Manual beauties: the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm

It's time to write about one of my favourite screw mount lens, the Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm F3.5 MC. First some words about the exterior. The lens is painted in black with white and red markings. It looks professional, and the colors nicely match Canon bodies as well. I showcase the lens here on a "retro" Praktica film body. 
 
The front element


The front element



Side view
Side view
 
When you pick up the lens, you immediately realize that the build quality is good; it is made of lot of metal parts and some plastic. I heard that the internal contains more plastic in my late, red MC version; but its weight still shows that there is good old glass inside. :) Weakest point seems to be the aperture mechanism, but fortunately mine is pretty well-preserved, and don't have any mechanical problems. Aperture can be set between F3.5 - F22. There is a depth of field scale, as you can expect.


DOF scale
DOF scale

The lens has only 6 aperture blades. This can be seen as a relative weekness,  but bokeh is still very pleasing! Just check the Spring walk around Tiszafüred and Walk in the local zoo posts to see some shots at F3.5.
 
Aperture blades
Aperture blades

The lens also has a built-in hood. I use it every time, but coating is probably the best from the former Eastern Block, flare resistance is pretty good. Here the lens is posing with an original Rubik's cube.


Built-in lens hood
Built-in lens hood

 
 
Amazing products from the Eastern Block
Amazing products from the Eastern Block
 
 So why do I like the lens? Basically I found that 135mm on full frame camera is useful for taking outdoor portraits and tight landscapes. (At least half of the photos I took with this lens are actually family portraits.) Shorter focal lengths didn't really work for me in this role. It is not a fast lens, or at least the current definition of fast lens does not apply to it. But the quality of bokeh and background seperation are perfect even at F3.5. And have I mentioned that it is sharp even wide open? I don't have to stop down, when shooting portraits! But this is only true, when the lens is attached to a full frame camera.
 
When you mount the lens to an APSC camera, then the effective focal length is 202mm or 216mm depending on the sensor format. I found it too long for regular use. Sometimes it is good to have a long telephoto lens, but it is definitely not a general walkaround prime. Yes, a few times I used it as walkaround lens on my Canon 5D. I know it is a little bit crazy, but it worked for me!
 
Do I recommended it? Yes, without question! It is a wonderful and capable glass; but you have to know the drawbacks when using it on crop sensor camera.
 
 
Backwater in springtime
Backwater in springtime
 
 
Metadata

Camera: Canon 5D
Lens: Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 135mm f3.5 MC
Aperture: F5.6
 
 
Location: Tiszafüred, Hungary

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