Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/12/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 07:55 PM 12/16/2008, Lluis Ripoll wrote: >I've got a new camera too, a Pentacon with a Zeiss Jena Biotar 58/2, >this is a nice lens, probably not si smooth as some Leica glasses but >it has a nice rendition and transition from focus to non focus areas, >as Dr.. Marc J. Small says "he never founded a bad Zeiss lens", I was >quite influenced to try this once I've read his book, it is a cheap >and amazing camera. Hmm. Luis, could you be so kind as to send the model number of the Pentacon camera and its serial number, together with that of the lens? Private e-mail, if you prefer. I will share this with others but only in sanitized format with your name not included. There is a very active Zeiss Ikon Collectors' Group and a Praktica Users' Group where such cameras and lenses are actively discussed. All of the Praktica breed of cameras are grand picture-takers albeit some are, I admit, a bit quirky. And the 2/5.8cm Biotar, later the 2/58mm Biotar, is a most fascinating lens, having been calculated by the mavens of Jena when they were first recognizing the impact that coating would have on optical performance. It first was designed in 1939, incidentally, as part of a project from the odd-ball Noble owners of KW, and this also resulted in the M42 mount. The lens survives in production today in a Post-Soviet form used on Zenit SLR's, made by the KMZ works nearby to Moscow. A continuous production for a photographic lens for almost seventy years mst set some sort of a record. I would retract a flat statement that "I never met a Zeiss lens I didn't like", as I have met some which I found, well, not of the first water. Allow me to amend this statement to one which Max Berek would applaud, that I have never met a Zeiss lens not fully capable of great use. Almost all are cutting edge but, then, some of them pushed too hard, though they are still capable opticks. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!