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

Sonnar 5cm f/2

Carl Zeiss Β· Contax RF Β· 1932 Β· Sonnar, six elements in three groups

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f/2 Β· Sonnar 5cm f2 Β· Zeiss Opton Sonnar 50/2

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Carl Zeiss Jena, rigid Contax RF 1932–1936 roughly 1416000–1429000 β€” Pacific Rim Camera's second type, taking 42mm slip-on accessories, with a 19mm rear element
1421600–1422200 β€” one batch inside that range stops only to f/16 where the rest go to f/22
1518101–1518600, 1525001–1525500, 1548201–1548700 and 1605001–1606900 β€” the four batches of the 1934 type, 3,400 lenses, aperture ring on the front with the scale inside and the front rim painted black
roughly 1629312–1731640 β€” the 1935 type in black, nickel and chrome, aperture controlled by a chrome front rim with two finger grips and threaded for 40.5mm filters 		No figure published
Carl Zeiss Jena, collapsible Contax RF 1936–1945 β€” No figure published
Oberkochen / Zeiss Opton, rigid Contax RF 1950–1961 from 1256001 β€” the batch at which the engraving changes from Zeiss-Opton to Carl Zeiss, after West German Zeiss won the trademark suits; the filter ring is now black (Pacific Rim Camera, and independently the Leica Contax blog, which puts the official change of name at 1,256,000). A paper boundary rather than a physical one: Carl Zeiss-engraved lenses of this family are recorded well below it, and Zeiss-Opton barrels well above β€” see the serial note No figure published
  1. Corroboration pass, September 2026 β€” a partial result, and the single-source badge stays. What was searched: Pacific Rim Camera, camera-wiki, Craig Camera, the Leica Contax blog's reproduction of the Lens Collector's Vade Mecum and of P-H Pont's Chiffres Cles, CameraQuest, Early Photography's Contax pages, and Zeiss Historica. What was corroborated: Bertele's authorship and the six-elements-in-three-groups formula; the black-and-nickel barrels of the Contax I years giving way to all-chrome with the Contax II in 1936, which Stephen Gandy states independently; the Zeiss-Opton-then-Carl-Zeiss engraving sequence in the West against Jena in the East; and the 1,256,001 boundary, which the Leica Contax blog gives independently of Pacific Rim Camera. What was NOT corroborated, and is the substance of the variant table above: every batch-level serial range on this page β€” roughly 1416000–1429000, the f/16 batch 1421600–1422200, the four 1934 batches totalling 3,400 lenses, 1629312–1731640, the T-coating trial around 2555000, and the 2682701 aluminium-barrel changeover. All of these trace to Pacific Rim Camera and to nothing else found. Hartmut Thiele's Fabrikationsbuch Photooptik, a transcription of the factory books, is the document that would settle them and is not online.
  2. A transposition worth flagging, because this entry carried it. The Jena table's 1912 opening figure is 173,418, not 137,418. Craig Camera and the Leica Contax blog both print 173,418 against camera-wiki's 137,418 β€” the same three digits in a different order, which is what a copying error looks like β€” and the table's own arithmetic decides it rather than leaving it at two transcriptions against one. The Leica Contax blog reproduces the Vade Mecum with the quantity column camera-wiki drops, and its 1912 row reads "173,418 - 200,520 27,102". The 27,102 is printed independently of the range, so it is a check and not a restatement: 200,520 less 173,418 is 27,102 exactly, where 200,520 less 137,418 is 63,102. Only the 173,418 reading makes the published row add up. The figure above has been corrected accordingly. Nothing in this catalogue is dated by it β€” the 1912 block sits a hundred thousand numbers below the first Contax lens β€” and it is worth noting that the same two transcriptions also disagree at 1914, 1924 and 1925, so this is one of a family of copying differences rather than an isolated slip.
  3. Part of one open question above is now answered. The note below records that no serial boundary had been published for the changeover to the chrome collapsible barrel. The Vade Mecum table does give one, if a coarse one: the chrome finish begins across the Jena range at about 1,890,000, inside the 1936 block. That is a finish boundary for all Jena lenses rather than a changeover point for this lens specifically, and it does not resolve the 1935-against-1936 disagreement below, but it is the first published number attached to the question.
  4. The published Jena year table stops at 1942, around 2,900,000. Numbers between there and the 3,000,000 at which postwar Jena production resumes fall in a gap no consulted table covers.
  5. Pacific Rim Camera gives roughly 1416xxx–1429xxx for both its first and its second version of this lens, so that range does not separate the two; only the f/16 batch 1421600–1422200 and the four dated 1934 batches are unambiguous blocks.
  6. Pacific Rim Camera dates the first chrome-over-brass collapsible lens to 1935, where the variant table here opens the collapsible in 1936. Both are given; no serial boundary for the changeover has been published.
  7. 1,256,001, where the Carl Zeiss engraving begins, falls inside the Oberkochen band of 1,100,000–2,600,000 that camera-wiki dates 1953–1959 β€” consistent with the trademark rulings that ended the Zeiss-Opton name.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Six elements in three groups β€” the classic Sonnar count
  • Collapses into the body on most prewar chrome examples

Carl Zeiss Jena, rigid:

  • Black and nickel, rigid barrel, for the Contax I

Carl Zeiss Jena, collapsible:

  • Chrome, collapsible β€” the common form on a Contax II

Oberkochen / Zeiss Opton, rigid:

  • Rigid; marked Zeiss Opton or Carl Zeiss

Serial-range notes

the whole number
How to date one. Carl Zeiss drew every photographic lens number from a single running sequence covering all models at once, so a Zeiss lens is dated by reading its number off a serial/year table rather than by counting within its own type β€” there is no per-model list of the Leitz kind. camera-wiki's table, taken from Wilkinson and Glanfield's A Lens Collector's Vade Mecum, runs the Jena sequence from 173,418 in 1912 to about 2,900,000 in 1942; Craig Camera publishes a near-identical list, and the Vade Mecum text is reproduced in full on the Leica Contax blog, which gives the numbers used in each year alongside the ranges. The same table marks two boundaries this lens sits astride: the first Contax lenses appear in the 1931 block, 1,239,699–1,365,582, and the chrome finish begins at about 1,890,000 in 1936.
1364483–2900000
The Jena year boundaries that bracket this lens's prewar production, from camera-wiki: 1932 = 1,364,483–1,389,279; 1933 = 1,436,671–1,456,003; 1934 = 1,500,474–1,590,000; 1935 = 1,615,764–1,752,303; 1936 = 1,674,882–1,942,806; 1937 = 1,930,150–2,219,775; 1938 = 2,267,991–2,527,984; 1939 = 2,527,999–2,651,211; 1940 = 2,652,000–2,678,000; 1941 = 2,678,326–2,790,346; 1942 = 2,800,000–2,900,000.
above 3000000 (Jena) against 10000–3000000 (Oberkochen)
After 1945 the sequence forks, and the same figure means two different decades. Carl Zeiss Jena in the East carried the old numbers on from 3,000,000 β€” 3,000,000–3,200,000 = 1945–49, 3,200,000–3,470,000 = 1949–52, 3,470,000–4,000,000 = 1952–55, 4,000,000–5,000,000 = 1955–58, 5,000,000–6,000,000 = 1958–61. Carl Zeiss Oberkochen in the West began a fresh sequence at 10,000 in 1946 β€” 10,000–500,000 = 1946–51, 500,000–1,100,000 = 1951–53, 1,100,000–2,600,000 = 1953–59, 2,600,000–3,000,000 = 1959–61. A six-figure number on a Zeiss-Opton or Oberkochen barrel is therefore early 1950s, not 1920s. The Leica Contax blog's copy of the same Oberkochen table splits that third band where the engraving changes β€” 1,100,000–1,256,000 in 1953, then 1,256,001–2,600,000 for 1953–59 marked simply Carl Zeiss β€” and records that the first Zeiss-Opton optic for the Contax was a 135mm f/4 Sonnar, number 91,001 of 1949, from an isolated batch made at Coburg.
1256001, and why it is a soft boundary
Two cautions on the engraving change, both from the Leica Contax blog and neither in Pacific Rim Camera's account. First, the Zeiss-Opton mark did not stop at the changeover: it stayed in use for years afterwards on lenses sold into the Comecon countries, which the blog warns will cause confusion if it is not realised. Second, the boundary is bureaucratic rather than physical, and the blog names counter-examples in this very family β€” a Sonnar 50mm f/2 numbered 824,840 and a Sonnar 50mm f/1.5 numbered 820,412, both engraved Carl Zeiss although both fall well below 1,256,001, where Carl Zeiss-marked Sonnars officially began. A barrel's engraving and its number can disagree, and when they do the number is not automatically the liar.
any number near a year boundary
Blocks were allotted to production in sequence, but batches were not always finished in block order, so the published year ranges overlap β€” 1935 runs to 1,752,303 while 1936 opens at 1,674,882 β€” and a serial places a lens within a year or two rather than to a month. Pentacon Six sets out the mechanism and points to Hartmut Thiele's Fabrikationsbuch Photooptik, a transcription of the factory books, for batch-level dates.
a letter followed by five digits
Not a lens number at all. That is the Zeiss Ikon CAMERA sequence, inherited from ICA in 1909, which rolls to the next letter at 99,999, reached Z in 1936 and restarted at A. A Contax body number and a Zeiss lens number belong to separate schemes and must never be read against the same table.
about 2555000 onwards
T-coated 50/2s start appearing around this number in 1938, apparently in trial batches set against uncoated lenses in the field; coating does not become universal on this lens until the 1941 version (Pacific Rim Camera).
2682701
The likely first number of the 1941 aluminium-barrel wartime lens, the material change following shortages of brass and chrome. A chrome-over-brass barrel with an aluminium aperture ring and a dull grey mount follows in 1942–43.
above 3000000
Postwar Carl Zeiss Jena production, resumed in a rigid aluminium body with a separate filter ring inside the front rim; chrome from 1947, with the index mark changed to a red arrow. These are East German lenses and are not the Oberkochen variant listed above.

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar, six elements in three groups
Designed by
Ludwig Bertele β€” optical design
Construction
6 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/2
Filter
40.5 mm
Years manufactured
1932–1961
Country
Germany

What reviewers say

History

The f/2 Sonnar is the Contax’s standard lens: six elements in three groups, a stop slower than the f/1.5 and correspondingly smaller and cheaper, and the lens most Contax IIs left the shop with.

Its afterlife is longer than its life. When the Soviet Union took the Zeiss design data as reparations, this is the lens that became the Jupiter-8 β€” the same six elements in three groups β€” and the Jupiter-8 became the standard lens of the Kiev, which stayed in production until 1987. A design of 1932 was still being manufactured fifty-five years later, on two sides of a border, under two names.

Prewar chrome examples usually collapse into the body; a rigid chrome version exists and is described as rare. The postwar Oberkochen lenses are rigid.

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 β€” but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo wanted β€” shot with a Sonnar 5cm f/2? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $400 across 43 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $220–$750). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $400.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$400$220–$75043
2026-09-06$400$220–$75042

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

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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 β€” 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.

Related: Biotar 4cm f/2 Β· Jupiter-8 50mm f/2 Β· Sonnar 5cm f/1.5 Β· Tessar 5cm f/3.5

Sources (11)

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 β€” corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.