Mad about sonnar !??

[cocoa]

Recently, I'm looking high and low for a Carl Zeiss Sonnar 50 f1.5 in LTM39 mount. None is available at those few used camera shops. I tried eBay, finally found one from a Russian guy (start bid US$199) and I bid like crazy and won it! When I receive the lens, right away I knew it was a fake one!! I told my friends about this sad case and one of them told me that someone (a collector who doesn't take pix) might have a real one. I talked to him nicely and guess what, I bought TWO lenses from him, one a Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f1.5 T and the other, a canon 50mm f1.5, which is a famous sonnar copy. Both in excellent++ condition with perfect glass. Here are the three "sonnar"s. Can anyone spot which is the real sonnar? (Regit?)

k, mi gonna shoot a roll of slide and do a side-by-side comparison, and see the difference (if there is any, at all):bsmilie:

cocoa

 

[regit]

Enjoy the Sonnar, I love mine If I'm gonna pick, I would say the middle one purely based on coating colour :think:

 

[derekphan]

I thought the Sonnar from Carl doesnt have a coating. Is it true? It must be the middle one. Another reason maybe because you love the sonnar so much that you would probably put it in the middle . By the way, where can I buy one , of course the real one?

 

[cocoa]

Enjoy the Sonnar, I love mine If I'm gonna pick, I would say the middle one purely based on coating colour :think:

Spot on! Regit:thumbsup:

Other than the coating, the russian fake (which is actually a Jupiter-3) is lighter and the markings are silk-screened not engraved. The overall build quality is also much inferior to the real German lens.

Here is another example of a fake Sonnar from eBay, I think.

OTHO, other than slight RF coupling inaccuracy, the Russian Sonnar cone actually performs very well. (Well, I have yet to shoot with the real one. Hopefully it is as good if not better than the Jupiter :bsmilie: .)

cocoa

 

[cocoa]

... By the way, where can I buy one , of course the real one?

Don't think you can get one locally. If you don't mind a cosina-made sonnar, there is a new one released by zeiss recently (But it's a M-mount lens), going for something like $1800 :sweat:

On the Bay, you can find everything:

New sonnar

Old Sonnar

Prototype Sonnar

A fake Sonnar

And a genuine Jupiter-3, a Sonnar copy

cocoa

 

[robertcapa]

interesting.. how do you identify if its fake or not..?