Sonnar 250mm f/4 (Contarex)

The Sonnar 250mm f/4 was the longest lens of the original Contarex system. When Zeiss Ikon’s US distributor announced in April 1960 that the Stuttgart factory had begun shipping, the 250 was the last of six lenses on the price sheet, and at $329 list it cost more than the $315 Contarex body. The same month’s catalogue gives it a 10° angle of view, four elements, f/22 at the small end and a closest distance of 8 ft. It also calls it a “tele Sonnar” with “5X magnification over the standard lens”. Pacific Rim Camera, the source of most Contarex production figures, notes that it was the only black lens in the launch set.

There are two versions, and buyers can tell them apart from photos. The first (11.2406, 1959–1962 by Pacific Rim’s dates, 2,019 made) focuses with an ordinary helical ring and has its own preset diaphragm. The May 1961 US list says the 21mm Biogon and the 250mm Sonnar have “conventional, hand-operated diaphragms without interlock”. On a Bullseye, therefore, the meter does not couple to this lens automatically: shutter speed and aperture are set by hand. The second version (11.2421, 1963–1973, 2,645 made) is the Olympia-Sonnar. It has an automatic diaphragm worked from the body and a large focusing knob on the side. The Olympia-Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 and the Tele-Tessar 400mm f/5.6, which have their own pages here, focus with a knob in the same way. It listed at $549 in March 1968 “with rapid focusing grip with case”, and at $714 in October 1971. Both versions take 67mm screw-in filters. The factory lists use “Olympia” only for the later lens, but the name is not on the lens itself: the knob-focus examples photographed by Leitz (3464621) and by two Yahoo! Auctions Japan sellers in 2026 (one of them 3671749) are engraved plain “Sonnar 1:4 f=250mm”. Leitz nevertheless catalogued a 1961 first-type example as a “first type Olympia-Sonnar”, while Christie’s keeps a plain “Sonnar f/4 250mm” (2664xxx) apart from the “‘Olympia’ Sonnar” (3671xxx). This page follows the factory usage.

How the two versions compare optically is the main open question. Pacific Rim gives four elements in four groups for both, and English Wikipedia repeats that. However, the cross-section in the April 1960 catalogue shows the second and third elements sharing a flat face, which looks like a cemented pair and would make the first type a four-element, three-group lens. No source says whether the Olympia-Sonnar of 1963 was recomputed or simply rehoused. Zeiss’s earlier Sonnar 250mm f/4 for the Hasselblad 1600F and 1000F, which has its own page, is a four-element, three-group design according to its Zeiss data sheet, with a thick cemented pair at the centre, and that matches the reading of the Contarex drawing. No source states that they are the same computation, though, and the Hasselblad lens covers 6×6 behind an M77 filter thread. The two belong on separate pages. The Contarex Vario-Sonnar 85–250mm f/4, also covered separately, is a zoom of 15 elements by Pacific Rim’s count and is unrelated.

The market is thin. On Yahoo! Auctions Japan, a licensed Tokyo dealer sold an example titled “[A品] Carl Zeiss Sonnar 250mm F4 Contarex” at its buy-it-now price of ¥68,900 in June 2026, and a seller in Gifu sold another at a fixed ¥44,800 in May 2026, with case, hood and handle. Neither title names the version, but both listings’ photos show the knob-focus Olympia. At Leitz, one lot of each type went unsold. The 1961 first type (3261054, with hood, case and caps) was estimated at €600–700, and the 1963 Olympia (3464621) at €600–800. Leitz charges a buyer’s premium of 20–24% on a sale, but neither of these lots sold, so the estimates are all the evidence there is.

When buying, check the version against the photos: knob or ring, since the engraving will not tell you. On an Olympia-Sonnar, ask what comes with it. Christie’s lists a “grip” with each of its examples, and one 2026 listing shows a separate screw-in handle, but no source says which part the 1968 list means by “rapid focusing grip”. The case was part of the 1968 price. Also check that the automatic diaphragm closes briskly. Like the other Contarex lenses with a body-set aperture, the Olympia needs an adapter that supplies the aperture control before it will work on another camera. The first type sets its aperture on the lens itself, so it is the easier of the two to use on a modern body. Zeiss Ikon also sold focusing aids made for this lens: a split-image insert for the Contarex Special (20.1565, $20 in 1961, when the standard insert covered 35–135mm) and later a split-image viewing screen for the 250mm (20.1311, $7.50 in 1968, $9 in 1971). Weight and dimensions of either version, and any German launch price, are not on record.