F-Distagon 30mm f/3.5 (SL66)
Carl Zeiss · Rollei SL66 · 1973
Also known as: F-Distagon 30mm f/3.5 · F-Distagon 30mm F3.5 · F-Distagon HFT 3.5/30 · Carl Zeiss F-Distagon 30mm SL66 · Rolleiflex SL66 F-Distagon 30mm · Rollei SL66 Fisheye 30mm · Zeiss Fisheye 30mm Rollei SL66 · F-ディスタゴン 30mm F3.5 SL66 · Fディスタゴン 30mm ローライ SL66 · ローライ SL66 フィッシュアイ 30mm
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F-Distagon HFT 3.5/30, SL66 mount (1973–) | Rollei SL66 | 1973 | — | — |
- Dates are rolleigraphy.eu's (10/1973 to '>1994', meaning still listed when its table ends), from Prochnow's Rollei Report 2. No end year is given here.
- Elements and groups: rolleigraphy.eu and Japanese Wikipedia's Rolleiflex article both give 7 groups and 8 elements, and Wikipedia's SL66 lens table, from the Rollei lens sheet of May 1983, agrees; the same 8/7 count is published for the Hasselblad F-Distagon 30mm f/3.5 of 1972.
- Weight, dimensions and the f/22 minimum are Wikipedia's table, from the May 1983 Rollei lens sheet. The table's '0.0 m' closest focus reflects the body's bellows, which set the focusing range on every SL66 lens; no minimum distance is recorded here.
- Rollei built HFT lenses under licence from Zeiss from 1974, marked 'Made by Rollei' (rolleigraphy.eu); which 30s, if any, were Rollei-built is not stated.
How to tell them apart
- Engraved F-Distagon 3,5/30 with HFT; an SL66 bayonet at the rear rather than a shutter or a focusing ring, which is how it differs from the Hasselblad C/CF and the Rollei 6000 versions of the same optic
- 180° on the diagonal, 110° horizontal (rolleigraphy.eu)
F-Distagon HFT 3.5/30, SL66 mount (1973–):
- Bulbous front element with no filter bayonet; filters are small M25 × 0.5 discs fitted inside the lens (rolleigraphy.eu; Wikipedia)
- Fully automatic diaphragm, f/3.5–22 (rolleigraphy.eu's aperture class 'A'; Wikipedia's lens table)
- The SL66 lens has no focusing helicoid and no shutter: a short barrel ending in the SL66 bayonet, 108 mm across and 115.5 mm long, 1,130 g (Wikipedia, from the May 1983 Rollei lens sheet)
- Copies supplied or converted after 1982 carry the open-aperture-metering coupling of the SL66E mount; rolleigraphy.eu does not say when the 30 first shipped with it
- F-Distagon HFT 3.5/30, SL66 mount (1973–): One optical version. rolleigraphy.eu dates it October 1973 to beyond 1994, the end of its table; Wikipedia's table, from the 1983 Rollei lens sheet, lists only an HFT version. Whether later copies were built by Rollei under licence is not stated by any source read; rolleigraphy.eu names only the 50, 80, 150 and 250 as taken over by Rollei in 1974.
Specifications
- Formula
- F-Distagon, full-frame (diagonal) fisheye — 8 elements in 7 groups
- Construction
- 8 elements / 7 groups
- Aperture range
- f/3.5–f/22
- Dimensions
- 108 × 115.5 mm
- Weight
- 1130 g
- Filter
- Internal M25 × 0.5 filters behind the front group; no front filter or bayonet (rolleigraphy.eu; Wikipedia)
- Years manufactured
- 1973
- Country
- West Germany
- Coating
- HFT multicoating throughout the run — the lens arrived after HFT (rolleigraphy.eu; camera-wiki lists it only as '30mm F-Distagon HFT')
What reviewers say
No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.
History
The F-Distagon 30mm f/3.5 is the full-frame fisheye of the Rolleiflex SL66 system: 180° across the diagonal of the 6×6 frame and 110° across its width, in eight elements and seven groups, the same construction Zeiss published for the Hasselblad F-Distagon 30mm of 1972. It joined the SL66 range in October 1973, a year after Zeiss’s HFT multicoating arrived, and so is the one SL66 Distagon that exists only in an HFT version (rolleigraphy.eu; camera-wiki). Like every SL66 lens it has no focusing helicoid and no shutter: the body’s bellows focus it and the body’s focal-plane shutter times it, which is why, at 1,130 g and 115.5 mm long, it weighs less than the same optic in a shuttered Hasselblad or Rollei 6000 barrel.
The bulging front element takes no filter; small M25 × 0.5 filters sit inside the lens (rolleigraphy.eu; Wikipedia). The diaphragm is fully automatic, f/3.5 to f/22, opening for viewing and closing on release. rolleigraphy.eu still lists it when its table ends in 1994, so no end date is recorded here. Nothing read says whether any of these were built by Rollei under its 1974 Zeiss licence; the lenses rolleigraphy.eu names as taken over by Rollei are the 50, 80, 150 and 250, and the 30 is not among them. Copies in the open-aperture-metering mount of 1982 exist, since Rollei service converted lenses on request, but no source dates a factory version.
No review of the SL66 version has been found; the reviews that exist of this design are of the Hasselblad lens.
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 wanted — shot with a F-Distagon 30mm f/3.5 (SL66)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
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