Tele-Tessar 1000mm f/8 (6000)

Carl Zeiss · Rollei 6000 · 1988 · Tele-Tessar, 4 elements in 4 groups

Also known as: Rollei Tele-Tessar 1000mm f/8 HFT PQ · Carl Zeiss Tele-Tessar 8/1000 Rolleiflex 6000 · Zeiss Tele-Tessar 1000mm F8 Rollei 6008 · Rollei 6000 1000mm f8 · Tele-Tessar HFT 1000 PQ · ローライテレテッサー 1000mm F8 PQ · カールツァイステレテッサー 1000mm F8 ローライ6000

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Tele-Tessar HFT 8/1000 PQ, built-in hood	Rollei 6000	1988	5792171 (Leitz Auction 47, lot 488)	—

Construction (4 elements in 4 groups), f/8–64, 21 m closest focus, 215 × 790 mm and 8.74 kg are from the English Wikipedia list of SLX/6000/Hy6 lenses, drawn from Rollei's brochures; rolleigraphy.eu gives 4/4, a 4.5° diagonal and 3° horizontal field and a built-in hood; Japanese Wikipedia gives 4群4枚 and 21 m for the PQ.
Year. No source consulted dates the lens. It is listed only as a PQ lens, a line that began with the 6008 professional of 1988, so 1988 is the earliest the generation allows; Leitz Auction's description says '1980s'. No end date was found.
Relation to the SL66 lens. The SL66's Tele-Tessar 8/1000 is also 4 elements in 4 groups, focusing to 14.5 m with slide-in filters (Japanese Wikipedia); Leitz Auction's lot text says the 6000 lens's optics follow it, with the automatic diaphragm and leaf shutter added. No Zeiss or Rollei document confirming the shared computation was found.
Shutter speed. Leitz Auction's description gives 'up to 1/1000 s'; rolleigraphy.eu and the English Wikipedia list record the lens as PQ, whose shutters stop at 1/500 s, and neither lists a PQS 1000. The PQ figure is the better evidenced.
Price. No list price was found. The one sale recorded here is Leitz Auction 47, lot 488, estimated at €16,000–20,000 and sold for €11,400 including premium, with a 2× converter and case; the lot description says only a few examples are known.
Not found: the number of diaphragm blades and production figures.

How to tell them apart (expand)

An 8.7 kg, 790 mm lens with a built-in hood and no filter thread, on the Rollei 6000 ten-contact bayonet with no shutter-speed ring; aperture ring 8–64 with an 'A' position
'PQ' beside the aperture numbers (rolleigraphy.eu)
Not the SL66's Tele-Tessar 8/1000, which has no shutter or automatic diaphragm and the SL66 bayonet, and not the Mirotar 1000 mirror lenses

Tele-Tessar HFT 8/1000 PQ, built-in hood:

'PQ' beside the aperture numbers; the only version listed (rolleigraphy.eu, English Wikipedia list)
215 mm across, 790 mm long, 8.74 kg, no filter fitting, hood built in (English Wikipedia list)
Aperture-priority and program exposure on the 6008 and later; 1/500 s top speed

Tele-Tessar HFT 8/1000 PQ, built-in hood: The only version. Leitz Auction's lot description dates its example to the 1980s and says its optics follow the earlier Tele-Tessar 8/1000 for the SL66, upgraded with a fully automatic diaphragm and an integrated leaf shutter; the same text gives the shutter a top speed of 1/1000 s, which belongs to PQS lenses, not the PQ this lens is listed as.

Serial-range notes

5792171: The one number recorded, from Leitz Auction 47, lot 488, whose description dates the lens to the 1980s. No serial-to-year table for Rollei-mount Zeiss lenses was found.

Specifications

Formula: Tele-Tessar, 4 elements in 4 groups
Construction: 4 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range: f/8–f/64
Shutter: Electronically timed leaf shutter built into the lens, 30 s–1/500 s (PQ), its blades and the diaphragm driven by linear motors through the 10-pin contact; speeds are set on the body
Min. focus: 21 m
Dimensions: 215 × 790 mm
Weight: 8740 g
Filter: None; built-in lens hood (English Wikipedia list, rolleigraphy.eu)
Years manufactured: 1988
Country: Germany
Coating: HFT multicoating

What reviewers say

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History

The Tele-Tessar HFT 8/1000 is the longest lens Zeiss made for the Rolleiflex 6000 system and, at 8.74 kg and 790 mm, by far the largest: four elements in four groups, f/8 to f/64, focusing to 21 m, with a built-in hood and no filter fitting, covering 4.5° across the diagonal of the 6×6 frame. Its optics appear to be those of the Tele-Tessar 8/1000 that Zeiss had made for the Rolleiflex SL66, also four-in-four, rehoused with the fully automatic linear-motor diaphragm and the electronically timed leaf shutter that every 6000 lens carries; Leitz Auction’s lot description says as much, and no Zeiss or Rollei document was found to confirm or deny it.

It was listed in one version only, a PQ lens, which gives it aperture-priority and program exposure on the 6008 professional and later bodies and a 1/500 s top speed. Nothing dates it: the PQ line began in 1988, and the auction house puts its example in the 1980s. Rollei’s brochure text, as quoted on rolleigraphy.eu, says only “long distance images, with built-in lens hood”, and sold the 2× HFT converter, order number 98 253, for use with every telephoto, which on this lens means a 2000 mm f/16.

Few were made. Leitz Auction, offering number 5792171 in its 47th sale with its case and a 2× converter, described the lens as extremely rare and said only a few examples are known; the lens had been in the Rollei Museum in the 1990s, was estimated at €16,000–20,000, and sold for €11,400 with premium. No list price, review or test was found. A buyer should expect to exercise the shutter and diaphragm on a working body, since neither moves without power, and to carry the lens on its own support; the 6000 bodies were not built to hang from a 1000 mm.

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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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