S-Planar 50mm f/4 (Contarex)

Carl Zeiss · Contarex · 1963

our own finding

Also known as: S-Planar 4/50 Contarex · S-Planar 4/50 · S-Planar 50mm f4 · S-Planar 50mm f/4 Contarex · Contarex S-Planar 50mm F4 · Contarex S-Planar 4/50mm · Carl Zeiss S-Planar 4/50mm · Carl Zeiss f. Contarex S-Planar 4/50mm · Zeiss S-Planar 50mm f/4 Contarex macro · S-Planar 1:4 f=50mm · S Planar 50mm F4 Contarex · コンタレックス S-Planar 50mm F4 · Carl Zeiss S-Planar 50mm F4 コンタレックス

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Chrome, first batch (1963)	Contarex	1963–1963	3698200–3698399 (Cavina)	200 (Marco Cavina; Flashback Camera, citing records in the Oberkochen edition of what it calls the Zeiss 'telephone book')
Black, second batch (1966)	Contarex	1966–1966	4229130–4229329 (Cavina)	200 (Cavina; Flashback Camera)

Closest focus is given three ways. Pacific Rim and the English Wikipedia lens table give a range of 24–60 cm. Cavina gives 73 to 24 cm measured from the focal plane. Flashback Camera gives about 15 to 70 cm measured from the front of the lens. The 24 cm figure appears both as Pacific Rim's figure and as Cavina's film-plane figure, so this page carries 0.24 m; the far limit (60, 70 or 73 cm) is unsettled. The lens has no infinity setting at all.
Reproduction range 1:13 to 1:2.8: the 1968 Zeiss Ikon list ('for scale reproductions at 1:2.8 to 1:13 only') and Cavina. Cavina gives the field covered on a 23 × 35 mm frame as 30.0 × 45.5 cm at 1:13 and '6.4 × 9.7 mm' at 1:2.8; at 1:2.8 the arithmetic gives about 6.4 × 9.8 cm, so his 'mm' is a slip for centimetres. He says Zeiss optimised the design for a front conjugate of about 40 cm.
Weight 256 g is Flashback's measured figure for its 1966 black lens; another Flashback listing (item 019666) gives about 260 g. No maker figure is on record.
Filters: Pacific Rim gives B56 and S49, Cavina a B56 bayonet and a 49 mm thread, and the October 1971 US list 'Bay 56mm'. Cavina describes the diaphragm as hexagonal, not the many-bladed star-shaped iris of most Contarex lenses; no source gives a blade count, so none is entered.
Dates: Pacific Rim gives 1963–1966 and 400 made, which matches Cavina's two batches. The lens was nonetheless still on Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer's US lists in 1968 ($269), February 1971 and October 1971 ($348). Cavina says the two first batches covered demand for the lens's whole commercial life, which reconciles the two: production stopped in 1966, sales did not.
Leitz Auction 34, lot 368 is titled 'Carl Zeiss f. Contarex 4/50mm S-Planar chrome', but its serial, 4229307, and its 1966 date put it in Cavina's black batch, and Leitz's own photographs show the same black barrel with chrome focusing ring, front flange and mount ring as its black lens 4229320. The lot text itself names no finish. The 'chrome' in the title is best read as a slip or as describing the chrome rings; no chrome variant of 1966 is entered.
Production figures (200 + 200) rest on Cavina and on Flashback, which attributes them to records in the Oberkochen edition of what it calls the Zeiss telephone book ('ツァイス電話帳' on its Japanese page); Cavina names no source for his figures. Leitz repeats 'second batch of 200' and '400 made in total' in its lot texts.

How to tell them apart (expand)

No infinity: the focusing mount covers a short close-up range only, and the scale is engraved in reproduction ratios from 1:13 to 1:2.8 instead of distances; Cavina adds that a conversion scale to DIN-A paper sizes was supplied
Front ring engraved 'S-Planar 1:4 f=50mm' (Leitz photographs): not the Planar 50mm f/2 or the black B-Planar 50mm f/2 sold with Contarex bodies, both of which focus to infinity
No aperture ring on the lens (Leitz photographs): like most Contarex lenses it is stopped down from the body, so on another camera it needs an adapter that works the diaphragm
Dual filter fitting at the front, the Contarex B56 bayonet with a 49 mm thread inside (Pacific Rim, Cavina)
Much shorter than its Contax/Yashica successor, the S-Planar (later Makro-Planar) 60mm f/2.8, whose long helicoid runs from infinity to 1:1 (Cavina)

Chrome, first batch (1963):

Satin-chrome barrel, serial in the 3698xxx block
Examples: 3698278, 3698301, 3698353 and 3698365 (Leitz, each dated 1963, the last three described as from the first batch of 200); 3698391, one of the last of the batch, photographed by Cavina

Black, second batch (1966):

Black anodised barrel, serial in the 4229xxx block, with a satin-chrome knurled focusing ring, chrome front flange and chrome rear mount ring (Leitz photographs of 4229307 and 4229320; Flashback also describes the front flange of its black example as chrome)
Examples: 4229177, 4229269, 4229320 and 4229324 (Leitz, each dated 1966, the 4229324 lens offered twice); Flashback's overhauled black lens of 1966 (item 026554)

Chrome, first batch (1963): The first look of the lens: Cavina gives 200 lenses assembled in 1963 in a satin chrome finish, numbered 3,698,200 to 3,698,399, after a single prototype. Leitz has sold four of them, all inside that block. Pacific Rim calls the lens scarce in both finishes.
Black, second batch (1966): Cavina's second batch of 200, numbered 4,229,130 to 4,229,329 and finished in the black anodising that had by then become standard across the range. Leitz calls these lenses the 'second batch of 200'. The 1968 US list and both 1971 US lists do not separate the finishes; all carry the one number, 11.2415.

Serial-range notes

3698200–3698399: The 1963 chrome batch as Cavina gives it. Every dated chrome example found at Leitz (3698278, 3698301, 3698353, 3698365) and Cavina's own 3698391 fall inside it.
4229130–4229329: The 1966 black batch as Cavina gives it. Leitz's black lenses 4229177, 4229269, 4229320 and 4229324 fall inside it. So does 4229307, which Leitz titled 'chrome' although its photographs show a black lens (see the notes under the table).
1020960: Cavina records a single prototype before the first batch, marked 'Versuch 1963 n° 7/1', with this atypical number.

Specifications

Formula: Planar (double-Gauss) reproduction lens: 6 elements in 4 groups, nearly symmetrical, with no floating elements
Construction: 6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range: f/4
Min. focus: 0.24 m
Weight: 256 g
Filter: 49 mm, Contarex B56 bayonet outside, 49 mm screw thread inside
Years manufactured: 1963–1966
Country: West Germany (Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen)
Coating: Two-layer anti-reflection coating of the Contarex and Hasselblad lenses; not T*
Original price: $269 US list on Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer's Contarex System list of 1 March 1968 (11.2415, 'for scale reproductions at 1:2.8 to 1:13 only'), when the Planar 55/1.4 listed at $239 and the B-Planar 50/2 at $189. $348 list on the confidential dealer schedule of 15 February 1971 (dealer net $232 for one or two) and on the US list of 1 October 1971. No 1963 launch price and no DM price is on record. (today $2,420)

What reviewers say

Marco Cavina (blog) — A brief, informal trial at f/8 on Velvia against the Contax S-Planar 60/2.8, not a systematic test: both lenses very saturated and brilliant with high macro-contrast, a slight apparent edge to the newer 60mm, and in 1963 perhaps only the Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 could have rivalled it. Focusing an f/4 lens at close range through a Contarex Super's finder he found very hard.

Optical formula — Planar (double-Gauss) reproduction lens: 6 elements in 4 groups, nearly symmetrical, with no floating elements

Marco Cavina's drawing of the Contarex S-Planar 50/4 and the Contax S-Planar 60/2.8 side by side

History

The S-Planar 50mm f/4 is the Contarex system’s reproduction lens: a Planar built to copy flat originals with very high contrast and almost no distortion. To get that, Zeiss gave up infinity focus entirely. Zeiss Ikon’s US list of 1 March 1968 describes catalogue number 11.2415 as being ‘for scale reproductions at 1:2.8 to 1:13 only’. The focusing scale is engraved in those reproduction ratios rather than in distances, and Marco Cavina, who handled and shot one in 2008, says a conversion scale to DIN-A paper sizes came with it. Every source gives the same construction, 6 elements in 4 groups. Cavina calls it a ‘rigid’ Gauss design: nearly symmetrical, with no floating elements, optimised for a front conjugate of about 40 cm. Because a fixed design like this develops field curvature away from its best distance, Zeiss simply limited the focusing travel to a short range either side of it. The front takes the Contarex B56 bayonet and has a 49 mm thread inside. Cavina describes the diaphragm as hexagonal, not the star-shaped iris of most Contarex lenses, and the coating as the two-layer type Zeiss used on Contarex and Hasselblad lenses before T*.

There were 400 lenses, made in two batches. Cavina gives a single prototype, marked ‘Versuch 1963 n° 7/1’, then 200 satin-chrome lenses in 1963 numbered 3,698,200 to 3,698,399. A second batch of 200 followed in 1966, numbered 4,229,130 to 4,229,329, in the black anodising that had become standard by then. Flashback Camera gives the same 200 + 200 split, citing records in the Oberkochen edition of what it calls the Zeiss telephone book, and Leitz describes most of its lots as ‘first batch’ or ‘second batch of 200’. Every dated example Leitz has sold falls inside Cavina’s blocks. The one apparent exception is lot 368 of Leitz Auction 34, titled ‘chrome’ but numbered 4229307 and dated 1966, from the black batch; Leitz’s own photographs show it with the black barrel and chrome rings of its other 1966 lenses, so the title, not the lens, is the odd one out. The earliest US list that carries the lens is that of 1 March 1968; the May 1961 catalogue predates it. It cost $269 in March 1968, more than the Planar 55/1.4 ($239) or the B-Planar 50/2 ($189), and was still listed at $348 in February and October 1971. Pacific Rim’s production dates of 1963–1966 and those later lists do not conflict. Cavina says the lack of infinity and the slow aperture put buyers off, so that the first batches covered demand for the lens’s whole commercial life.

The focusing range is the figure sources disagree on most. Pacific Rim and the English Wikipedia lens table give 24–60 cm. Cavina gives 73 to 24 cm measured from the focal plane, and Flashback about 15 to 70 cm measured from the front of the lens. The 24 cm close limit, from the film, is the best supported. Cavina tried the lens briefly at f/8 on Velvia against its Contax/Yashica successor, the S-Planar 60mm f/2.8, which was later renamed Makro-Planar. He found both very saturated and brilliant, with a slight apparent edge to the 60mm, and judged that in 1963 perhaps only the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 could have rivalled the Contarex lens. He also found an f/4 lens at close range very hard to focus through a Contarex Super’s finder, where the semi-transparent metering patch in the mirror darkens the centre of the screen. The 1968 list offered it alongside Zeiss Ikon’s table reproduction stand and the Tessar 115mm f/3.5, listed ‘for use with bellows extension only’.

Today it trades as a rarity. At Leitz, chrome lenses have made €720 to €2,640 and black ones €1,440 to €2,640; Leitz publishes these as hammer prices including buyer’s premium. The ‘chrome’-titled 1966 lens, which came with a matching plastic keeper, made €3,360. Lens 4229324 went unsold at an estimate of €2,400–2,600 in one sale and made €1,800 in a later one. The cheapest, chrome 3698301 at €720, was described as having some cleaning marks and a keeper with another serial number. Check the focusing mount first: Flashback says the helicoid on this lens often becomes heavy, and both its examples had been serviced. Then check the glass for cleaning marks. The lens has no aperture ring and, like most Contarex lenses, is stopped down from the body, so on a digital body it needs an adapter that works the diaphragm. Flashback’s test pictures were made on a Leica SL. The other 50mm Contarex lenses, the Planar 50mm f/2, the black B-Planar and the Tessar 50mm f/2.8, all focus to infinity, and an S-Planar engraving and an f/4 aperture identify this one at a glance.

Left open: the designer, a 1963 launch price in dollars or Deutsche Mark, a maker’s weight, the blade count of the hexagonal diaphragm, and which far focusing limit is right.

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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.

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