Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Glass

One page per lens family — variants, serial ranges, how to tell them apart, aggregated reviews, history, and live listings. 825 families across 22 systems.

Nikon rangefinder

Every family known to exist in the mount, including a few the reference books miss.

Carl Zeiss

Cosina Voigtländer

Fuji Photo Film

  • Fujinon 5cm f/1.2 — Nikon S + LTM + Contax RF · 1954 · Sonnar / double Gauss · 4 variants

Nippon Kogaku

Sankyo Koki

Soligor

Tanaka Kogaku

Zunow (Teikoku Kogaku)

  • Zunow 5cm f/1.1 — Nikon S + Contax RF + LTM · 1953 · Sonnar type · 6 variants

Nikon F

The mount Nikon has never abandoned: a lens from 1959 will meter on a body from 2020, which no other maker can say.

Nikon

Nippon Kogaku

Olympus OM

Zuiko glass for the OM bayonet, from the 50mm f/1.8 that came on every body to the 21mm f/2, the 90mm f/2 macro and the 250mm f/2 — built small because the camera was.

Canon FD

Canon’s manual-focus lenses of 1971 to 1990: the chrome-nose breech-lock FDs, the S.S.C. black-nose lenses, the New FD bayonet, and the L series that put aspherical and fluorite glass in a 35mm lens — a mount Canon abandoned for EOS in 1987 and never brought back.

Mamiya

Sekor glass for eight mounts that share a name and nothing else: leaf-shutter lenses for the RB67 and RZ67, the 645 bayonet and its 1999 autofocus successor, the paired lenses of the C-series twin-lens reflexes, and the rangefinder lenses of the Mamiya 6 and 7 that reviewers still put beside anything made for 120 film.

Pentax medium format

Takumar and SMC Pentax lenses for the 6×7, from the 55mm f/4 to the 105mm f/2.4 that is the reason most people buy the camera, and the 645 line that Pentax carried into autofocus.

Norita

Noritar lenses that Norita Kogaku designed and made for its own 6×6 SLR, seven focal lengths from a 40mm f/4 to a 400mm f/4.5, among them a 70mm with its own leaf shutter and an 80mm f/2 standard lens; the 55, 80 and 160 began as Rittron lenses for the Rittreck.

Contax 645

The nine Carl Zeiss lenses made for Kyocera’s 6×4.5 bayonet, from the Distagon 35mm f/3.5 to the Tele-Apotessar 350mm f/4, with the Planar 80mm f/2 as the standard lens.

Bronica

Nikkor, Zenzanon and Komura glass for the focal-plane 6×6 Bronicas of 1959–80, and the leaf-shutter Zenzanon lenses Bronica made for the ETR, SQ and GS-1 bayonets and the RF645 — four mounts that share a name and nothing else.

Nippon Kogaku

Sankyo Koki

Zenza Bronica

Fuji medium format

Fujinon lenses for 120 film: the interchangeable lenses of the G690 rangefinders, the fixed lenses of the GW and GSW “Texas Leicas”, the GS645 and GA645 and the GF670 folder, the GX lenses of the 6×8 studio SLR, and the four lenses of the GX617 panoramic.

Fuji Photo Film

Fujifilm

Rollei

The Zeiss and Schneider taking lenses of the twin-lens Rolleiflexes and Rolleicords — Tessar, Xenar, Planar and Xenotar — and the interchangeable Zeiss HFT and Schneider lenses of the SL66 and the electronic 6000-series SLRs.

Carl Zeiss

Carl Zeiss Jena

Rollei

Schneider-Kreuznach

Fujica

Fujinon and EBC Fujinon lenses for the screw-thread ST bodies, the first SLR lenses sold with Fuji’s eleven-layer Electron Beam Coating, and the X-Fujinons of the 1979 bayonet, which fit nothing else.

Contax rangefinder

Zeiss designs from Jena and Oberkochen, and the Soviet lenses built from them in Kyiv on machinery taken as reparations — the same formulas under two names.

Canon

Carl Zeiss

  • Biogon 21mm f/4.5 — Contax RF · 1954 · Biogon — symmetrical wide-angle · 1 variant
  • Tessar 2.8cm f/8 — Contax RF · 1932 · Tessar, four elements in three groups · 1 variant
  • Biogon 3.5cm f/2.8 — Contax RF · 1936 · Biogon — a symmetrical wide-angle, not a retrofocus · 2 variants
  • Biotar 4cm f/2 — Contax RF · 1932 · Biotar — a double Gauss, unlike the Sonnars around it · 2 variants
  • Sonnar 5cm f/1.5 — Contax RF · 1932 · Sonnar · 3 variants
  • Sonnar 5cm f/2 — Contax RF · 1932 · Sonnar, six elements in three groups · 3 variants
  • Tessar 5cm f/3.5 — Contax RF + M42 + Exakta · 1932 · Tessar · 5 variants
  • Sonnar 8.5cm f/2 — Contax RF · 1932 · Sonnar · 3 variants
  • Triotar 8.5cm f/4 — Contax RF · 1932 · Cooke triplet · 2 variants
  • Sonnar 13.5cm f/4 — Contax RF + M42 + Exakta · 1932 · Sonnar · 7 variants

Carl Zeiss Jena

KMZ

Voigtländer

Contax G

Seven Carl Zeiss lenses for Kyocera’s autofocus rangefinder of 1994 — six built in Japan and a Hologon from Germany — including the first zoom ever made for a rangefinder camera.

Avenon

Carl Zeiss

Contax S and Pentacon

Carl Zeiss Jena lenses in the 42mm screw thread of the Dresden reflexes: the Biotar 58mm f/2 they were sold with, the Tessar, Flektogon and Biometar, the Triotar and Sonnar teles, and the Contax rangefinder designs Jena rebuilt for the mirror; with Meyer’s Primotar.

Carl Zeiss

Carl Zeiss Jena

Meyer-Optik Görlitz

Contax SLR

Carl Zeiss T* lenses for the Contax/Yashica bayonet of 1975 to 2005 — Distagon, Planar, Sonnar, Tessar, Mirotar and the Vario-Sonnar zooms, built in Oberkochen and then in Japan — and the nine autofocus lenses made for the N mount at the end.

Hasselblad

Everything Hasselblad built for 120 film: the 6×6 V system from the 1600F of 1948 onward with its Zeiss and Schneider glass, the Ross-built military cameras of 1940–45 where the company began, and the autofocus H system of 2002.

Carl Zeiss

Hasselblad

Heinz Kilfitt

Hugo Meyer

J. H. Dallmeyer

Kodak

Piesker & Co.

Rodenstock

Schneider-Kreuznach

Taylor, Taylor & Hobson

Leica M

The bayonet Leitz introduced in 1954 and has never abandoned — a 1954 Summicron mounts on a camera made this year.

Carl Zeiss

  • Hologon 15mm f/8 — Leica M · 1972 · Hologon — a symmetrical thick-meniscus triplet · 1 variant

Cosina Voigtländer

Ernst Leitz

Ernst Leitz Canada

Leica

Light Lens Lab

Minolta

Schneider-Kreuznach

Leica screw mount

The 39mm thread Leitz standardised in 1931 and never patented — which is why lenses from Wetzlar, Tokyo, Yokohama and Kiev all fit the same body.

Avenon

Canon

Cosina Voigtländer

Ernst Leitz

Fuji Photo Film

  • Fujinon 3.5cm f/2 — LTM · 1954 · Double Gauss with an added rear element, 7e/5g · 1 variant

Konishiroku

  • Hexanon 60mm f/1.2 — LTM · 1955 · Gauss-derived, 8e/6g (1955); 7e/6g (1999 reissue) · 2 variants

Light Lens Lab

Minolta

Zunow (Teikoku Kogaku)

Canon rangefinder

Canon’s own mounts: the Hansa bayonet of 1936 that Nippon Kogaku made for it, and the outer bayonet of the Canon 7 for the f/0.95 and the Mirror Box. Everything else Canon made for a rangefinder is a 39 mm screw lens and is filed under Leica screw mount.

Canon

Nippon Kogaku

Hasselblad XPan

Alpa

Pignons made no lenses. Kern of Aarau, Angénieux, Schneider, Kinoptik, Old Delft and Kilfitt made them in the Alpa bayonet, in hundreds and low thousands, and the Kern Macro-Switar 50mm is the reason the bodies still sell.

Angénieux

Kern

Kinoptik

Old Delft

Schacht

Schneider-Kreuznach

Spectros