50mm lens

A lens shade is often advertised for the 50mm Flektogon lens, and when I asked for a shade for this lens in 1978 in a State-run photo shop in East Germany, this was what they sold to me:

As you can see, this does in fact have a 95mm mounting thread, and it is supplied with an 86mm to 95mm adapter ring.  Once it has been fully screwed home onto the lens, it can be rotated, so that the corners of the shade can be aligned with the corners of the image.

Unfortunately, users report many problems when using this shade of the 50mm Flektogon, or rather, the same problem in most circumstances: it vignettes!! (causes darkening of the corners of the image).  There are various ways to resolve this problem.

If you use an original East German 86mm UV filter on your 50mm Flektogon, as I do, and add this lens hood to the front of it, you will get vignetting!  This is because the filter mount is very thick, and by the time the 86mm to 95mm adapter ring is added, the lens hood extends too far forwards.  This problem can be solved in various ways:

1) Remove the adapter ring from the hood and slide the hood to the back of the filter, where it will be held – somewhat precariously! – by friction.  This will give you shading but probably no vignetting – if the shade doesn’t move unexpectedly!

3) Use a different shade.  One user recommended – and sold to me! – Hasselblad shade no 40584.  This was designed for the early version of the Carl Zeiss (Oberkochen, West Germany) 50mm f/2.8 Distagon and was available from 1977 to 1981, according to Richard Nordin in “Hasselblad System Compendium”.  This is what it looks like mounted on the 50mm Flektogon.

However, in a brochure produced by Carl Zeiss Jena in 1969, “Zeiss Fotoobjektive mit automatischer Springblende für die PENTACONsix” (“Zeiss Photographic Lenses with automatic spring aperture for the PENTACONsix”), it is stated that “Eine Sonnenblende ist für dieses Objektiv nicht vorgesehen” –  “A hood for this lens is not planned.”

For the correct use of the East German lens hood illustrated at the top of this page, see the section on the 65mm Flektogon, below.

The 60mm Schneider Kreuznach Curtagon lens is usually supplied with a smart square hood with a bayonet mount.  This is very similar to the hood sometimes provided with the 80mm Schneider lenses, but is of course considerably shallower, to avoid vignetting.

I notice that it is labelled “60/50mm”, but no 50mm lens was ever announced for the Exakta 66, and it would not have fitted the 55mm Super-Angulon shift lens.
 

Two 65mm lenses are generally available in the Pentacon Six mount:

• the Carl Zeiss Jena f/2.8 Flektogon
• the Arsenal f/3.5 Mir-38

The lens hood that I was sold by the official GDR State camera shop “for the 50mm Flektogon” was in fact not designed for that lens!  It was designed for the 65mm Flektogon.  This lens was developed in 1950 (originally for the Meister-Korelle) and discontinued in 1969, eleven years after the introduction in 1958 of the 50mm Flektogon, which continued in production until July 1990.

The “50mm Flektogon” lens hood – which is of course in fact the 65mm Flektogon lens hood! – naturally fits the 65mm Flektogon lens perfectly and provides as much shading as possible without vignetting.

In fact, even the set-up on the left is not what the manufacturers planned. The Carl Zeiss brochure referred to above states that when a filter is used, the 86-95mm adapter ring is to be removed before fitting the lens hood.  In order to do this, it is of course necessary to have filters in mounts with an 86mm screw thread on the back, to screw into the lens, and a 95mm thread on the front, to receive the lens hood.

86-95mm filters: New information received June 2014

I am grateful to Chris from Jena, who tells me that these filters were made and that "on the (East-) German aftermarket you can still get them.  Some people advertise them to be for the 2.8/180 Sonnar."
He has kindly sent me some photos, some of which I reproduce here:

This top view shows the front thread, which is 95mm [8695fil1.jpg]

The back thread is 86mm to fit onto the Flektogon lens(es) [8695fil2.jpg]

And here the filter is shown mounted on a 50mm Flektogon, on the left in the image, compared with the lens shade on an 86-95mm adapter ring on the right.

[8695fil3.jpg]

Chris writes:
"You can see that the filter is bigger than the adapter ring, but it works without vignetting.  I never use the Flektogon without this filter and hood combination."

Thank you, Chris, for this information and the pictures!

There is now more detail on these filters here.

This lens is usually supplied with a round metal lens hood, shown on the right attached to the lens.

One occasionally comes across the older Mir-3B.  Mine, which was made in 1976 and came to me in virtually as-new condition and apparently unused, had its front and rear caps, two coloured filters, leather case and original box, but no lens hood.  It might be reasonable to conclude that no hood was supplied with this lens.

The screw-on front cap is of the same design as the caps for a number of Soviet lenses of the time (for instance, the 1976 Tair-33 300mm lens).