Zeiss Sonnar

Sonnar is a trademark for a series of photographing lenses (including camera lenses ) of Carl Zeiss. Well-known manufacturers such as Hasselblad camera lead, Rollei and Linhof and led Sonnar lenses in their offer.

Origin of the name was published in 1924, quite unknown retarded lens of the Contessa - Nettel AG, which merged into the new Zeiss Ikon AG 1926. Became famous the name " Sonnar " because it was taken for a then new type of lens, the Ludwig Bertele developed as Zeiss optics engineer from 1930 from the Ernostar type ( triplet variant) for the Contax rangefinder. This classic Sonnar - type to the opening 1: 1.5 consisted of 4 to 7 elements in 3 groups, whereby undesired lens reflexes remained relatively low because of the cemented surfaces less light is reflected. The compensation had not been invented at that time.

This lens type proved to be very powerful and successful and was rebuilt after 1945 by other manufacturers and modified, particularly in the Soviet Union (" Jupiter" ) and in Japan. Among the various developments of the triplets, the Sonnar is one of the best but also most expensive. Newer Sonnar since the 1960s are partly composed of 4 or 5 elements in 4 groups, similar to the Ernostar type, such as the Sonnar 2,8 / 40 of the Rollei 35 S. Under the name Zeiss Vario-Sonnar has also zoom lenses offered, what a fundamental change in the optical construction required.