Description
Zeiss Lens
The Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 50mm f/1.5 is a legendary high-speed standard lens originally designed for the pre-war Contax rangefinder system. ‘Jena’ indicates production in East Germany, typically post-WWII. The Sonnar design, known for its speed and beautiful rendering (especially bokeh), used fewer air-to-glass surfaces than competitors like the Planar, beneficial in the era before multicoating. Post-war Jena Sonnars often feature a lightweight aluminum alloy barrel and may have a single (‘T’) coating. They remain popular for adaptation to modern mirrorless cameras due to their unique image character.