Leica Showcase Carl Zeiss Jena 5cm f/1.5 Sonnar T (1943-ish)

Mr_Flibble

All-Pro
Location
The Lowlands
Name
Rick
So, I got my hands on another Fast Fifty last week,

It looked a bit dirty with some splotches in the front coating and what looked like fungus along the edges of the front element.
Brian did offer some advice on taking it apart for cleaning, which I promptly did. Of course, my specimen did not have the hidden set screw. I only figured that out AFTER removing the aperture ring, giving me an hour of fun reinstalling it so the numbers lined up with the dot ;)
I managed to clean most of the internal lens surfaces, except inside the rear group (which is clean) and the center group (which is slightly dirty and for which I'd need better tools).

After reassembly I went out and tested the lens on my Leica M-E. Results look pretty good if a little glowy in the high contrast areas.

Sonnar.jpg

Sonnartest01.jpg


Sonnartest02.jpg

Sonnartest03.jpg


Sonnartest04.jpg
 
That set screw must have hidden somewhere besides your lens...

I've seen some lenses assembled post war that had the hole drilled for the set screw, but no screw or Tap underneath.

Lens looks good!
 
I bought it off Johan Kuiper, who has supplied me with various other Leica bodies, lenses and accessories in the past.

I could not find the set screw for the name ring or an opening for one under the aperture ring. I thought it might be hidden between the threads, or in one of the indentations for the set screws that hold the aperture ring in place. But there just wasn't one. I just set the lens ring tool on it and it unscrewed with a little force. Will be taking it further apart at a later date to see if I can get to the middle lens group for cleaning.

The Serial numbers 2800000-to-2850000 appears to be for 1942-1945. Leitz has confirmed that they did not make LTM Sonnars in 1945. They do say that a lot of Sonnars were modified by various third party camera shops in that year for GIs in Jena who wanted to use them on their Leicas. (I though Jena was in the soviet sector?)
At 281xxxx I think this one is well before 1945 though.
 
I did not notice those during my initial tear-down. I was too focused on finding that non-existant set screw ;)

Will be taking the M-E and Sonnar to the Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke(Belgium) next weekend for the centennial of the battle.
 
I learned about the Hidden Set Screw after destroying a name-ring, trying to remove it after working on many pre-war lenses. Hard to tell if they are stuck on, or held in sometimes.
 
Excellent shots.

The only significant thing I usually notice about "reenactor" photos is that the modern guys playing soldiers are invariably bigger and much heavier than the actual period soldiers would have been. This is usually the giveaway, especially with American Civil War reenactors and those portraying earlier periods.

But I really like your photos.
 
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Some from our "Faces of Passchendaele 100" gallery, taken at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke (Belgium)
We've only recently released the album when my colleague finally finished processing his photographs.
I used the lens and the Leica M-E as a digital back-up to our film camera shots.

ZB17028.jpg
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ZB17039.jpg
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ZB17048.jpg
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The rest of the gallery can be viewed here (taken with various cameras):
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