Carl Zeiss Jena Apo-Tessar f11 1200mm

[Łukasz Owsianka]

Hi,

I can buy Carl Zeiss Jena Apo-Tessar f11 1200mm from my friend. How much is it worth? What price is a fair price? Lens are clean and it is in good condition.

Thanks for help.

[genotypewriter]

The lens design itself is not the most interesting but the focal length makes it a bit nicer. If it was any other focal length, you should keep it well under $500. Whatever extra you want to pay depends on how badly you want 1200mm. Hope you have the bellows and sturdy enough camera for it... what are you going to use for a shutter? How often do you see yourself or a potential future buyer using this? I think they all have a say in the value of a lens than the spec alone. Generally, lenses around 600mm and over tend to stagnate on the auction site... especially when they're the big old ones and not the modern telephoto designs.

Other people will have differing opinions, I'm sure...

[Dan Fromm]

The market for process lenses that long is very thin and sellers there tend to be (choose one) optimists or wild-eyed dreamers. I just took a look at completed auctions for process lenses on ebay.com, found unsold lenses at absurd prices and sold lenses, all shorter than 1200 mm, at very dispersed prices, some surprisingly low.

If your friend's lens is from CZJ DDR, it is quite uncommon. See http://www.arnecroell.com/czj.pdf, which gives production numbers and points out that CZJ Apo-Tessars scaled in mm were made after the 1955 redesign.

Lenses for LF that long are all uncommon. They're also somewhat in demand by ULF shooters because they have large coverage. Your friend's lens, for example, should cover around 950 mm at infinity.

If you want to be fair to your friend, have him offer the lens on ebay.com (not ebay.pl or ebay.de, ebay.com has better reach and richer bidders) and bid for it against the world. If you want it more than anyone else, you'll get it. You may get it at a surprisingly low price, but there's no guarantee.