I recently come across a lens made by Carl Zeiss jena with a Nikon AIS mount and very curious about this combination. As far as I know Carl Zeiss Jena is the former East Germany equivilent of the West's Carl Zeiss and some might claim the "real" Carl Zeiss factory. Anyway, I never know they made lenses for other manufacture and like to know about their quality? Can anybody tell me more about the Jena company and are they still in business making lenses for other camera makes? Just the thought of Zeiss lens on Niko body's is making my mouth water, maybe dreams do come true :-)

-- Frank Yang (fjyang@hotmail.com), July 12, 2001

Answers

It's probably a custom one-off job.
I came across a CZ Jena 20mm f/4 Flektogon in a Nikon fitting myself a couple of years ago. Always a sucker for an optical curiosity, I bought it. On close examination it turned out to be a conversion from an M42 fitting to Nikon, via a cunningly modified Vivitar T4 adapter. Very professionally done, but still a one-off, by all appearances. I'm in total admiration of the way that the auto diaphram coupling had been retained.
The Lens is overall slightly less sharp and contrasty than the Nikkor version, but the outer field definition is better in the Flektogon. It also seems to utilise the T(ransmission) stop system, since the maximum aperture is slightly physically larger than its marked f/4 aperture. Well worth the fifty quid that I paid for it.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 13, 2001.

About ten or fifteen years ago, Carl Zeiss Jena in former East Germany did sells a lot of CZJ lenses in all sort of mounts.

CZJ lenses are not made any more, after CZJ merged with Carl Zeiss.

CZJ was the military optic supplier for former Warsaw Pact, and their lenses are reasonably good, but the coating technique is not up to CZ standard, and has less contrast.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), July 14, 2001.

Hi Martin.
I think those later CZ Jena lenses, that were made in multiple fittings, were made in Japan and rebadged by CZJ, in order to try and cash in on their good reputation. Those lenses seemed to be a motley bunch of cheap zooms and nameless wideangles. To the best of my recollection, none of the venerable CZJ designs, like Jena S, Jena B, or Flektogon seemed to be available in other than Praktica fitting.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 16, 2001.