Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Makro-Planar 120mm f/4

Carl Zeiss · Hasselblad V · 1982 · Makro-Planar (near-symmetrical macro Planar)

Also known as: Zeiss Makro-Planar 120mm f/4 · Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 120mm f/4 · Makro-Planar 4/120 · Makro-Planar 120/4 · Makro Planar 120mm · Macro-Planar 120mm f/4 · Hasselblad 120mm Makro-Planar · Hasselblad 120mm f/4 · Hasselblad 120mm Macro · Makro-Planar CF 120mm · Makro-Planar T* 4/120 CFE · Makro-Planar CFi 120mm f/4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Makro-Planar CF T* 4/120 (1982 baseline) · Prontor CF, 1s–1/500 and B Hasselblad V 1982–1998 — —
Makro-Planar CB T* 4/120 · Prontor CB, 1s–1/500 and B Hasselblad V 1998–2000 — —
Makro-Planar CFi T* 4/120 · Prontor CFi, 1s–1/500 and B Hasselblad V 1998–2001 — —
Makro-Planar CFE T* 4/120 · Prontor CFE, 1s–1/500 and B Hasselblad V 2001–2013 — —
Makro-Planar T* 4/120 ZV Classic (shutterless) · none — exposes through the body's focal-plane shutter Hasselblad V (ZV — focal-plane bodies only) 2006 — —
  1. Element and group counts, weights, closest focus and filter fittings are from the Zeiss data sheets hosted by Hasselblad Historical (CF120, CFi120, ZV120); no sheet for the CB or CFE 120 was consulted, and their optics are taken to be the CF's.
  2. Generation start years follow the barrel/shutter families as a whole (CF 1982, CB 1997/98, CFi late 1998, CFE ~2001, ZV 2006 or 2008); no source gives a month for the 120mm's own changeover, and old stock overlapped the new.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The letters after the focal length are the generation: CF (Prontor CF, 1982–98), CB (budget barrel, no F setting, 1997/98–2000), CFi (1998–), CFE (databus contacts, ~2001–2013), ZV (no shutter, 2006/08–)
  • Every version takes bayonet-60 filters — there is no bayonet-50 Makro-Planar 120; a bayonet-50 120mm macro is the f/5.6 S-Planar, a different family — and the ZV additionally has a 67 mm thread
  • Only the CB lacks the green F setting; only the ZV lacks a shutter altogether
  • Weight sorts the ZV at once: 890 g against 695 g for the leaf-shutter versions (Zeiss sheets)

Makro-Planar CF T* 4/120 (1982 baseline):

  • Black barrel with rubber focusing grip, Prontor CF shutter, bayonet-60 filter mount; green F on the speed ring for open-shutter use on 2000/200-series bodies; EV interlock as a push-button
  • Zeiss data sheet: cat. no. 10 78 36, 6 elements in 4 groups, exact focal length 120.9 mm, f/4–32, 0.8 m closest focus at 1:4.5, 695 g, 36.6° diagonal field

Makro-Planar CB T* 4/120:

  • CB engraved after the focal length; bayonet-60 filter mount; the rounded, glove-operable CB-style controls
  • Japanese Wikipedia: the simplified version without the F-setting button, so not usable open-shutter on the focal-plane bodies

Makro-Planar CFi T* 4/120:

  • CFi after the focal length; no databus contacts on the bayonet plate; bayonet-60 filter mount; F setting retained
  • Zeiss data sheet: cat. no. 10 78 84, 6 elements in 4 groups, 120.9 mm exact, f/4–32, 0.8 m, 695 g; close-limit field size 254 × 254 mm

Makro-Planar CFE T* 4/120:

  • CFE after the focal length; four databus contacts on the bayonet plate for the 200-series meters; otherwise the CFi barrel — bayonet 60, F setting, 0.8 m
  • Japanese Wikipedia: electronic contacts for the 200-series bodies

Makro-Planar T* 4/120 ZV Classic (shutterless):

  • No shutter-speed ring; Zeiss-branded ZV Classic barrel with half-stop aperture clicks
  • Zeiss data sheet: 67 mm filter thread (E67) inside an outer series-60 bayonet, 890 g — the heaviest of the family; 0.8 m, 1:4.5, 6 elements in 4 groups, 120.9 mm exact

Serial-range notes

red-ink code inside the rear mount, 1980 onward
Every generation of this lens postdates 1980, so the Zeiss date code inside the rear mount is two reversed year digits and a month letter, A = January — 48C is March 1984, 99H is August 1999. Lens serials are Zeiss's running numbers; no block-to-year table for the 120mm Makro-Planar was found.

Specifications

Formula
Makro-Planar (near-symmetrical macro Planar)
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/32
Shutter
In the lens on the CF, CB, CFi and CFE versions — Prontor, 1s–1/500 and B, flash sync at every speed; the ZV Classic has no shutter and exposes only on the 2000/200-series focal-plane bodies
Min. focus
0.8 m
Weight
695 g
Years manufactured
1982–2013
Country
West Germany, then Germany
Coating
T* multicoated throughout

What reviewers say

Optical formula — Makro-Planar (near-symmetrical macro Planar)
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from the Zeiss data sheet (CF120) — 6 elements in 4 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from the Zeiss data sheet (CF120) — 6 elements in 4 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site
ⓘ What these charts mean

MTF (modulation transfer function) shows how much contrast the lens keeps at a given fineness of detail, from the center of the frame to the corner — the coarse curves track punch, the fine ones resolving power, and a gap between solid and dashed lines means astigmatism. Relative illumination (falloff) shows how much darker the corners are than the center at each aperture. Manufacturers only began publishing these for modern lenses; no 1950s maker issued them, which is why older families here cite period magazine bench tests instead.

History

The Makro-Planar 120mm f/4 arrived in 1982 with the Prontor CF shutter that replaced the Synchro-Compur across the Hasselblad line, and Zeiss’s data sheet for it reads almost as a note on its predecessor. “Like its predecessor, the 120 mm S-Planar T* f/5.6 lens, the new lens consists of 6 elements in 4 groups which are arranged almost symmetrically to the iris diaphragm,” it says, and it credits “a major achievement on the part of the designer that the initial aperture of the new Makro-Planar lens could be increased to f/4 compared with the f/5.6 of its predecessor without exceeding the optical dimensions of the f/5.6 lens or making any concessions on the image quality.” The sheet’s figures: catalogue number 10 78 36, an exact focal length of 120.9 mm, f/4 to f/32, closest focus 0.8 m at 1:4.5, a bayonet for series 60 filters and 695 g. The designer is not named.

Zeiss explained the point of the extra stop plainly. Macro work is done at small apertures, but “the maximum aperture of f/4 doubles the brightness of the screen image compared with the f/5.6 lens, and the shallower depth of field makes it easier to recognize the plane of sharpness.” The lens “performs best in the region of slightly reduced imaging of the subject”; the Hasselblad extension tube 32 takes it to 1:2, and Zeiss repeated the S-Planar’s rule that “only extension tubes and no supplementary lenses should be used for close-ups below the shortest marked distance.” Emulsive’s CF guide gives the same 6/4, B60, 695 g and 80 cm figures and describes the lens as an upgrade from the S-Planar C.

The barrel then followed every turn of the 1990s catalogue while the glass stood still. Hasselblad Historical’s lens index lists the Makro-Planar f/4 120 mm under CF, under CB, under “CFi & CFE” and under ZV Classic. Japanese Wikipedia describes the CB as the simplified version without the F-setting button — so, unlike every other version, it cannot be used open-shutter on the focal-plane bodies — and dates the CFi lenses “progressively from the end of 1998.” The Zeiss CFi sheet (catalogue number 10 78 84) keeps the six-in-four optics at 695 g and 0.8 m, adds that the Planar type “is also the basis for the ultra-high-resolution S-Planar (Starlith) microlithography lenses,” and says the helicoid is “deliberately limited” as a safety measure “since most Hasselblad SLRs lack TTL metering,” pointing users who need 1:1 to extension rings or to the bellows Makro-Planar 5.6/135. The CFE, with databus contacts for the 200-series meters, is generally dated to about 2001; the trade report of that announcement could not be read for this entry, so the year is carried as reported.

The last version dropped the shutter altogether. Zeiss’s ZV Classic reissue of three V-mount lenses — Distagon 50, Makro-Planar 120, Sonnar 180 — was made for the 2000- and 200-series focal-plane bodies; the ZV data sheet gives a 67 mm filter thread inside an outer series-60 bayonet, half-stop aperture clicks and 890 g, and calls the lens “the best proven macro lens for medium format photography in decades – an established industry standard.” The ZV line is usually dated 2006, but Japanese Wikipedia gives an announcement of May 2008 and a limit of 1,000 units per model, and no source consulted reconciles the two. Leaf-shutter production ended with the V system; Wikipedia gives the 503CW’s discontinuation as 29 April 2013.

What remains open: who at Zeiss Oberkochen recomputed the S-Planar to f/4; the 120 CB’s own start year (1997 or 1998) and whether its optics were touched; the CFE’s launch date from a readable primary source; the ZV Classic’s date and whether the 1,000-unit figure is a Japanese allocation or a world total; any list price — Victor Hasselblad Inc.’s American price lists of the 1980s exist as large scans and were not read here; and every production figure, which would have to come from Nordin’s compendia.

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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.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Makro-Planar 120mm f/4
S-Planar 120mm f/5.6 and Makro-Planar 120mm f/4 side by side (Planetary) — Planetary, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Makro-Planar 120mm f/4? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $670 across 28 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $570–$1,100). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $670.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$670$570–$1,10028
2026-09-06$670$570–$1,10028

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Planar 100mm f/3.5 · S-Planar 120mm f/5.6 · S-Planar / Makro-Planar 135mm f/5.6 (bellows) · Sonnar 180mm f/4 · Tessar 160mm f/4.8

Sources (8)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.