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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Contax Zeiss Survival Guide

Georgios Tryfonas said:
Just an update on the dating of Contax Zeiss lenses for the ones that care.
The serials do not specifically mean anything; they can't be decoded to derive the date or model for example. They were given in series as the lenses were produced and they go on till today with Milvus lenses having an 8 digit serial 51xxxxxx for example. It is not necessary that the lenses were made exactly one after another. Serials for a specific batch might have been assigned and that batch could be completed later than another batch that its production decision was taken later for example. In general though those deviations should be within the one year timespan. Also many lenses might have been made a little while earlier than their release date especially when new products were introduced like the MM mount. I will ignore such deviations because it's impossible to know exactly.

Here are some clues
- I have serviced a couple of f2.8 MMJs with 79xxxxx serials and they had their manufacturing date inscribed inside the lens. They were both made in 1996. That gives us a solid and confirmed date for that serial.
- Contax G system was introduced in 1994 with the G1. The earliest Contax G lenses are in the 75xxxxx serials. That gives us another hint that the lenses from 75~79 serials were roughly made during 94~96.
- The 28/2 lens was only made in (West) Germany. The earliest serials I have seen for that lens is 58xxxxxx and the highest is 62xxxxx. That includes the MM version of this lens as well with serials of late 60 and up to 62xxxxx. There are even AE versions of this lens with higher serial number than the MM one. That is an oddity as somebody would generally expect MM lenses to be from 68xxxxx and onwards. The truth is that while the majority of MMs were produced with serials higher than 68xxxxx there were still copies produced before that but in a much smaller number as the system was just introduced and people still had AE cameras for years to come. The introduction of the MM system was done in 1984. For some lenses those MMs were the only batch every produced. Those 61xxxxx MMGs are actually some of the very first lenses produced with the new mount. That can safely put the serial 61xxxxx in 1984~5. That lens was never made again after those years. The datasheet of the lenses from Zeiss website shows an old scanned paper like they had trouble finding it; which is odd as the rest of the lenses have a much cleaner version. The "Classic" ZE/ZF.2 28/2 that came decades later has a new design. A similar situation also happened with the 135/2 lens with the MM versions having an 61xxxxx serial; there are also the 60th years limited edition version of that lenses though with a serial of 73xxxxx.
- Another thing that happened is the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany. This is a historical event and therefore we can use it to date lenses. Germany was unified in Oct/1990. Lenses with 70xxxxx serial number have the "Made in West Germany" inscribed on them. As lenses manufacturing kept moving to Cosina in Japan, most lenses after that were not manufactured in Germany. Some lenses though like the 135/2 or 85/1.2 Limited Edition were made in Germany. Those have a 73xxxxx serial number and a "Made in Germany" inscription on them. It means that the 70xxxxx lenses were made before 90s and 73xxxxx lenses at least from 1991 or well roughly because I don't think Zeiss suddenly threw away all their iris rings and changed their process in a day.
- There is a list of when each of the lenses was firstly introduced. Using that data and searching for the earliest serial of that lens we can reach to some further conclusions but these are not the most accurate indications - still useful.

Using the clues above and speculation I have roughly filled in the production years. They are not exactly accurate in any way and except the facts I mentioned above everything else is speculation and approximation.

60 1983
61 1984
62 1985
63 1986
64 1987
65 1987
66 1988
67 1988
68 1989
69 1989
70 1990
71 1990
72 1991
73 1992
74 1993
75 1994
77 1995
79 1996
80 1997
Click to expand...

WOW - this is awesome!!!! Thanks Georgios so much!!!!
 
Question; i’m a longterm fan of the Contax lenses. I was just wondering if i adjust the mount to EF (hardmod) can i throw them on a Speedbooster towards other mounts or is this impossible due to flange distances etc?

For example CONTAX (EF) — Speedbooster EF to E mount — SONY FS7 ?
 
Sico van der Plas said:
Question; i’m a longterm fan of the Contax lenses. I was just wondering if i adjust the mount to EF (hardmod) can i throw them on a Speedbooster towards other mounts or is this impossible due to flange distances etc?

For example CONTAX (EF) — Speedbooster EF to E mount — SONY FS7 ?
Click to expand...

Totally possible. Many of us use Leitaxed Contax on MFT mount cameras with EF-MFT Speedbooster.
 
Sico van der Plas said:
Sweet, that solves alot of problems i had. I'll start ordering the Leitax mounts then, are there any specifics to watch out for?
Click to expand...

For starters make sure you get the latest Metabones "Ultra" Speedbooster, not any older cheaper model off ebay. Except the better performance and antireflective cloth coating this should also guarantee the right clearance between the Speedbooster and the Contax lens - at least this is what happens with the latest 0.71 and 0.64 MFT-EF. The aperture control pins on the lens (only used for aperture control by older film cameras and not needed by digital cameras) could touch the Speedbooster (not the glass area just the surrounding). In that case iris can't be changed properly and fully. The solution is to remove or cut those pins. It's not such a biggy but hopefully it will not come down to that with your lenses and Speedbooster choice.
 
I grabbed a 50mm 1.4 AEG last week and added a Leitx mount to it. Lens screws onto my 5DMKIV no problem. Lens screws onto my Metabones adapter no problem. Lens does not screw onto my Sigma MC-11. Has anyone encountered a problem like this?
 
Evan P said:
I grabbed a 50mm 1.4 AEG last week and added a Leitx mount to it. Lens screws onto my 5DMKIV no problem. Lens screws onto my Metabones adapter no problem. Lens does not screw onto my Sigma MC-11. Has anyone encountered a problem like this?
Click to expand...

Hi Evan, yes I have encountered the same issue. Very tight to attach CZ lenses on Sigma mc-11. It is better to use a normal EF to E mount non-electronic adapter
 
Hi everyone,

I just find out that the focus ring on my AEG 35mm f/1.4 doesn’t focus to infinity. Same thing goes to my 60mm AEJ macro.
Anyone has any similar experience? Is it possible to fix it DIY?
I had both lenses declicked in Du-All camera, New York last year. Now I am not sure if the problem was caused by de-clicking or it was there
since I bought the lens.

Here is the video
 
How to you adapt them? Normally this is caused by incorrect flange distance from the length of the adapter, especially if both lenses show the problem.
 
Georgios Tryfonas said:
Just an update on the dating of Contax Zeiss lenses for the ones that care.
The serials do not specifically mean anything; they can't be decoded to derive the date or model for example. They were given in series as the lenses were produced and they go on till today with Milvus lenses having an 8 digit serial 51xxxxxx for example. It is not necessary that the lenses were made exactly one after another. Serials for a specific batch might have been assigned and that batch could be completed later than another batch that its production decision was taken later for example. In general though those deviations should be within the one year timespan. Also many lenses might have been made a little while earlier than their release date especially when new products were introduced like the MM mount. I will ignore such deviations because it's impossible to know exactly.

Here are some clues
- I have serviced a couple of f2.8 MMJs with 79xxxxx serials and they had their manufacturing date inscribed inside the lens. They were both made in 1996. That gives us a solid and confirmed date for that serial.
- Contax G system was introduced in 1994 with the G1. The earliest Contax G lenses are in the 75xxxxx serials. That gives us another hint that the lenses from 75~79 serials were roughly made during 94~96.
- The 28/2 lens was only made in (West) Germany. The earliest serials I have seen for that lens is 58xxxxxx and the highest is 62xxxxx. That includes the MM version of this lens as well with serials of late 60 and up to 62xxxxx. There are even AE versions of this lens with higher serial number than the MM one. That is an oddity as somebody would generally expect MM lenses to be from 68xxxxx and onwards. The truth is that while the majority of MMs were produced with serials higher than 68xxxxx there were still copies produced before that but in a much smaller number as the system was just introduced and people still had AE cameras for years to come. The introduction of the MM system was done in 1984. For some lenses those MMs were the only batch every produced. Those 61xxxxx MMGs are actually some of the very first lenses produced with the new mount. That can safely put the serial 61xxxxx in 1984~5. That lens was never made again after those years. The datasheet of the lenses from Zeiss website shows an old scanned paper like they had trouble finding it; which is odd as the rest of the lenses have a much cleaner version. The "Classic" ZE/ZF.2 28/2 that came decades later has a new design. A similar situation also happened with the 135/2 lens with the MM versions having an 61xxxxx serial; there are also the 60th years limited edition version of that lenses though with a serial of 73xxxxx.
- Another thing that happened is the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany. This is a historical event and therefore we can use it to date lenses. Germany was unified in Oct/1990. Lenses with 70xxxxx serial number have the "Made in West Germany" inscribed on them. As lenses manufacturing kept moving to Cosina in Japan, most lenses after that were not manufactured in Germany. Some lenses though like the 135/2 or 85/1.2 Limited Edition were made in Germany. Those have a 73xxxxx serial number and a "Made in Germany" inscription on them. It means that the 70xxxxx lenses were made before 90s and 73xxxxx lenses at least from 1991 or well roughly because I don't think Zeiss suddenly threw away all their iris rings and changed their process in a day.
- There is a list of when each of the lenses was firstly introduced. Using that data and searching for the earliest serial of that lens we can reach to some further conclusions but these are not the most accurate indications - still useful.

Using the clues above and speculation I have roughly filled in the production years. They are not exactly accurate in any way and except the facts I mentioned above everything else is speculation and approximation.

60 1983
61 1984
62 1985
63 1986
64 1987
65 1987
66 1988
67 1988
68 1989
69 1989
70 1990
71 1990
72 1991
73 1992
74 1993
75 1994
77 1995
79 1996
80 1997
Click to expand...

Thank you Georgios! I've got a 85mm 2.8 Sonnar MMG version with 84xxxxx serialnumber.
It was produced in 1999.
You can check this website: http://hasselbladhistorical.eu/HT/HTDating.aspx

And my 68xxxxxxxx MMJ 135.28 Sonnar was produced in 1986 according to this page.
 
Here is something I shot during my holidays in Malaysia.
Shot with 35/1.4 and 50/1.4 AE on the Mavo LF
 
Tong lots of lenses have dust. It's normal. You'll notice it more when you shine a light in it like this. It's only bad if it's too much. A good rule of thumb is if it's affecting the lens performance then don't worry about it.
 
Nick, I suppose you meant to write the contrary ;-)
But how to know if it's affecting the performance with nothing to compare? All my vintage lenses have some dust for sure and I don't care.

@Tong Hang Ning: Try to find a collegue with some C/Y lenses to compare under identical conditions. Or compare with a modern lens and expect similar resolution, but less contrast.
 
Nick Morrison said:
Tong lots of lenses have dust. It's normal. You'll notice it more when you shine a light in it like this. It's only bad if it's too much. A good rule of thumb is if it's affecting the lens performance then don't worry about it.
Click to expand...

Hi Nick, I noticed there is a lot of dust in my 85mm. I am not sure if this is the reason my 85mm has stronger “blooming effect” compared to the 35mm.
 
Uli Plank said:
Nick, I suppose you meant to write the contrary ;-)
But how to know if it's affecting the performance with nothing to compare? All my vintage lenses have some dust for sure and I don't care.

@Tong Hang Ning: Try to find a collegue with some C/Y lenses to compare under identical conditions. Or compare with a modern lens and expect similar resolution, but less contrast.
Click to expand...

Hi Uli, I compared it to my 25mm Zeiss Loxia. The Loxia is way more cleaner. Probably the CZ lenses are a lot older. I just bought a 28mm hollywood it is on its way. The owner said there is almost no dust in it. Will compare it to the rest of my CZ lenses. Hopefully it is just my way of shining the flashlight making it looks really bad.
 
Hi everyone, I purchase this CZ 21mm on ebay. And I just received the lens this morning. The description written there are no scratches but I realized there are areas with lot of scratches and some with minor scratches. So I issued an return on Ebay. The buyer accepted but he said it has no such scratches before he mails and he will refund if only he received the same item. Which worries me. So I went to check his feedback, he has 99.0% positive feedbacks (2k transactions, probably 20 transactions with neutral/negative feedbacks). There are 2 negative feedbacks within the past 12 months, one of the buyer was saying that he is a scammer. And the seller replied that he did not received the same item but another item. Another buyer saying that his item is not as described. I afraid that the seller can get away with the refund by saying that he received a different item which he potentially did in the past based on the negative comment. Should I proceed with the return?

Ps : There is no serial number in the photos on ebay, it was my mistake to buy the lens without seeing the serial number
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr
Untitled by Oscar Tong, on Flickr

Ebay link :
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Carl-Zeiss...m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true
 
Last edited:
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