Date of manufacture and quality of Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 4.5/300

[Gregory Popovitch]

Hi,

I recently bought a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 4.5/300 that I plan to use on a full plate (6.5 x 8.5 inches) camera for making daguerreotypes. Since dags are so slow I am trying to find a fast lens that will cover this size. The lens doesn't seem coated. My questions: when was this lens manufactured? Can I expect a decent quality from it? Any other suggestions for fast lenses? I also have some process lenses (apo-ronar) but these are slower. Thanks, gregory

[Gregory Popovitch]

Just realized that I forgot to mention the lens serial number. It is: 10832797 Thanks, gregory

[Philippe Gauthier]

Tessars are not known to be very sharp wide open. If I went through the trouble and the expense of making dags, I think I'd stop the Tessar to at least f/11 or f/16 to get as much as resolution as possible and I'd live with the longer exposure time. You don't want to do action shots, do you? So why waste the fun of working slowly, not to mention precious materials?

[Gregory Popovitch]

Thanks, Philippe. I don't want to do action shots, but portraits and street scenes. Even at f/4.5, exposure times are 5 to 10 seconds in bright sun, so you can understand that I will not always be able to stop down. Since the dag is not enlarged, a great resolution is not absolutely required, but if possible I will of course stop down if only for depth of field. Any other fast lenses that you might recommend?

[Nick_3536]

http://home.sprynet.com/~stspring/Zeiss%20Ikon.html

The link only goes up to 1942 and stops around 2.5million for serial numbers.

So if I'm reading things right that's a post war East German lens. I thought Zeiss started coating late 1930's.

[Dan Fromm]

Around 1975, has to be coated. Is it one of those cheap copier lenses?

[Arne Croell]

That lens was made in the late 1970's by Zeiss Jena in the GDR and is of course coated. The design was by Merté, from 1928. It is certainly not a copier lens, but was an LF taking lens made for the GDR and other Eastern Block cameras. Most of those, like the different "Mentor" cameras, had behind the lens shutters, so the lenses were ususally sold in barrel mounts. Since you won't enlarge, and use only part of the image circle (it covers 8x10 with some movement), using it wide open should work fine. If you want to improve the quality without much loss in speed, stopping down just to f/5.6 increases the contrast significantly.

[Arne Croell]

One addition, Zeiss Jena also made a coated f/3.5 version of that lens in the 1950's.

[Ernest Purdum]

Gregory, I think the idea of making daguerrotypes is intriguing. Exposures so long that pedestrians don't appear in street scenes would be an interestng experience. This said, however, I hope you are aware that making daguerrotypes is a dangerous occupation. Mercury poisoning is a horrible illness. I am sure that there are ways of keeping the fumes contained, and I hope you know how to do it.



Good luck in an intersting endeavor.

[Gregory Popovitch]

Thanks again for these answers. I'm happy to learn that the lens should be OK wide open, but I will try to use it at f/5.6 as a rule. I wonder if the f/3.5 lens was much heavier? And was it as good at f/4.5 as my lens would be at f/5.6? As for making dags, I have already started making them about 6 month ago, not "in camera" but by re-photographing silver print using a repro bench. I'm really excited about doing some in-camera. Now I need to find a fast and cheap wide-angle lens covering 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. I was thinking of the 165mm f/6.8 Angulon, but maybe someone can recommend a faster lens? As a chemical engineer, I'm well aware of the danger of mercury poisoning, and anyone attempting to use mercury development needs to use a well-made fume hood with outside exhaust. A safer process is the Becquerel development, where the dag. plate is developed by exposing it to yellow light (no mercury). There is a great web site describing how to make dags at http://www.newdags.com.

gregory