Re: Lenses from Zeiss Jena

["C.M. Fortunko" <fortunko@boulder.nist.gov>]

LUGs and Rolleis,

I agree with Marc. My first camera was an Exacta Varex IIa (new) with a 58mm
Biotar from KZJ. That camera lasted me through last years of high school
(Boston English), college (Tufts), and graduate school (Stanford). I was
initially happy, because I did not know any better. Later, I had problems
with shutter mechanism and lens mount. I gave the camera to a friend who
took it back to Europe and had it completely gone over. Recently, I met this
friend, after 23 years, and he is still using my camera. He is happy, but I
did not want to make him feel bad by showing him my M5, which replaced the
Exacta. Incidentally, my father's Exacta suffered from the same ailments.

Best of Light,

Chris


At 05:44 PM 2/9/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Matthew L. Phillips wrote:
>
>> I know many a photographer that will look askance at any lens manufactured
>> in East Germany, but in my experience, the glass from Zeiss Jena is superb
>> and these lenses are frequently bargain priced.
>
>
>I do a lot of stereo photography, and my camera of choice is an east german 
>Belplasca (Belka Werke AG) equipped with post war coated Jena Tessars. As 
>Mathew says, the low index glass in these lenses was excellent and the tessars 
>were reformulated to mk=ake good use of it. The images from this camera rival 
>most modern consumer grade prime lenses in both resolution and contrast (at 
>f/8 or better)... not bad for 40 year old lenses!
>
>Marc points out in an earlier post that the metals available for fabrication 
>in the post war east german cameras were inferior, and the aluminum lens 
>mounts found on most of them wear badly. 
>
>
>Eric G.
>
>