1913 Carl Zeiss London F4.5 - M42 mout

[David Mitchell]

Hi all,

I have had the 15cm large format Carl Zeiss lens sitting on my shelf for a month or so now, I wanted to see what the image quality was like from a 100 year old lens so I decided to find out.

This is a slightly temporary measure but I have roughy 'converted' it to an M42 mount with the use of an extension tube (which I now have many of lol). I do have a set of M42 macro bellows coming soon which will be more suited to it, although I might look into fitting it into a tube at some point as well.

Its a 150mm lens (which would be a 50mm equivilant for a 4x5 camera), but its 225mm equivilant on my crop sensor NEX lol.





Image out of camera:



Bumped contrast and saturation



Black and white



Its just a trial but it just shows how useful those tubes are for lens conversions - I might be able to remove the lens mount on the front and sit it inside one of them which would make it much more usable.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

The image straight out of the camera is nicest, I think. Looking good so far!

 

[David Mitchell]

The image straight out of the camera is nicest, I think. Looking good so far!

Same lol its an f4.5 lens and its not very bright outside so the NEX wasn't that happy at ISO 200 so I let it bump up a bit. I plan to fit the lens inside one of the tubes soon but will try with the bellows when they arrive. Looks like its a fairly good lens actually, not bad being over 100 years old.

 

[Ian Grant]

The Carl Zeiss London Mill Hill factory was seized by the Government early in WWI and given to Ross. It wasn't in production very long (under Zeiss) and was predominantly a binocular manufacturer ut the made some Tessar lenses for the British market.

Zeiss London used German serial numbers allocated to each batch of lenses. During WWI Ross made excellent binoculars for the army at the factory .

I use a 1913 CZJ f6.3 16.5cm (165mm) Tessar, in a dial set Compur, and it's a good sharp lens, the f6,3 versions were the sharpest and had the best coverage. Like all large format Tessars they are sharpest at f22, this one (the OP's) is probably originally off a pre WWI camera with a focal plane shutter.

Ian

 

[Hamish Gill]

Brilliant! I'm very much looking forward to reading more posts from you Ian!

 

[Pete Askew]

Looking promising David. Interesting additional information Ian, thanks.

 

[Ian Grant]

I have a lot of Tessars

One of the main lenses I use(d) while in Turkey is a CZJ 150mm f4.5 T Tessar (early 1950's East german) it's equally as good as my late production (early 2000's) 150mm f5.6 Xenar. I have a 135mm f4.5 Tessar and a 135mm f4.7 Xenar, more CZJ 165mm Tessars inc a very rare f5.6 version and a CZJ f4.5 180mm in an awkward Wollensak Instantaneous shutter (one speed) with restricted aperture - it won't sop down past about f11.

In the repair box there's a B&L Tessar in an Optimo shutter, the shutter need fixing, and I have two Illex Paragon's in Acme shutters, plus a 152mm Raptar in an Alphax shutter, these are all Tessar designs. Then there's the YAshinon on my 124, Opton Tessar on my Automat, and two 50mm Tessars - one M42 mount the other Exacta. I've lost count, Tessars aren't the best lenses ever made but use wisely they are extremely capable

Ian

 

[Pete Askew]

You're worse than me!

 

[Hamish Gill]

You're worse than me!

LIE!

 

[Pete Askew]

How dare you sir! Well, OK maybe a fair comment. But I haven't bought a lens (or two) for at least 2 days!

 

[Hamish Gill]

I bet thats a lie too

 

[Pete Askew]

'Tis too. Nothing since Monday. Honest!