Tair 11 A 135 F2.8 Age??

Jim Schemel · Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 109 Location: United States

Was wondering if there is any way to determine the age of a Tair 11A 135 f2.8 lens.When did they stop making such a lens.Any history or details or links would be greatly appreciated.
-Jim

sichko · Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Posts: 2475 Location: South West UK

For many Russian lenses it is believed that the date of manufacture is given by the first two dgits of the Serial No. So my Tair has #782005 indicating manufacture in 1978. There are exceptions - Serial Nos beginning with one or more zeros for example. There are Russian experts on the Forum who will be able to tell you more.

aoleg · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 1387 Location: Berlin, DE

Most links are in Russian. You can use Google translation though.

http://zenit.istra.ru/archive/lenses/tair-11.html

http://zenit.istra.ru/archive/history/baklanov-about-tair.html

http://www.photohistory.ru/1207248189002663.html

http://zenit.istra.ru/archive/history/volosov-lenses.html

no-X · Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:07 am Post subject:

Most of them were manutactured in 80', some of them in later 70' and early 90'. The optical formula is original CCCP design - not a CZJ copy.

It's interesting, that TAIR-11 and Volna-9, which are both original CCCP designs, have very apreciated bokeh and both of them are priced at similar level as original CZJ products.