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

Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 (Olympia-Sonnar)

Carl Zeiss Jena · M42 + Exakta · 1936

single source, unconfirmed

Known as “Olympia-Sonnar”, “Olympic Sonnar”

Also known as: Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 · Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 2,8/180 · Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 2.8/180 · Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180mm f2.8 · CZJ Sonnar 180mm f2.8 · Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 · Sonnar 2,8/180 · Sonnar 2.8/180 · Sonnar 180/2.8 · Sonnar 180/2,8 · Sonnar MC 180/2,8 · Sonnar MC 2,8/180 · MC Sonnar 2.8/180 · Sonnar 180mm 1:2.8 · Sonnar f=180mm 1:2,8 · Sonnar 1:2,8 f=180mm · Sonnar 1:2,8 f=18cm · Sonnar 18cm f/2.8 · Olympia Sonnar · Olympia-Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 · ゾナー 180mm F2.8 · オリンピアゾナー

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Prewar, direct Contax mount (1936) Contax RF 1936 — —
Prewar, for the Flektoskop reflex housing (Contax) Contax RF, through the Flektoskop reflex housing — — —
Postwar Jena, for the Flektometer (Contax) Contax RF, through the Flektometer reflex housing — — —
1950s 35mm SLR lens, preset, M42 rear mount M42 (removable rear mount) — — —
1950s 35mm SLR lens, preset, Exakta rear mount Exakta (removable rear mount) — — —
1950s 35mm SLR lens, Praktina bayonet with diaphragm coupling Praktina — — —
6×6 rework with automatic diaphragm (Praktisix), 2.2 m · Sonnar, five elements in three groups, reworked for the 6×6 format: Kröger dates the rework to February 1959 and pentaconsix.com gives a calculation of 14 February 1959; the 1964 fair report speaks of a recalculation and of new glass types tried out with VEB Schott Praktisix / Pentacon Six (factory adapters: automatic on Exakta and Praktina, semi-automatic on M42) 1962 — —
Zebra (mid-1960s), steeper helicoid, 1.7 m · Sonnar, five elements in three groups, the 6×6 design; pentaconsix.com lists calculations of 14 February 1959 and 4 July 1966 without saying which lenses use which Praktisix / Pentacon Six (factory adapters for 35mm bodies) — — —
All-black MC Sonnar (from the mid-1970s) · Sonnar, five elements in three groups, the 6×6 design; pentaconsix.com lists calculations of 14 February 1959 and 4 July 1966 without saying which lenses use which Pentacon Six (factory adapters for 35mm bodies) 1976 — —
MC Sonnar with coupling for the electric Praktica adapter · Sonnar, five elements in three groups, the 6×6 design; pentaconsix.com lists calculations of 14 February 1959 and 4 July 1966 without saying which lenses use which Pentacon Six (factory adapters, including M42 with aperture transfer for the Praktica LLC, PLC and VLC) — — —
  1. Calculation dates: Kröger's English page says Bertele finished the computation on 12 February 1936; his German Sonnar page, with Bertele's data sheet for the 'Tele-Sonnar 1:2,8 f=18 cm' reproduced, gives 27 November 1935 for the first calculation and 16 February 1936 for the one series production used, and 5 April 1940 for the revision.
  2. The name: Kröger's English page derives it from the Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen (6–16 February 1936), where prototypes were used; his German Sonnar page credits the photographers and cine cameramen who used the lens heavily at the summer games that followed. pentaconsix.com says the lens was designed for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and used there on a Contax rangefinder.
  3. Rangefinder coupling of the direct-mount prewar lens: Kröger's English page says its helicoid coupled to the Contax rangefinder; his German page does not mention coupling, describes the lens on a rifle-like mount with a special finder and calls focusing that way wholly inadequate. The two accounts need not conflict, but no second source confirms the coupling.
  4. Close focus: 1.5 m in the Wolfen museum's record of a 1950s Praktina lens; 2.2 m for the 6×6 lens before the zebra version and 1.7 m after it (Kröger, and the DDR price lists of 1962 and 1970). No other figure for a 1950s 35mm lens was found.
  5. Dating the 6×6 lens: Kröger gives February 1959 for the rework, though the next paragraph of the same page calls it the rework of the early 1960s; pentaconsix.com gives calculations of 14 February 1959 and 4 July 1966 and says the first lenses in the Praktisix mount used the 1959 one. The DDR price list first carries the Praktisix lens in 1962, a newspaper report of 12 March 1963 calls it new at the Leipzig spring fair, where Kröger's caption calls it a new construction of the old Sonnar, and the BZ fair report of 10 September 1964 again presents a recalculated Sonnar 2,8/180 for 6×6, with new glass types tried out together with VEB Schott. Kröger's page on the 1960s lens shows these reports and the V60 sample without yet explaining how they relate.
  6. Late 6×6 lens: pentaconsix.com gives 24.5°, 1.7 m, an M86 × 1 filter thread, 122 mm and 1100 g. JAPB measured an MC lens at 106.8 mm long (flange to front) and 102.2 mm across, with an 87 mm filter ring, 1300 g, seven straight blades, 1:7.3 at closest focus and click stops to f/32; its pictured sample has an electric M42 adapter, and its figures may include it. JAPB adds that earlier manual and preset versions had up to 18 blades, without a count by version.
  7. The electric coupling: pentaconsix.com dates it from about 1981; Kröger places it with the MC restyling, before the Sonnar 2.8/200 of autumn 1977 made it obsolete. pentaconsix.com dates multicoating across Jena's lenses from 1976 and Kröger the restyling to the mid-1970s, while JAPB gives about 1973–1991 for the MC version it measured.
  8. Not listed as versions: Kröger writes that the Sonnar 2.8/18 cm was delivered for the Kiné Exakta as well as the Contax, and JAPB names Exakta and Praktiflex among the single-mount early lenses, but neither gives a date, an engraving or a serial number, and no example of either was found. Kröger also says the lens was designed for 18 × 24 mm cine as well as 24 × 36 mm (JAPB mentions 16 mm cine), again without an example, and records a Praktisix bayonet adapter sold by a third-party maker for the 1950s 35mm lens before Jena's own rework.
  9. Production, about 91,600 of all versions to the end of 1990, only about 1,300 to the end of the war and about 45,000 in the 1970s, rests on Kröger alone; the single-source flag on this page is for those figures. JAPB ends production at about 1991 rather than 1990.
  10. ⁰ Prices are DDR retail prices (EVP) from the price lists compiled by Kröger: preset 35mm version 688 Mark (1957), 667 (1959), 655 (from June 1960); Praktisix ASB 631.80 (1962), 652.80 for the 1.7 m version (1970), 655 for the MC version (1987), 734.80 for M42 + MC (1987). No prewar Reichsmark price and no US dollar price was found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Five elements in three groups in every version for which a count is given: a single front lens, a cemented triplet and a single rear lens (Bertele's 1935 data sheet; JAPB; the Wolfen museum)
  • Two kinds of lens: the 35mm lens of 1936 to the 1950s, whose camera mount on the Flektoskop and postwar SLR versions screws onto the Flektoskop thread at the rear, and the 6×6 lens with the Praktisix/Pentacon Six bayonet and automatic diaphragm, which reaches a 35mm body only through an adapter
  • The 1950s lens is black with a tripod collar, often with a red T on the name ring; the 6×6 lens comes in pre-zebra black-and-alloy, zebra and all-black MC finishes
  • Carl Zeiss Oberkochen's Contarex Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 and the Contax/Yashica Sonnar T* 180mm f/2.8 are other lenses

Prewar, direct Contax mount (1936):

  • Mounts directly on the Contax rangefinder body and is aimed through a separate finder; at the February 1936 Winter Olympics it was used on a rifle stock, for which a Gebrauchsmuster, no. 1,404,822, was applied for at the end of January 1936 and granted in April 1937 (Kröger)
  • camera-wiki calls the direct-mount lens rare and the Flektoskop lens the more common prewar form

Prewar, for the Flektoskop reflex housing (Contax):

  • Rear thread for the Flektoskop, Zeiss Ikon's mirror housing that turned the Contax into a single-lens reflex, with a laterally reversed, upside-down image (Kröger)
  • The same thread was kept on the postwar 35mm lens, which is why its camera mounts unscrew (Kröger)

Postwar Jena, for the Flektometer (Contax):

  • Black enamelled barrel engraved 1:2,8 f=180mm with a red T, as shown on Carl Zeiss Jena's Flektometer leaflet
  • The Flektometer is Jena's postwar development of the Flektoskop; the leaflet names the Sonnar 1:2,8 f=180 mm, the Sonnar 1:4 f=300 mm and the 1:8 f=500 mm Fernobjektiv as its lenses

1950s 35mm SLR lens, preset, M42 rear mount:

  • Black enamelled barrel with a tripod collar locked by a silver knob; the aperture ring sits at the front, with a silver push-button on the barrel behind it, and the distance scale reads in metres and red feet
  • Engraved Sonnar 1:2,8 f=180mm T … Carl Zeiss Jena Nr. 3451283 (1949–52 serial block), or Sonnar 2,8/180 T … Carl Zeiss Jena on later lenses such as no. 4018719 (1955–58 block)
  • No. 4018719, offered in October 2026, has a leather-covered hood and the tripod collar; its seller gives the thread as 42 × 1

1950s 35mm SLR lens, preset, Exakta rear mount:

  • The same black preset head on an Exakta bayonet
  • No. 4830464 (1955–58 block), offered as an Exakta lens in September 2026: front aperture ring with a red index at 2.8, silver push-button on the barrel, tripod collar with silver knob, Jena logo, feet in red on the distance scale; its name ring reads Sonnar 2,8/180 with no T

1950s 35mm SLR lens, Praktina bayonet with diaphragm coupling:

  • Praktina bayonet; the Wolfen museum's no. 4116710 (1955–58 block) is recorded with automatic diaphragm transfer, an aperture range given as 2,8 bis 11 (22), 5 elements in 3 groups, 1.5 m close focus and 175 × 92 mm
  • That example carries a yellow inventory tag of VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen on the lens ring

6×6 rework with automatic diaphragm (Praktisix), 2.2 m:

  • Praktisix/Pentacon Six bayonet with automatic diaphragm (ASB); close focus 2.2 m (DDR price list, 1962)
  • A 1964 Praktisix II brochure shows the 180 with black distance and aperture-index rings, a black plastic focusing grip with raised bumps and a plain alloy aperture ring; pentaconsix.com dates a mostly black style with a leather focusing band to 1965, before the zebra finish
  • The 1964 brochure made for the United States calls the maker only Jena and the lens S, because of West German Zeiss's lawsuits there; pentaconsix.com adds that lettering on the name ring varied with the market

Zebra (mid-1960s), steeper helicoid, 1.7 m:

  • Black barrel with bright metal stripes on the focusing and aperture rings, Jena's zebra finish of about 1967–74 (pentaconsix.com)
  • Extra-steep focusing helicoid; close focus cut from 2.2 m to 1.7 m (Kröger; the DDR price list of 1970 gives the 1.7 m version at 652.80 Mark)
  • No. 8768843 (1967–70 block), offered in October 2026 with an M42 adapter, hood and leather quiver

All-black MC Sonnar (from the mid-1970s):

  • All-black barrel with a cross-knurled focusing ring (Kröger; pentaconsix.com describes the pattern as diamond- or pyramid-shaped); MC on the name ring, in red paint at first and in white from about 1980 (pentaconsix.com)
  • Some lenses of about 1976 were already multicoated without the MC marking; multicoated glass shows reflections of several colours (pentaconsix.com)

MC Sonnar with coupling for the electric Praktica adapter:

  • A connector for a special adapter that passes the set aperture to the electric metering of the Praktica LLC, VLC and PLC (pentaconsix.com; Kröger adds the EE2)
  • A switch between open aperture and stopped down in place of the earlier stop-down lever on the 180 and 300mm Sonnars (pentaconsix.com, undated)
  • JAPB's example is marked Made in Germany, which it takes for a lens of the 1990s, and came on the electric M42 adapter

Serial-range notes

the whole number
Carl Zeiss Jena numbered all its lenses in one running sequence, so a Sonnar is dated by reading its number off the postwar Jena table that camera-wiki publishes: 3,000,000–3,200,000 for 1945–49, 3,200,000–3,470,000 for 1949–52, 3,470,000–4,000,000 for 1952–55, 4,000,000–5,000,000 for 1955–58, 5,000,000–6,000,000 for 1958–61, then a million every three years to 9,000,000 in 1970 and 10,000,000 in 1975. The blocks place a lens within a few years, not to the month.
3451283
Black enamelled 35mm lens engraved Sonnar 1:2,8 f=180mm T, Carl Zeiss Jena Nr. 3451283, on a tripod foot, offered on Kleinanzeigen in August 2026; the 1949–52 block. Its rear mount is not visible in the photographs.
4018719, 4116710, 4830464
Three 1950s 35mm lenses from the 1955–58 block: 4018719 engraved Sonnar 2,8/180 T and offered with a 42 × 1 thread by its seller's account, 4116710 the Wolfen museum's Praktina lens, 4830464 offered as an Exakta lens. All three have the black barrel and tripod collar; 4018719 carries the red T, while the name ring of 4830464 reads Sonnar 2,8/180 without one.
6237842
A black lens engraved Sonnar 2,8/180, with a crinkle-finished tripod collar, offered as M42 in September 2026; the 1961–64 block. Whether it is a late preset 35mm lens or a 6×6 lens on an adapter cannot be told from the listing.
8768843
Zebra lens on an M42 adapter, offered in October 2026; the 1967–70 block, consistent with Kröger's mid-1960s date for the zebra version.
549900 V60-2
Not a production number. Kröger shows a surviving sample of a postwar recalculation of the Sonnar 2.8/180, trial V60, engraved Carl Zeiss Jena 549900 V60-2, in a black barrel with a preset-style aperture ring and a depth-of-field scale. He does not date it.

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar: five elements in three groups, a single front lens, a cemented triplet and a single rear lens
Construction
5 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8
Filter
86 mm (6×6 rework with automatic diaphragm (Praktisix), 2.2 m, Zebra (mid-1960s), steeper helicoid, 1.7 m, All-black MC Sonnar (from the mid-1970s), MC Sonnar with coupling for the electric Praktica adapter)
Years manufactured
1936–1990
Country
Germany (Jena; East Germany from 1949)
Coating
Single coating, marked with a red T on many 1950s lenses; three-layer multicoating (MC) from the second all-black restyling of the mid-1970s (Kröger)
Original price
688 Mark (DDR retail, 1957) for the preset 35mm version, 655 Mark from June 1960; the Praktisix ASB lens 631.80 Mark (1962) — DDR price lists compiled by Marco Kröger. No prewar or US price found.

What reviewers say

No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.

Optical formula — Sonnar: five elements in three groups, a single front lens, a cemented triplet and a single rear lens

History

The Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 is Ludwig Bertele’s long lens for the Contax: computed in Zeiss Ikon’s design office in Dresden, made by Carl Zeiss in Jena. His data sheet for a “Tele-Sonnar 1:2,8 f=18 cm” is dated 27 November 1935, series production used a second calculation of 16 February 1936, and in April 1940 he changed almost every glass type without touching the layout: five elements in three groups, a single front lens, a cemented triplet and a single rear lens. Prototypes were used at the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February 1936, on a rifle stock, and Marco Kröger says series production began two days after the games closed. Before the war the lens came direct on the Contax and for the Flektoskop mirror housing that turned the Contax into a reflex, and Kröger says it was also delivered for the Kiné Exakta, though no example of that lens is documented. Kröger counts about 1,300 of all versions by the end of the war.

After 1945 Jena carried on with it in a black enamelled barrel with a tripod collar and a preset diaphragm, often with a red T for the coating on the name ring. The lens kept the Flektoskop thread at its rear, so the camera mount unscrews. A Jena leaflet that Kröger dates to 1951 offers it on the rangefinder Contax through the Flektometer, the Flektoskop’s successor, and for the reflexes of the 1950s the same head took a rear mount for M42 or the Praktina, and sellers offer it in Exakta mount too. On a Contax S, D, E or F it fits through the M42 thread like any other lens of the line. Kröger’s point is that with the upright, unreversed image of the Contax S pentaprism it had never been easier to take pictures with a lens like this one. The DDR retail price for the preset 35mm version was 688 Mark in 1957, 667 in 1959 and 655 from June 1960. Surviving examples run from no. 3451283, engraved Sonnar 1:2,8 f=180mm T and in the 1949–52 serial block, to nos. 4018719 and 4830464 in the 1955–58 block, offered in 2026 as an M42 lens and as an Exakta lens; 4830464 has no T on its name ring. The Wolfen museum holds a Praktina example, no. 4116710, with a coupled diaphragm, which it records as focusing to 1.5 m.

The Praktisix gave the lens a second life. Because the 35mm mounts came off, a third-party maker sold a Praktisix bayonet for it. Jena’s answer, in Kröger’s account, was to rework the lens completely in February 1959: re-optimised for 6×6, in a new mount with the Praktisix’s automatic diaphragm on ball bearings and a helicoid with a 27.5 mm stroke. Jena also made adapters that kept the diaphragm fully automatic on the Praktina and Exakta, and semi-automatic on M42. pentaconsix.com gives the same date, a calculation of 14 February 1959, and a later one of 4 July 1966, and says the first 6×6 design opened its diaphragm slightly as it was focused closer, a feature later dropped. The dates around this rework do not line up. The DDR price list carries the Praktisix lens, focusing to 2.2 m, at 631.80 Mark in 1962. A newspaper report of 12 March 1963 says the new Sonnar 1:2,8 of 180 mm for the Praktisix drew particular interest among Jena’s exhibits at the Leipzig spring fair. The BZ fair report of 10 September 1964 presents a recalculation for 6×6, with new glass types tried out together with VEB Schott, as a new trump for the world market. Kröger also shows a surviving sample of a postwar recalculation, trial V60, without dating it. From the mid-1960s the zebra version brought a steeper helicoid and cut the close focus to 1.7 m. In the 1970s Jena restyled the lens all black in two steps and added three-layer multicoating with the second, making it the MC Sonnar 2.8/180. A coupling for an adapter that passes the set aperture to the electrically metering Prakticas followed: pentaconsix.com dates it from about 1981, Kröger places it with the MC restyling. Kröger says the Sonnar 2.8/200 of autumn 1977, built for 35mm, was smaller and lighter than the 180 on its adapter, and from then on the 180 was made mainly for medium format. It was made until the end of 1990, about 91,600 of all versions by Kröger’s count, some 45,000 of them in the 1970s.

For a Contax S-line body the lens to look for is the black 1950s preset lens, and the thing to judge is the head rather than the rear. The mounts unscrew, Jena still listed a camera adapter for the old preset versions in 1974, and a lens offered as being in its original M42 mount cannot prove it left the factory that way. A black enamelled lens with the aperture ring at the front and a tripod collar locked by a knob, often with a red T on the name ring, is the 1950s type; a lens with a Pentacon Six bayonet and an adapter on the back is the 6×6 lens. pentaconsix.com gives the 6×6 lens as 1100 g with an M86 × 1 filter thread, and JAPB weighed an MC example, pictured with an electric M42 adapter, at 1300 g. On Jena’s first M42 adapter it stops down only semi-automatically (Kröger); JAPB says the later electric M42 adapter gives automatic stop-down and passes the set aperture to the camera. Two other lenses share the specification and are sold under similar titles: Carl Zeiss Oberkochen’s Contarex Sonnar 180mm f/2.8, and the Contax/Yashica Sonnar T* 180mm f/2.8, whose titles often carry an AEJ or MMJ code. Neither is this lens.

Left open by the sources consulted here: the engraving and serial range of the prewar lenses, whether the direct-mount lens coupled to the Contax rangefinder, which calculation the 1950s lenses used, when the 6×6 lens actually went on sale, the date of the electric coupling, the weight of the 1950s 35mm lens and a close-focus figure for it beyond the one museum record, and any prewar Reichsmark or US dollar price.

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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 wanted — shot with a Sonnar 180mm f/2.8 (Olympia-Sonnar)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

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Listings updated 2026-10-30. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Sonnar 13.5cm f/4

Sources (15)

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.