Can anyone enlighten me as to the relative quality of this lens. I find little information on the web. I am currently awaiting delivery of a Linhof tech V with this lens. I have almost always been delighted with Carl Zeiss optics in 35mm and medium format... Any help info wopuld be warmly appreciated. Happy shooting to all of us!

-- David Schleimer (braceman@ix.netcom.com), May 01, 1999

Answers

This lens is essentially a double gauss design with 3 elements in the front cell and two in the rear cell. Before multi-coating these planar designs were not popular secondary to in flare. The tessar and triplet designs were the standard of the day. So expect some reduced contrast. It has a coverage of ~66 degrees, so it will cover 4*5 with a little movement. The cost of these lenses have gone up substantially recently due to.......

The rumor goes that the Japanese government commissioned Zeiss to make ~100 of these lenses for aerial use over Tokyo for mapping residential and commercial properties. It is of the same design as the old 135mm f3.5 except it is multi-coated. As you would expect it is beautifully finished and comes in a modern compur shutter. You will occasionally see them for sale in shutter bug for ~$3000. The cost of this re-run has driven up the cost of the old non-coated models.

If anyone has anymore hard information on this lens please feel free to share it.

-- Pat Raymore (patrick.f.raymore@kp.org), May 04, 1999.

Not the Japanese government.

The Japanese Linhof distributor purchased an entire run of 135mm Planars to package with the Master Technika 10 or 12 years ago.

Some of these lenses were imported into the US by Ken Hansen who might (but probably doesn't) still have some.

-- bob salomon (bobsalomon@mindspring.com), May 05, 1999.

A picture showing the most recent incarnation of this lens can be viewed at http://www.seawood.com/ under the large format section.

-- Pat Raymore (patrick.f.raymore@kp.org), May 11, 1999.

Here is another picture I happened to encounter. It says T* multi-coated and specially ordered by this company. Image circle 150mm at f3.5 and 170mm at f22, angle of view is 60 degrees and the lens is mounted on compur No.1 shutter. Snap on diameter is 70mm and filter mount diameter is 67mm. MSRP is 360,000 yen but they seem to have it on bargen at 270,000 yen....

-- Masayoshi Hayashi (hayashi-@td5.so-net.ne.jp), May 25, 2000.