Zeiss Ikon 517/16 with Novar lens: exceeds expectations

The title says it all. I just got back a roll of Astia and have

viewed the results on a light table with a loupe.

 

Having read several post on the Novar lens I expected that the lens

would be soft wide open and only sharp at f11 or f16. I did not

expect the color to be "on" given the fifty year old coating. I did

not expect the contrast to be up to present day levels.

 

I was pleasantly surprised on all counts. I am sorry that I don't

have a scanner and can't up load some of the images. Perhaps later.

The lens was sharp even wide open. The edges appeared as sharp as

the centre. The colors were correct. The lens in spite of having

three elements in three groups appeared to be well corrected. The

contrast was quite good even with a "low" contrast film such as

Astia. I don't even have a lens hood for it yet! Perhaps an extreme

enlargement will show some of the faults but tonight on my lightbox

everything looked great.

 

I had pulled out some Astia shot with my SQ-A and my brother-in-law

couldn't tell the difference. Again, perhaps if I had a sizable

enlargement made there may be more obvious differences.

 

Presently, my plans are to keep the Nettar loaded with film and use

it for "snap shots" and outings where the prime purpose is not to

burn film. I never thought that MF could be so portable. It's even

much more discreet and portable than my ME-Super.

 

Please try to keep this new quiet. I don't need the price of these

classic folders to climb any before I pick up a few more - some for

myself and brother-in-law.

I too have a Zeiss Ikon, though mine is a Contina II 35mm with a Novar Anastigmatic lens. A brilliant camera considering its age, seems very well built and almost everything bar the delayed exposure works on it (spring problems).

 

The photos it takes tend to be very good, despite my attempts to mess up potentially good scenes with photographic incompetence! Sharpness and contrast seem quite good indeed and seem to be - as Kelvin mentions - very uniform throughout the prints. A small number of lens elements probably helps a great deal.

 

I'm hoping to be able to take better pics with a soon-to-be-acquired Tamron 28-200 XR and Nikon F80 (as we in Aus know them), but the Ikon certainly meets or exceeds the quality of lots of modern compacts I have come across.

 

One other thing, I can't understand how the solar selenium cell light meter manages to keep up as I believe these wear out relatively quickly (with exposure to light). It does have a cover on it to help prevent this, but nigh on 50yrs on, it's still going. An amazing piece of equipment indeed.

'I had pulled out some Astia shot with my SQ-A and my brother-in-law couldn't tell the difference. Again, perhaps if I had a sizable enlargement made there may be more obvious differences.' Nor will most photographers be able to tell the difference in isolation. If the images are strong the difference does not matter anyway.

 

Recently I have been playing with a Seagull TLR with the Cooke triplet lens. Under a 20x magnifier the results look pretty sharp to me. I don't like TLR or old folders for their handling, but simple lenses can be surprisingly good. Which makes me wonder why people are so worried about insignificant differences in the quality of

multi $k lenses. I mean I would hope that my Pentax 67 lenses are a bit sharper and the camera is certainly more versatile but the differences are not nearly as much as some people like to believe.

Most of the better folders do well with distant subjects-not so well with subjects in the 3 to 10 feet range where the cell focus and imprecise focus accuracy works against them. I have a Franka with a 3 element Radionar coated lens. For distant shots, the images rival those taken with a Voigtlander Bessa II with Color Skaopar-nice and sharp with good color and contrast. For more close up subjects, the image quality is real hit and miss with the Franka--mostly miss. I'm curious as to whether you took any shots of subjects in the 3 to 10 feet distance range with your camera, or if they were all further away.

Andrew - again I have to apologize for the lack of a scanner. If only I could show you my results.

 

One of the shots was with the focus set at approx. three feet. I could only guess that it was three feet as the last mark on the focus ring was for four feet. I had set the focus somewhat below that. The image was of some winter ground cover. The image turned quite sharp: it was more of a hit than a miss. The depth of field was quite good: probably greater than indicated on the depth of field gauge on the lens. One thing that was interesting at this close range was a bit of a "pin cushion" distortion. This distortion was not unlike that of a modern day wide angle lens. The distortion was unexpected for a normal lens but neither good nor bad. The distortion was quite pleasing actually. The shot would have been quite boring otherwise.

 

A few other shots were at six to eight feet with the aperture at 5.6 and 8. Quite sharp overall though one shot showed blur from subject movement. With this guess-focus I find that I think of a zone of focus rather than a plane of focus. Takes some practice, is novel and fun for now. I think that I'll be a better photographer for doing the "exercise". Certainly, I am now much more familiar with the the sunny-16 rule. I some ways I don't think that we are that much further ahead in the photog world today compared with fifty to seventy years ago.

Kelvin, enjoy. I love and use folders also but I think Andrew is right, those three element lenses perform best at distant shots. I have a Super Ikonta III 531/16 with the 3.5/75 Novar but prefer my Voigtlander Perkeo II with a Skopar or my big love Agfa Super Isolette with the Color Solinar. These lenses are Tessar types and perform - used with sun shade only - excellent. Have fun and enjoy.

one of the reasons that the folders often don't perform best at close focus distances -- apart from the fact that the lenses are optimized for infinity and lack any form of CLC -- is that the RF on these cameras (assuming they have a focus aid) is usually not all that accurate. the cameras have short RF baselengths to begin with and often suffer alignment problems by the time they reach age 40+. i should add that as much fun as these cameras are to use, and as good as some of the old lens designs are, there is no question that even my best bessa produces results that are a far cry from what i get with my schneider XL lenses/horseman 6x9. if you are not seeing a marked performance difference between old uncoated triplets (or even SC triplets) and your modern lenses on the same neg size, there is something terribly wrong somewhere. i should add that i personally have never found comparing negs to be a useful means of judging relative lens performance, except perhaps for assessing pure optical resolution -- which is by no means the only factor that determines lens quality. everybody loves the story of the guy who pulls up to silverstone in his daily driver and whoops the ultra-tweaked team cars. sadly, those things don't happen in real life -- at least not any more.

I agree that old folders have many problems. I doubt that the resolution of the triplet in the Seagull is all that great either and the camera does suffer badly from body flare. Previously I thought that it was something of a toy. I am pleasantly surprised by the results and I would be willing to bet that even if no more detail is captured than a good 35 mm camera, the reduced grain and smoother tonality would enable larger prints to be made. Not too bad for the price. I mean I would be really disappointed if my Pentax 67 and lenses did not do quite a bit better. I have heard that the 'tarnish' that develops on old uncoated lenses acts as a crude anti-reflection coating so they can perform better than they have any real right to. That is assuming they are free of fungus, haze and other defects that plague old lenses.

I too have been surprised by the quality of some old lenses, and Vartan brings up a key phrase: "in isolation". Without having 2 of the same images side by side done with 2 different lenses, the differences are many times difficult to see. And he brings up a great question: why all the noise about small differences between expensive lenses?

 

For me, getting the shot is the most important thing. But, for the few times where the magic image is enhanced by superb technical quality such as sharpness, contrast, lack of flare, saturation, shadow detail, etc. then 5 thousand dollars total kit difference (say 5 lenses, each 1 thousand dollars more than other good lenses I don't like as much)is a price I'm willing to pay.

 

We all have our different priorities, I know hourly workers who drive $35,000.00 sport utility vehicles that never carry anything and never go off road, meanwhile I drive a new bottom of the line car with no power windows or power steering for $10,000.00, and I'll run it 200,000 miles or more. I'd much rather have the money in equipment I create with than in a rolling gas guzzling name plate. But that's just different personal priorities.

 

But that being said, and getting back to the thread, anyone who feels that great art can't be made with $100.00 worth of gear is ignorant and I love to read about the satisfaction you get with these older cameras. I'm going to look for a folder myself now.

First and foremost - you have to get the shot. This is where I find the folder has created itself a little niche. It is unbelievably compact and for outings where the prime intent is not to burn film, I grab it as I leave out the door. I have four kids the oldest being five and needless to say I pack alot gear for an outing. Sadly though all that gear has rarely anything to do with photography.

 

I would love to take the SQ-A with its three lens and a flash with me all the time but it just isn't going to happen. I could take a 35mm point and shoot but I love the big transparencies.

 

I am please to say that I don't feel that I am compromising image quality by using the Nettar with the Novar. Perhaps the image will be in some ??significant?? way different than I would have got had I a five element lens instead of the triplet but at least I got the shot. So far, I love the results ... I don't feel that I am obtaining anything inferior with the triplet.

Hi Kelvin -

 

I conducted an unscientific comparison test of a Yashica D (with late Yashikor 3-element lens) and Yashica Mat EM (with a Yashinon 4-element Tessar-type lens).

 

I, too, was impressed with the results from the 3-element Yashikor. With an 8x loupe, I was able to detect slightly lower contrast, slightly less "edge" to the images, than in those from the Yashinon, though I still consider the Yashikor images "sharp".

 

I don't consider one of these lenses superior to the other. Each has its own special characteristics, assets, and place.

I love older folders too. I have and use the post war Super Ikonta 534/16, 6X6 format, with the Tessar 75mm f3.5 coated, the tiny exactly working meter and Synchro Compur shutter, shooting as color so B&W with great results. This is a very compact camera, 1/3 smaller and twice lighter than the Super Ikonta BX 533/16, almost as S.Ikonta C.

Someone said that the best shot you can take is the one taken with the camera being with you, modern or vintage it doesn�t matter. Enjoy, Kelvin.

I have just shot 2 rolls of film (Kodak Ektacolor Gold 160 and Kodak Verichrome Pan B&W ISO 125) on my recently acquired Welta Weltur folder (Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 75mm f/2.8 UNCOATED lens, coupled rangefinder). I was nervous about the results I was going to get from the uncoated lens going by what I've read, but I was amazed by the results. Sharp all over (I stopped down to f/11 and f/16 for most shots, but I shot a few indoor ones at f/2.8), good colour, and only some hazing in the centre of the image if I pointed the camera into something bright, presumably from internal reflections. It's heavy, though, as heavy as my Yashica-Mat LM but certainly more compact, and while it's possible to focus accurately, the viewfinder is of course not as deliciously nice to use as the Yashica's large ground glass focusing screen with it's magnifying loupe. Also, the winding of the film is not coupled to anything other than the take up spool itself, I imagine this is the same for nearly all folders. I forgot to advance the film on one frame on each roll and got a horrible multiple exposure.

 

I will upload a few shots from the Weltur soon.