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

Biogon 21mm f/4.5 (Contarex)

Carl Zeiss · Contarex · 1958

Also known as: Contarex Biogon 21mm f/4.5 · Contarex Biogon 21mm · Contarex Biogon 21 · Contarex Biogon 4.5/21 · Biogon 21mm f/4.5 Contarex · Biogon 4.5/21 Contarex · Biogon 4.5/21mm Contarex · Zeiss Biogon 21mm f4.5 Contarex · Carl Zeiss Biogon 21mm F4.5 Contarex用 · Biogon 21mm F4.5 Contarex Mount · Biogon 21mm Crx mount · Biogon 21mm 1:4.5 Contarex · Biogon 21 mm f/4.5 Contarex · コンタレックス ビオゴン 21mm F4.5 · ビオゴン 21mm F4.5 コンタレックス用 · Contarex 21mm Biogon

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Biogon 21mm f/4.5 for Contarex (11.2402) Contarex 1958–1962 — 4,000, all chrome (Pacific Rim Camera; Flashback gives the same total)
  1. Dates. Pacific Rim Camera gives 1958–62 and English Wikipedia's lens table 1958; Flashback says it appeared in 1959 and was sold until 1962, yet dates both of its own examples to 1964, as Leitz does one of its lenses. Camera-wiki says the Contarex was first shown as a working model at Photokina 1958 and was generally available in 1959; Zeiss Ikon's US dealer bulletin of 1 April 1960 announced that the Stuttgart factory was beginning to ship the camera to the US. The lens is on the US list of May 1961 and not among the lenses on the list of March 1968; no source fixes the last year more closely.
  2. Closest focus. Zeiss Ikon's 1961 table gives 3 ft (0.9 m), and Shige, who uses the lens, gives 0.9 m. Kamerastore lists 0.6 m and Flashback's English text for one lens 2 ft (about 60 cm). Flashback's Japanese text for that lens, and its English text for a second one, suggest why the figures differ: the metre scale is engraved to 0.5 m, but the helicoid stops at 1 m, and depth of field carries focus down to 0.5 m even wide open.
  3. Weight 275 g is Kamerastore's figure; Flashback weighed two examples at 270 g and 276 g, and Shige gives 271 g for the lens alone. Dimensions disagree too: Kamerastore 59 × 51 mm, Shige 55 mm across and 35 mm long. Neither set of dimensions is given in the table.
  4. Eight aperture blades from Kamerastore and Shige; neither of the Zeiss Ikon lists cited here gives the count.
  5. Filters. Pacific Rim gives the fitting as B56, Kamerastore and Shige as 49 mm. Both are right: the 1961 catalogue sells 56 mm bayonet filters and 49 mm screw-in filters for the Contarex lenses from 21mm to 135mm, and adds that 49 mm filters should be used on the 21mm Biogon, with the 20.0710 shade, to avoid slight vignetting.
  6. The finder is not a reliable way to tell the Contarex lens from the Contax rangefinder Biogon. The 1961 US catalogue lists the same wide-angle finder, 20.1500 at $27, under both the Contarex and the Contax headings. Leitz Auction describes the finder sold with its Contarex lenses as '21mm finder 435' and the one with a Contax lens (no. 1421442) as '21mm finder 431', but Pacific Rim Camera shows the Contax lens on a Contax IIa 'with the standard 21mm finder No. 435'.
  7. Shige reports that the lens has been sold mounted on a Leica M adapter without rangefinder coupling, and that it could still be seen offered that way in 2023. Listings for adapted or converted lenses are kept off this page.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Told apart from the Contax IIa/IIIa Biogon by its Contarex bayonet and its 49 mm thread / 56 mm bayonet front. In the 1961 US list the Contarex lens is 11.2402, the Contax lens 11.1804
  • In the 1961 US list, one of only two Contarex lenses with a hand-operated diaphragm, the other being the 250mm Sonnar; the 35mm to 135mm lenses have an automatic preset diaphragm coupled to the camera
  • Cannot be mounted on a Contarex unless the mirror is locked up; it is used with a shoe finder and set by scale

Biogon 21mm f/4.5 for Contarex (11.2402):

  • Contarex bayonet at the rear, with the rear element protruding well beyond it (Flashback) behind a guard held by a screw (Shige); Zeiss Ikon's 1961 list sells a rear cap for the 21mm alone, 20.0626, and Flashback sold one lens with a deep aluminium rear cap engraved Zeiss Ikon
  • Diaphragm set on the lens: Zeiss Ikon's 1961 catalogue gives the 21mm Biogon, like the 250mm Sonnar, a conventional hand-operated diaphragm with no interlock to the camera, where the 35–135mm lenses of the time have an automatic preset diaphragm worked from the body
  • Chrome only (Pacific Rim). Takes the 56 mm bayonet shade 20.0710, shared with the 35mm Distagon
  • Distance scales in feet on Contarex lenses sold in the US (1961 catalogue); in metres, engraved down to 0.5 m, on the two examples Flashback describes

Serial-range notes

2621749, 2622774
The two lowest numbers seen. 2621749 is one of three Biogon 21mm lenses in Christie's "definitive Zeiss Ikon Contarex Collection" lot; 2622774 came in Leitz Auction's Contarex Bullseye outfit D23330, which Leitz dates to 1964, with a 21mm finder 435, front cap and hood. On the Oberkochen serial table (camera-wiki, after the Lens Collector's Vade Mecum) the 2,600,000–3,000,000 band covers 1959–61, so the lens in that 1964 outfit was probably made some years before the camera.
3255843, 3256262, 3256361
Leitz dates 3255843 to 1960 (sold with a 21mm finder 435) and 3256262, a few hundred numbers later, to 1964 (offered unsold); Christie's lists 3256361 without a date. Flashback dates its own lens "in the 3,250,000 range" to 1964. The same Oberkochen table puts 3,000,000–4,000,000 at 1961–65, which fits the 1964 dates and not Leitz's 1960. Neither auction house nor Flashback says how it dates a lens.
3448304, 344xxxx
The highest numbers seen: 3448304 in the Christie's lot, and a Flashback lens "in the 3.44 million range" that the dealer also dates to 1964. No serial block or batch list for this lens has been published.

Specifications

Formula
Biogon: symmetrical wide-angle, not retrofocus, with the rear group reaching deep into the mirror box
Construction
8 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/4.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
8
Min. focus
0.9 m
Weight
275 g
Filter
49 mm, Bayonet 56, or 49 mm screw-in; Zeiss Ikon advised the 49 mm filters to avoid slight vignetting
Years manufactured
1958–1962
Country
West Germany
Coating
Anti-reflection coated on all air-to-glass surfaces (Zeiss Ikon, May 1961)
Material
Chrome
Original price
$219 US list, April 1960 (Zeiss Ikon Trade News No. 25; dealer net $133.66 plus $13.37 excise). $229 US list by 1 May 1961. Finder extra: $25 in 1960, $27 in 1961. (today $2,320)

What reviewers say

History

The 21mm Biogon was one of the six Carl Zeiss lenses the Contarex system was first offered with, and it is the odd one out. It is a symmetrical wide-angle rather than a retrofocus design, so its rear group reaches deep into the mirror box. On a Contarex the mirror has to be locked up before the lens goes on. The reflex finder is then blind, and the photographer frames through a separate finder in the accessory shoe and focuses by the scale. Pacific Rim Camera says the lens was designed for use with the first two bodies only, the Bullseye and the Special. The Zeiss Ikon instruction books tell a slightly different story. The Professional’s booklet explains how to fit the Biogon: tension the shutter, raise the mirror with the sliding button on the top plate, then insert the lens and frame with the 21mm finder. The instructions for the Super (p.17) and the Super Electronic (p.21) say instead that the Biogon “supplied for the previous CONTAREX model” cannot be used with those cameras.

Optically it is the Biogon 21mm f/4.5 of the Contax rangefinder, introduced in 1953 by Pacific Rim Camera’s date and in 1954 by most other accounts, in a new barrel. Pacific Rim calls the Contarex lens basically the same design as the Contax one and gives it eight elements in five groups. Zeiss Ikon’s May 1961 US catalogue gives the two lenses identical rows: 90°, eight elements, f/22, closest focus 3 ft, and the same coverage at that distance. Its claim that the 21mm Biogon was the first 90-degree wide-angle lens for 35mm belongs to that Contax lens, which Pacific Rim describes the same way. No Zeiss document says in so many words that the computation is unchanged, but nothing points to a different one, and the Contax rangefinder lens has its own page. The barrels differ. The Contarex lens has the Contarex bayonet, a 49 mm thread inside a 56 mm bayonet front, and a diaphragm set by hand on the lens. In the 1961 list only the 250mm Sonnar shares that; the 35mm to 135mm lenses have an automatic preset diaphragm worked from the body.

The prices come from the US distributor’s own documents. Zeiss Ikon Trade News of 1 April 1960, which announced that the factory was beginning to ship the camera to the US, lists the Biogon at $219 and its finder at $25. The dealer price list of 1 May 1961 has them at $229 list (catalogue no. 11.2402) and $27 (finder 20.1500). The same list sells the Contax rangefinder Biogon at $219 and gives the same finder number for it, and Pacific Rim shows the Contax lens with the finder No. 435 that Leitz Auction pairs with its Contarex lenses, so a finder in the box does not settle which lens a seller has. Pacific Rim puts production at 4,000, all chrome. The lens is not among the lenses on the US list of March 1968, although that list still describes a carrying case for the 21mm Biogon and its finder. By then the retrofocus Distagon 18mm f/4 and 25mm f/2.8 covered the wide end of the system.

On the market, Leitz Auction sold no. 3255843 with its finder for a €540 hammer price including buyer’s premium, under an estimate of €800–1,000. A second Leitz lot went unsold at an estimate of €600–800. Kamerastore asked €569 for one example and gives €599 as its average price for a lens in certified condition. On Yahoo! Auctions Japan a lens in Contarex mount closed at ¥62,000, the listing’s buy-it-now price, after six bids in May 2026. One Contax rangefinder lens fetched more: Leitz sold it for €960 including premium under the same title, “Carl Zeiss Biogon 4.5/21mm”.

When buying, check whether the lens comes on its own or fitted to an adapter: Shige reports it being sold on a Leica M adapter without rangefinder coupling, so on a rangefinder it is focused by scale. Check the protruding rear element, which sits close to the film behind a guard held by a screw that some owners remove, and ask for the deep rear cap made for this lens. On older full-frame digital sensors the lens vignettes and casts purple at the edges, so Shige, who uses one, recommends it for monochrome.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

More sample photos elsewhere

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a Biogon 21mm f/4.5 (Contarex)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Listings updated 2026-11-04. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Distagon 18mm f/4 (Contarex) · Distagon 25mm f/2.8 (Contarex)

Sources (22)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.