Distagon 18mm f/4 (Contarex)

The Distagon 18mm f/4 is the widest rectilinear lens Carl Zeiss sold for the Contarex. It arrived in 1967, when, by German Wikipedia’s count, the range reached eighteen lenses, and it covered 100°. Pacific Rim Camera calls it the widest rectilinear lens to reach serial production for the system: the 15mm f/3.5 Distagon of 1972 got no further than two prototypes, the F-Distagon 16mm of 1973 is a fisheye, and the Hologon is fixed to its own camera, the Hologon Ultrawide. Before it, the widest Contarex lens was the 21mm Biogon, at 90°. Like the 25mm and 35mm Distagons it is a retrofocus design, ten elements in nine groups, and Flashback Camera notes that it sits clear of the mirror, so no mirror lock-up is needed. Flashback gives 0.3 m as the closest focus and weighed one copy at 355 g. Zeiss’s product code was 11.2418, and Pacific Rim lists it in black only.

The front is what sets it apart from the other Contarex wides. Pacific Rim explains that ordinary screw-in filters could vignette on a lens this wide with this barrel, so Zeiss gave it a separate adapter ring for Bayonet 96 filters, the size the Vario-Sonnar zooms also used. Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer’s US list of March 1968 offers yellow, UV and skylight filters in that size at $39 to $48. The lens also had a focusing screen of its own. The February and October 1971 lists carry screen 20.1317, “for 18mm lens only”, at $13.50; the 1968 list does not yet have it. Christie’s describes the screen as rose-coloured, Flashback as pink and Leitz as either, and no source explains what about it suits the 18mm. Lenses that still have the adapter ring, filters, screen and the maker’s case are the complete outfit, and the Super Electronic’s aluminium system case, 20.7890, had a place for an 18mm Distagon.

It was expensive and stayed scarce. The US list price was $330 in March 1968, more than the 25mm or either 35mm, and $426 in 1971, when the dealer’s net price was $284. Pacific Rim puts its scarcity down to that price. Production figures disagree: Pacific Rim gives 1,683 made from 1967 to 1972, Flashback Camera 2,500, and neither cites a source. The serial numbers seen fall into two groups. One is the 4492xxx block, which Leitz (on eight lenses) and Flashback date to 1967; the other is 4842xxx to 4843xxx, with a Leitz copy dated 1970. That suggests two batches, but no source gives their sizes, so the serials do not settle which production figure is right. At Leitz Photographica Auction, 1967 lenses have made between €720 and €1,320, with no clear premium for the special screen or filter adapter, and a near-mint 1970 lens with its adapter and filter made €1,800; each is a hammer price that includes buyer’s premium. A 1967 lens with the pink screen and B96 ring went unsold against a €1,200 to €1,400 estimate.

The name is shared with two later lenses, and the specifications overlap. The Contax/Yashica Distagon T* 18mm f/4 of 1975 also has ten elements in nine groups and focuses to 0.3 m, by Japanese Wikipedia’s account, which also credits it with a close-range correction that no Contarex source mentions. No source says that it is the Contarex computation in a new barrel, so the two are kept on separate pages. The C/Y lens is easy to tell from photographs: it has an aperture ring, T* on the front ring and a 70 mm clip-on front instead of the B96 adapter. A Distagon 4/18 was also made in Rollei mount: Leitz has sold one, dated 1995, modified for the Rollei 3003 as the “Metrische Version”. In listings, a 4/18 Distagon with no aperture ring and no T* is the Contarex lens.

Published user reports are scarce. The Old Good Light blog, writing in 2020 from a Sony A7 II, found distortion very low, fall-off gone by f/8 and resolution excellent at middle apertures, with sharp corners, though not at its best at f/4. It found contrast moderate to low and flare severe in oblique light, and noted that screw-in filters can be fitted but may vignette. When buying, check for haze and coating wear on the large front element. Leitz described both on copies it sold, and the blog warns about haze and fungus too. Make sure the filter adapter ring comes with the lens. The aperture is set from the camera, so a Contarex body or an adapter that drives the lens’s own iris is needed. An adapter with an iris of its own will not do, and the blog warns against those. On the Contarex bodies themselves, check that the automatic diaphragm snaps open and closed cleanly.