Sonnar 2/50 1937 collapsible, uncoated

[iangreenhalgh1]

Excellent little lens, very sharp, being uncoated it is low contrast and flares a bit but after fixing contrast in PP, results are very nice. I prefer my 1950s Jupiter-8s though as they are coated.


#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7


And a stitch of 6 images, the fine detail in the full size version is superb.

[Attila]

Pretty good one, indeed.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I like the vintage look it has, a certain glow that later coated Sonnars/Jupiters don't have. Probably a very nice lens for portraits. Shame I don't have a yellow filter for it, would be interesting to shoot some BW film with a yellow filter.

[std]

This glow is suspicious to me - maybe the glass is hazy from the inside.
You should get it cleaned. This Sonnar should be much better.

[ForenSeil]

[LucisPictor]

I know this "glow" from the early Leitz lenses.
There is it typical.

I don't know this Sonnar. So I can't tell id it's normal or not.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I don't think there's any haze, and the flare is due to the direction of the sun, in #6 it was just out of frame to the left, in #3 it's just out of the top of the frame, the only two where I wasn't facing in the direction of the sun are #2 and #4.

I deliberately pointed it in the direction of the sun to find out if it was coated or not, the other early Sonnar I had was coated but such a pale blue colour it was very hard to discern with the eye, this one I wasn't sure if I could see a pale blue colour or not so I found out by shooting it.

Haze would affect the sharpness and his lens is very sharp indeed, which you can't discern from web-sized samples.

[Attila]

+1 this is normal from an un-coated lens coated and un-coated Sonnars were exists before war, Zeiss use coating from 1938.
I have both type of lens difference is very visible and my un-coated copy like this.

[ForenSeil]

I thought that the old Sonnars were glow-free stopped down. I read somewhere (I think on artaphot.ch) that the first Sonnars (both 50/1.5 and 50/2) were very sensitive to decentering bye the way.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I'll listen to Attila, who has actual experience of these lenses. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with this lens as the level of fine detail it captured was very high.