1958 Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58 mm f2
The Lens details of a series of images taken by Steve Cushing on mirrorless camera.
Fitting is a EXA bayonet mount with a 44mm Flange Distance - this lens will fit and achieve focus to infinity mirrorless cameras and on DSLRs. Available in other mounts too.
Lens History
Carl Zeiss was born in Weimar on 11 September 1816. He built microscopes in Jena from 1846 onward.
The correct way to pronounce "Jenna" is to make it sound like "Yenna" in English.
Like many lenses, the Biotar 58mm has a long genealogy. This ancestry stretches as far back as the 1920s, a time when several lens manufacturers were attempting to improve the Carl Zeiss Planar design that originally debuted in 1896.
The Biotar lens formula was first created for Carl Zeiss by the famous lens designer Willy Merté in 1927, and was originally made for movie cameras. It boasted a Double Gauss design with six elements in four groups, offering an improvement of the Triplet or Tessar designs which aim for higher performance. The field correction and the speed are increased in comparison with more simple designs.
Merté continued developing and experimenting with his Biotar lens design for years, and in 1938 the lens was reconfigured as a 35mm lens for the Exakta camera. Creating such a fast lens prior to World War II was one of the greatest feats in the history of optics, especially true considering it was designed and built without the use of computers. All optical calculations were done by hand by teams of optical technicians. Virtually all of today’s fast lenses with a medium field angle (50-100mm focal length with 35mm SLR cameras) are successors to the Biotar design, a worthy testament to the skills of Merté.
The Helios 44 58 also included on this site is a Russian version of the Biotar but differs slightly as the Zeiss Biotar is made with German Schott glass which was not available in the Soviet Union so the optical formula has to be slightly modified for the Helios copy of this lens. Also look at Cyclop H3T 85 f1.5 as this is a Russian military copy of the Biotar 85 f1.5 which sells for thousands on eBay. You do not have the aperture but for the Bokeh your better of without it!
These Double Gauss lenses attempted to improve on the Planar design from 1896 by abandoning the strict symmetry approach for the radii of curvature of the surfaces and the refractive indices of the glass materials, and therefore achieved additional correction parameters. The asymmetry means that the front three-part lens group was overall larger than the group behind the diaphragm. Furthermore, the two outer collecting lenses are each of a larger diameter than the two inner lens pairs. Virtually all of today’s fast lenses with a medium field angle (50-100mm focal length on 35mm cameras) are Double Gauss designs, like the Biotar.
First year of production: 1946
Last year of production: 1960
Optical design: 6 elements in 4 groups
Lens In Use
Fitting is a EXA bayonet mount with a 44mm Flange Distance - this lens will fit and achieve focus to infinity mirrorless cameras and on DSLRs. Available in other mounts too.
Lens History
Carl Zeiss was born in Weimar on 11 September 1816. He built microscopes in Jena from 1846 onward.
The correct way to pronounce "Jenna" is to make it sound like "Yenna" in English.
Like many lenses, the Biotar 58mm has a long genealogy. This ancestry stretches as far back as the 1920s, a time when several lens manufacturers were attempting to improve the Carl Zeiss Planar design that originally debuted in 1896.
The Biotar lens formula was first created for Carl Zeiss by the famous lens designer Willy Merté in 1927, and was originally made for movie cameras. It boasted a Double Gauss design with six elements in four groups, offering an improvement of the Triplet or Tessar designs which aim for higher performance. The field correction and the speed are increased in comparison with more simple designs.
Merté continued developing and experimenting with his Biotar lens design for years, and in 1938 the lens was reconfigured as a 35mm lens for the Exakta camera. Creating such a fast lens prior to World War II was one of the greatest feats in the history of optics, especially true considering it was designed and built without the use of computers. All optical calculations were done by hand by teams of optical technicians. Virtually all of today’s fast lenses with a medium field angle (50-100mm focal length with 35mm SLR cameras) are successors to the Biotar design, a worthy testament to the skills of Merté.
The Helios 44 58 also included on this site is a Russian version of the Biotar but differs slightly as the Zeiss Biotar is made with German Schott glass which was not available in the Soviet Union so the optical formula has to be slightly modified for the Helios copy of this lens. Also look at Cyclop H3T 85 f1.5 as this is a Russian military copy of the Biotar 85 f1.5 which sells for thousands on eBay. You do not have the aperture but for the Bokeh your better of without it!
These Double Gauss lenses attempted to improve on the Planar design from 1896 by abandoning the strict symmetry approach for the radii of curvature of the surfaces and the refractive indices of the glass materials, and therefore achieved additional correction parameters. The asymmetry means that the front three-part lens group was overall larger than the group behind the diaphragm. Furthermore, the two outer collecting lenses are each of a larger diameter than the two inner lens pairs. Virtually all of today’s fast lenses with a medium field angle (50-100mm focal length on 35mm cameras) are Double Gauss designs, like the Biotar.
First year of production: 1946
Last year of production: 1960
Optical design: 6 elements in 4 groups
Lens In Use
- When used wide-open, field-curvature and spherical aberration spreads the depth-of-field across the frame, giving a “3-D” look.
- Open up to F4 and the image is sharp across the field.
- The bokeh of the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58 mm f/ 2 has a characteristic twirling with the aperture wide open.
- In general, the lens renders very flexible, and, at the same time, sharp image.
- Back, side and scattered light is not well handled, the use of a hood is recommended. There are chromatic aberrations discernible in contrast images.
- The variants with multi-blade iris and instant-return apertures were produced. The aperture had the different number of blades: 17,12,10, 8.
Summary
Optically, the lens is a perfect and fun. It is reasonably sharp wide open and very sharp stopped down. Contrary to some reports of swirly bokeh, my lens does not produce swirly bokeh like the 8-bladed Helios 44-2. It does swirl a bit in the right conditions, but not as much as the Helios. The beauty of 17-blades, of course, is that the rendering stopped down is really excellent. For longer-distance photos, the Biotar is infinitely better than my Helios 44-2. The lens does benefit from a lens hood.
For images using this lens click HERE
For general information on lens design and lens elements go to the homepage HERE