Carl Zeiss Jena 250/3.5 Tessar

[Jay Decker]

Do you have one of these lenses? What do you use the lens for? How does it perform for you?

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I had one a few years back. Mine was a decent lens stopped down past f8 or so, but open wide was pretty soft. I replaced it with a coated 240/3.5 Xenar, which I still have and use for alternative processes. I found that at wide apertures the coating made a world of difference. Still, it is certainly worth a try, and stopped down a bit they make a great portrait lens for 4x5.

I found that in general I prefer the f4.5 versions of Tessar type lenses over all others. The f3.5 are too prone to flair and they--like the f6.3 Tessars--don't have the same nice bokeh as the f4.5 lenses.

[Jay Decker]

Thanks Jason. I shoot quite a bit of portraiture and like the soft aesthetic. Interesting comments on the bokeh...

[Sevo]

None that old, but I've got two GDR made coated 240/3.5 (one fifties, one seventies, but AFAIK still the same optical design) on the Reflex Primar and Mentor. A bit softer than the 240/3.5 Xenar, but differences diminish as I stop down.

Sevo

[IanG]

The f3.5 are too prone to flair and they--like the f6.3 Tessars--don't have the same nice bokeh as the f4.5 lenses.

Surely the more "flair" the better

flair :-
a natural or innate talent or aptitude; a knack
distinctive style or elegance; panache or elan

Ian

[Armin Seeholzer]

I have the full black one and also f 3,5 250mm Zeiss Jena, got it for getting almost no DOF, mine has very fine scratches somewhere inside the lens at the sharpest part in the center maybe did one of the forrmer owner use it as a portrait lens.
Or he wanted on the whole field the same sharpness.
It still gets very sharp at around f 16.

Armin

[monkeymon]

i got a 210/3.5 coated tessar, very nice lens.. i would like to get the 250mm allso.

by my standards it's a plenty sharp at 5.6 and really nice even wide open, for small prints. And it's not even close to mint condition, lots of small scratches