Contarex lenses are a series of photographic camera lenses used by the Contarex camera, which use the Contarex bayonet lens mount. The first set of lenses was presented with the Contarex I at Photokina in 1958 and initially scheduled for delivery in the spring of 1959, but they were not made generally available in the United States until March 1960.
The series was discontinued after Zeiss Ikon ceased camera production in 1972, but there are still many used lenses available in the market. In addition, some of the lens designs were licensed to other manufacturers, who produced them under their own brands, including Asahi Optical (for Pentax K-mount SLRs), Rollei (for QBM SLRs in the Rolleiflex SL35 line), and Yashica (for the Contax SLR line). Their exemplary performance has led companies to make mount adapters to fit them to modern digital cameras.
Lenses
These are all the first-party lenses for the Contarex system; all but one (the PA-Curtagon) were designed and manufactured by Carl Zeiss. Noted Leica historian Erwin Puts obtained the Modulation Transfer Function curves for many of the lenses designed by Zeiss and published them on his website, noting "the special smoothness and depth of the Contarex lenses can be explained by these [MTF] curves. The characteristics of the Contarex lenses are reminiscent of the Hasselblad lenses. Stopped down a bit they exhibit a remarkable finesse of gradation and depth. They may not be the sharpest lenses ever, but the rendition of shape outlines and surface details is most pleasing and subtle like a poem." Marco Cavina compared two rare Contarex lenses (the S-Planar macro lens and Vario-Sonnar 40~120) in 2008 with newer counterparts made for the Contax SLRs built by Yashica/Kyocera, hailing the older lenses as providing "very beautiful and satisfactory results" while lamenting the awkward operation of the Contarex camera bodies.
+Contarex Lenses Lens FL (mm) Aperture Construction Date released Notes / Refs.Name Catalog Ele Grp Fisheye lensesF-Distagon(11.2442) 16 8 71973 Internal filter turret; limited production (est. 150) Ultra wide angle lensesDistagon(11.2440) 15 13 131972 Two prototypes produced; design licensed to Asahi Optical (Pentax)Distagon(11.2418) 18 10 91967 Requires bayonet filter adapter for B96Biogon(11.2402) 21 8 51958 Requires mirror lock-up Wide-angle lensesDistagon(11.2408) 25 8 71963 Distagon(11.2414) 35 10 91965 Distagon(11.2403) 35 8 71958 1960 block diagram shows 7e/4g designPA-Curtagon(11.2430) 35 7 61967 Manufactured by Schneider, with shift function for perspective controlBlitz Distagon(11.2413) 35 8 71966 Optically identical to earlier 35/4, but with black finish Normal lensesPlanar(11.2401) 50 6 41957 Tessar(11.2501) 50 4 31960 Blitz Planar(11.2412) 50 6 41965 Optically identical to earlier 50/2 Planar, but with black finishS-Planar(11.2415) 50 6 41963 Macro lens with focus limited to between Planar(11.2407) 55 7 51961 Portrait (medium telephoto) lensesPlanar(11.2444) 85 6 51974 More commonly found with QBM mount for Rolleiflex SL35Sonnar(11.2404) 85 7 31958 Sonnar(11.2405) 135 4 31958 Olympia-Sonnar(11.2409) 135 4 41964 Telephoto lensesOlympia-Sonnar(11.2425)180 4 41966 Sonnar(11.2406)250 4 41959 Manual diaphragmOlympia-Sonnar(11.2421)250 4 41963 Easily distinguished from earlier variant by focus knobTele-Tessar(11.2434)400 4 4 1970 Mirotar(11.2420)500 1964? Mirotar(11.2422)1000 1964 Macro lenses (req. bellows)Tessar(11.2417) 115 4 31962 Zoom lensesVario-Sonnar(11.2423) 40-120 13 91966 Vario-Sonnar(11.2424) 85-250 15 111966
References