Distagon 40mm f/4 FLE (SL66)

Carl Zeiss · Rollei SL66 · 1986

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Distagon 40mm f/4 FLE · Distagon 40mm F4 FLE · Distagon HFT 4/40 FLE · Distagon 40mm floating elements SL66 · Carl Zeiss Distagon 40mm FLE Rollei SL66 · Rolleiflex SL66 Distagon 40mm FLE · Rollei SL66 40mm FLE · ディスタゴン 40mm F4 FLE SL66 · ディスタゴン 40mm FLE ローライ SL66

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Distagon HFT 4/40 with floating elements, open-aperture-metering mount (1986–)	Rollei SL66	1986	—	—

Dates: rolleigraphy.eu, 04/1986 to '>1994' (still listed when its table ends), from Prochnow's Rollei Report 2.
Elements and groups: 10 groups/11 elements is rolleigraphy.eu's figure alone among SL66 sources; it matches the 11/10 published for the Rollei 6000-mount Distagon 40 FLE PQ. Against the 1968 lens's 10/9 this is a new formula, which is why the two have separate pages. camera-wiki lists '40mm Distagon FLE f/4' without a count.
Not in Wikipedia's SL66 lens table, which stops at the May 1983 Rollei lens sheet, so no SL66-specific weight, length or closest focus is available; the 6000-mount version is published at 1,040 g, which includes its shutter and helicoid.
Zeiss or Rollei manufacture is not stated by any source read; Rollei had built HFT lenses under Zeiss licence since 1974 (rolleigraphy.eu).

How to tell them apart (expand)

Engraved Distagon 4/40 with HFT, a floating-element ring, and the SL66 bayonet at the rear with no helicoid or shutter; the Rollei 6000 Distagon 40 FLE of the same formula has a leaf shutter and focusing mount, the Hasselblad CF 40 FLE a Prontor shutter
88° diagonal, 69° horizontal, as the 1968 lens (rolleigraphy.eu)

Distagon HFT 4/40 with floating elements, open-aperture-metering mount (1986–):

A separate, manually set ring for the floating elements, which the 1968 lens does not have (rolleigraphy.eu)
Made only in the open-aperture-metering mount of the SL66E/X/SE, with the coupling at the bayonet (rolleigraphy.eu)
Filters need an adaptor rather than the Bay VIII of the earlier 40 (rolleigraphy.eu)

Distagon HFT 4/40 with floating elements, open-aperture-metering mount (1986–): From April 1986 and still listed when rolleigraphy.eu's table ends in 1994; one version. rolleigraphy.eu describes it as a super wide angle with floating elements and outstanding correction. Neither weight nor closest focus has been found for the SL66 version.

Specifications

Formula: Distagon (retrofocus) with floating elements — 11 elements in 10 groups
Construction: 11 elements / 10 groups
Aperture range: f/4
Filter: Filter adaptor needed; rolleigraphy.eu's table gives no bayonet size for this version
Years manufactured: 1986
Country: West Germany
Coating: HFT multicoating

What reviewers say

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History

The Distagon 40mm f/4 with floating elements replaced the 1968 Distagon 40 in the Rolleiflex SL66 range in April 1986, in the last years of the system, when the SL66E, X and SE were the bodies in production. It is a new formula, eleven elements in ten groups against the old lens’s ten in nine, with a separately set ring that moves a floating group for close-range correction, and rolleigraphy.eu, from Prochnow’s Rollei Report 2, describes its correction as outstanding. The count matches the Distagon 40 FLE that Zeiss and Rollei supplied for the Rollei 6000 series, so the SL66 lens is the same design in a barrel with neither shutter nor helicoid, the body’s bellows and focal-plane shutter doing both jobs.

It was made only in the open-aperture-metering mount introduced with the SL66E in 1982, so it couples to the meters of the E, X and SE and fits the original SL66 as an ordinary stop-down lens. Unlike the earlier 40, which took Bay VIII filters, this one needs an adaptor for filters (rolleigraphy.eu). It was still listed when rolleigraphy.eu’s table ends in 1994, after body production had stopped in October 1992.

The lens is thinly documented: it postdates the May 1983 Rollei lens sheet from which Wikipedia’s SL66 table is drawn, so no weight, length or closest focus specific to the SL66 version has been found, and the element count rests on rolleigraphy.eu alone. No review of it exists in the sources searched.

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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

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