Zeiss Jena Sonnar 300/4 lens

I read that the Zeiss Jena lenses were super. Does anyone have any

experience with the Sonnar 300?

I am looking for one for my Contax 645, in fact I am looking for advice on a

tele, and I had started a thread on the Hartblei 5.6/500 for this.

The Jena seems to have quite a reputation. Hope someone has used the

Sonnar 300.

Thanks

Milan

Milan,

The CZJ 300mm Sonnar is really nice. The corners go a little soft when shot wide open, but they sharpen up nicely by F8. The lens is big and heavy, but generally well made. The built-in tripod mount is weak and small though, and supporting this lens properly can be a problem. They also take 86mm filters, which can be expensive and hard to come by.

There's a Schneider-Kreuznach 250mm F5.6 Tele-Xenar available in the Pentacon 6 mount that, IMO, edges out the Sonnar in sheer optical performance... but this lens is quite rare.

You can find more sample shots with these lenses and others on my lens test page (where I also have the 500mm samples I referred you to earlier): http://kievaholic.com/lenstests2.html

250mm - 300mm lenses specifically: http://kievaholic.com/LensTestsLongTele2/index.html

Hi Milan!

The difference between the ZEISS Jena 4/300mm and the PENTACON 4/300mm is the the Zeiss is a little better in the center, and the PENTACON (Meyer-Goerlitz) has a more equal quality over the whole image. Both lenses can be recommended! The PENTACON is cheaper but worse any penny! I have one, for many years. Its quite heavy like a Russian T34 tank!