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

Sonnar 250mm f/4 (1600F/1000F)

Carl Zeiss · Hasselblad 1600F · 1951 · Sonnar

Also known as: Zeiss Sonnar 250mm f/4 · Sonnar 4/250 · Zeiss-Opton Sonnar 250

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Zeiss-Opton Hasselblad 1600F (M60×6 three-start thread) 1951 — About 600 in a single batch (Marco Cavina)
How to tell them apart (expand)

Zeiss-Opton:

  • Engraved Zeiss-Opton — Cavina reports the whole run carried this marking
  • No preset diaphragm: the aperture is set and that is all it does

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar
Construction
4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/32
Min. focus
2.5 m
Dimensions
72 × 163 mm
Weight
1100 g
Country
Germany

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
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from official Zeiss data sheet (10 10 02) — a mechanical cutaway rather than a clean optical section — 4 elements in 3 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from official Zeiss data sheet (10 10 02) — a mechanical cutaway rather than a clean optical section — 4 elements in 3 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site

History

The long lens of the 1600F outfit, offered from the middle of 1951, and the scarcest of the Zeiss lenses made for the pre-1957 cameras: Cavina counts about 600 in a single batch, all of them engraved Zeiss-Opton.

The design is an orthodox Bertele Sonnar scaled up — four elements in three groups, with a thick cemented pair at the centre doing most of the work. Zeiss’s data sheet gives the true focal length as exactly 250mm at f/4.00, a back focal distance of 118.82mm, an 18° field and a minimum focus of 2.5m. It weighs 1.1kg in a barrel 163mm long, and takes an unusual M77×0.75 filter thread or an 80mm push-on.

One detail matters in use: there is no preset diaphragm. On a camera with no automatic aperture linkage, that means composing at working aperture or stopping down by hand between focusing and exposure, which is the ordinary discipline of the period but worth knowing before buying.

The sheet Zeiss published for it is a mechanical cutaway rather than the clean optical section that accompanies the Tessar and the shorter Sonnar, so the schematic here is read from a drawing hatched with the mount, and the element shapes are less certain than the count.

A second and slower 250mm followed for the same mount, a Sonnar f/5.6 calculated in September 1952 and sold from 1955, described as sharing this lens’s scheme almost exactly. That one has its own page.

Expand Collapse

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 250mm f/4 (1600F/1000F)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $890 across 7 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $530–$950). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $890.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$890$530–$9507
2026-09-06$890$530–$9507

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

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

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

Sources (3)

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.