Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 (Contarex)

The Planar 85mm f/1.4 is the latest lens in the Contarex range: English Wikipedia’s lens table dates it to 1974, later than any other lens it lists. Carl Zeiss Oberkochen made it under catalogue number 11.2444, a Planar of 6 elements in 5 groups covering 29°, with T* multicoating and a 67 mm filter. The barrel is black, with the satin-chrome knurled focusing ring of the other Contarex lenses; the front ring reads “Planar 1:1,4 f=85mm” with a red T*. Pacific Rim Camera gives 400 made; Flashback Camera says “about 400”, and Leitz Photographica Auction adds “total production 400 lenses only” to most of its lot texts. Like the automatic Contarex lenses it has no aperture ring, because the body sets the aperture.

The lens came too late for the camera. English Wikipedia says Zeiss Ikon stopped making cameras in 1972, and Pacific Rim says the 85/1.4 went into production “just as Zeiss Ikon began the process of ending camera sales”, so it never had much chance to sell. One example is recorded with the last bodies: the Christie’s Contarex collection sold in South Kensington in October 1997 included no. 5771211 in an SE outfit with two black Contarex Electronic bodies. No list price is on record. The US Contarex lists of March 1968 and October 1971 offer only the Sonnar 85mm f/2 as a fixed 85 mm lens, at $232 and $300, and no 1974 price list in dollars or Deutschmarks is on record. Pacific Rim says the lens appeared afterwards in the Rolleiflex SL35 system and then in the Contax SLR line, which treats the three as one lens in new mounts. English Wikipedia’s lens table, citing Pacific Rim, says it is more commonly found in Rollei’s QBM mount. The Contax/Yashica Planar T* 85mm f/1.4 of 1975 is also 6 elements in 5 groups with a 67 mm filter. No source compares the computations element by element, so beyond Pacific Rim’s statement it is not established that they are one design. In use the Contarex lens is easy to tell apart: Flashback and Leitz both describe its unusual three-bladed diaphragm, which Flashback says draws triangular highlights once the lens is stopped down.

There is one version. Every recorded example is black, and every serial falls in one block, 5771088 to 5771438. Flashback adds, in its own words “said to have been” and “rumored”, that the lens was a special order for professional use; no other source says so. Leitz has also sold a cut-away display Planar 1.4/85mm T* “for Contarex” with a cracked front element, for €1,200 including buyer’s premium. Leitz dates it c.1968, six years before the lens appeared, and nothing published settles whether that date is a mistake or the piece came from development. Note the title trap: Leitz uses the same plain title, “Carl Zeiss Planar 1,4/85mm T*”, for the Contax/Yashica lens (no. 6097677, 1977, €408). Read the lot text or the mount before trusting a title.

Prices are auction results. Leitz sold no. 5771104 for €4,624 and later, on resale, for €4,080; no. 5771231 (which Leitz printed as 57712310) for €4,500; no. 5771438, catalogued as “100% new” with UV filter and maker’s box, for €4,749; no. 5771249 for €4,800; no. 5771088 for €6,000; no. 5771209 for €7,200; and no. 5771409 for €7,800. All of those figures are Leitz hammer prices including buyer’s premium, under the margin scheme. At a later sale no. 5771091 went unsold against an estimate of €1,400–1,600, far below the €4,000–6,000 estimates of the earlier lots, offered under full VAT taxation. When buying, check the serial against the 5771xxx block, the black barrel with its chrome focusing ring and the three-blade diaphragm. Look at the front element under a strong light: Flashback reports a very faint trace of coating deterioration on a copy overhauled in 2025 that it otherwise describes as near new. To use the lens on another camera you need an adapter with its own aperture control. Flashback has sold one copy with a Fotodiox Contarex–Leica M adapter and posted test galleries from Leica M10-P and SL bodies. No published review of this lens is on record. The distance scale in Flashback’s photographs ends at 1 m (3.5 ft); weight and dimensions are not given in the sources cited here. Sibling pages cover the other Contarex lenses, among them the Sonnar 85mm f/2 and the Planar 55mm f/1.4.