Vario-Sonnar 85–250mm f/4 (Contarex)

The Vario-Sonnar 85–250mm f/4 is the long one of the two zooms Carl Zeiss Oberkochen made for the Contarex. Pacific Rim Camera dates its introduction to Photokina 1966, the same show as the 40–120mm f/2.8, and gives Zeiss Ikon’s product code 11.2424, 15 elements in 11 groups, an angle of view of 29° to 10°, a 96 mm bayonet filter, a black finish only, and a weight of nearly eight and a half pounds. English Wikipedia’s Contarex lens table repeats the 15/11 and the 1966 date from Pacific Rim. German Wikipedia’s Contarex article lists it as 80–250 mm, which no price list, auction house or other reference supports; the lens itself is engraved 1:4/85-250mm. It has no aperture ring. Camera-wiki notes that Contarex lenses are stopped down from the aperture wheel on the camera body, and Leitz’s photographs of no. 4542306 show only focusing and zoom rings on the barrel. It takes the Contarex bayonet of the system’s SLR bodies, from the Bullseye to the Super Electronic.

Its interest is as a statement of policy. Pacific Rim calls it a marketing failure. Its reading is that zooms were beginning to sell because buyers would give up a little image quality for convenience, and that Zeiss Ikon would not make that trade, so its two zooms gave up affordability and weight instead. The price lists bear this out. On Zeiss Ikon-Voigtländer’s US list of 1 March 1968 the 85–250 was listed at $849, against $549 for the fixed 250mm Olympia-Sonnar and $660 for the 40–120 zoom. Only the two Mirotar mirror lenses cost more. The confidential dealer schedule effective 15 February 1971 lists it at $1,098, with a dealer net of $732 for one or two pieces, and the US list of 1 October 1971 still prints $1,098. By then the Mirotars were on special order only, so the zoom was the dearest Contarex lens with a printed price. No Deutschmark price and no 1966 launch price is on record.

How many were made is not settled. Pacific Rim gives 581, and the Itineris auction catalogue of 2020 repeats that figure. Leitz Auction describes lens 4542481 as “made in a batch of 1000 units in 1970”. Its three other lots of the lens give no batch size. Every recorded serial number falls in one short run, from 4542306 to 4542720. Leitz dates all of its examples to 1970, and Coeln Cameras dates 4542415 to 1968, so the two firms disagree about neighbouring numbers. Pacific Rim ends production in 1970 with a question mark, while the 1971 lists show the lens was still offered in the United States the following year. There is only one version. Beware two other lenses: the Schneider Tele-Variogon f/4 80–240mm, a different zoom that was also made in Contarex mount (one sat in the Contarex collection Christie’s sold in 1997), and the later Vario-Sonnar zooms for Contax/Yashica, different lenses for another mount that share only the name. The other Contarex zoom, the 40–120mm f/2.8, has its own page; Pacific Rim gives it a weight of nearly four and a half pounds and a production of 1,000, the same number Leitz quotes as this lens’s batch.

The lenses that reach auction usually come complete. Leitz lots list caps, hood, hand grip and a leather case, mostly a fitted one; one adds a tripod adapter and strap, another an SK filter, and the Auction 28 lens came with caps and grip only. Leitz Auction results, all hammer prices including buyer’s premium under margin-scheme taxation, were €1,188 (Auction 9), €1,800 (Auction 24), €1,680 (Auction 25) and €1,200 (Auction 28). Christie’s South Kensington sold no. 4542434 with caps, hood and grip for a price realised of £960 in June 2005 against a £1,000–1,500 estimate; the lot notice adds VAT at 17.5% on hammer price plus buyer’s premium. Coeln Cameras, a dealer, asked €1,200 plus shipping for 4542415 with caps, grip and leather case, and the listing is marked sold. When buying, check that the hood and grip are present, since they make up much of the outfit, and look through all fifteen elements for haze and cleaning marks. On a body other than a Contarex, an adapter has to supply some way of closing the iris, because the lens has no aperture ring. The Itineris lens came with a kit for the Contax/Yashica bayonet. No maker or catalogue figure for closest focus, aperture range, blade count or dimensions is on record, and no published test or sample gallery for the lens is known.