Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:26 AM 11/18/97 +0100, Alf Breull, sly and crafty gent, wrote: >Is your statement true for the 2.8/85 Jupiter 9 also, which is >described in Marc's book ? > >And, sorry, I'm unfamiliar with Zeiss stuff: which 4/35 are you >speaking of - is it a Distagon or a Flektogon? The 2/85 (NOT 2.8!) Jupiter-9 is a clone of the Prewar CZJ Sonnar for Contax RF. The later Contarex lens, made by Carl Zeiss at Oberkochen, was mildly refigured. The earlier lens is a stunningly good performer; the later lens is even better. The "Distagon" and "Flektogon" names are applied to the same formula. When the Zeisses divided, Western courts awarded the rights to the Carl Zeiss trademarks to the West German guys, and so Oberkochen got "Sonnar", "Planar", "Distagon", and "Tessar" to play with. The result was that the East German Carl Zeiss Jena folks used "S" and "T" for the Sonnar and Tessar and invented the new names, "Biometar" and "Flektogon" for the refigured Planar and the Distagon. In any event, the Contarex lens is a 4/35 Carl Zeiss Distagon. Jena never made any lenses to my knowledge in the Contarex mount. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!