. Usually it is badly decentered.

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

A few more samples taken with the Biotar 2/58mm shown above - this time in bright and prety harsh sunlight at noon, again in Lucerne / Central Switzerland, but now using the 24 MP Sony A7II (which I inadvertetly had left / lost in a local bus two days ago, around 08:30 PM ... but hey, we are in Switzerland, and the camera was back in my home less than 24 hours later!).

Back to todays images ... All images straight out of the camera (apart from removing a few dust specks, and resizing / croppoing).

Part of the science museum (left), the "Herrenkeller" (center) and the historical museum (right), taken with nice partial backlight around noon. Biotar 2/58mm at f8.

The center looks perfect, of course:

And so do the corners - no CAs at all:

While old German lenses quite often have some issues with contrast (low contrast due to slight fogging), a well cleaned Biotar should not have such issues. Very pleasing rendering of shadows and highlights indeed (at f8, again):

Intense colors (due to some unusually clean air) and well balanced highllighht / shadows, again:

As before: nothing wrong with the corners (100% crop from near the corner) ...

Some pretty harsh lighht again (mainly backlight), and the cleaned lens is handling it well. Taken at f8, again:

100% crop from the extreme corner - no signs of lateral or longitudinal CAs when stopped down to f8:

stevemark · Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 5303 Location: Switzerland

Now a few indoor shots - the main altar of the Jesuitenkirche, first at f2, then at f5.6:

Now a few 100% crops from the images above:

And here from the lower corner! At f2 the corners have a surprising amount of detail (as we have seen in my test at the beginnig of th thread), but really low contrast - and very well controlled CAs as well:

At f5.6 the image has cleaned up reasonably well - such an image would be perfectly suitable to print in a large format (24 x 32 cm) book. Stopping down to f8 or f11 would improve the image slightly, again (not shown here):

Here's another snapshot - beatiful sunlight lightening up the recently constructed underpass at the railway station of Rothenburg / Switzerland:

And finally some good news regarding distortion - there's virtually none, at least at at distance of about 2-3 meters:

So what's my verdict after using the CLA'd Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 2/58mm a) for landscapes in low-contrast light, b) portraits in low contrast light, and c) cityscapes & indoor in high contrast light?

Well, the lens is much better than I had expected! Unlike the common Japanese 1.4/50mm lenses from the 1970s - early 1990s, the Biotar is more versatile:

At f2: Very well suited for low contrast, "smooth" portraits (especially b/w vintage look!). Lots of detail even in the corners (much more than the common f1.4 lens mentioned above), and just the right amount of vignetting. Not recommended for landscapes, though ...

At f4 - f5.6: pretty well suited for indoor shooting such as churches, museums and the like - medium contrast, good (but not excellent) detail in the corners.

At f8 - f11: perfect for landscapes even on 50 MP FF sensors. No lateral CAs (unlike with the 1.4/50m lenses mentioned above), looks to me like an image from a recent "high res" normal lens such as the Sony FE GM 1.4/50mm ...Microcontrast may be a tad lower, but that's certainly not a problem (and occasionally even a feature).

So it was really worth spending 3-4 hours on diassembling, cleaning, repairing and re-assebmling this lens Wink

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