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

Sonnar Superachromat 250mm f/5.6

Carl Zeiss · Hasselblad V · 1972 · Sonnar Superachromat

Also known as: Zeiss Sonnar Superachromat 250mm f/5.6 · Carl Zeiss Superachromat 250mm · Sonnar Superachromat 5.6/250 · Superachromat 250/5.6 · Hasselblad 250mm Superachromat · Hasselblad 250 SA · Sonnar SA 250mm · Superachromat CF 250mm · Sonnar Superachromat 5.6/250 CFE

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Sonnar Superachromat C 5.6/250 (1972 baseline) · Compur size 0 interchangeable reflex shutter with automatic iris diaphragm (Synchro-Compur, 1s–1/500 and B) Hasselblad V 1972–1982 — —
Sonnar Superachromat CF 5.6/250 · Prontor CF, 1s–1/500 and B Hasselblad V 1982–1998 — —
Sonnar Superachromat CFi 5.6/250 · Prontor CFi, 1s–1/500, B and F Hasselblad V 1998–2001 — —
Sonnar Superachromat CFE 5.6/250 · Prontor CFE, 1s–1/500, B and F Hasselblad V 2001–2013 — —
  1. Element and group counts, weights, exact focal lengths, closest focus and filter series come from the Zeiss data sheets hosted by Hasselblad Historical (C250SA, CF250SA, CFE250SA).
  2. No data sheet was found for a CFi-barrel Superachromat; that row's years follow the CFi range as a whole and should be treated as provisional.
  3. No serial block has been published for the Superachromat in any of its versions, by Zeiss, by Hasselblad or by a collector survey. The serial tables that exist run across the whole Zeiss-for-Hasselblad sequence and cannot separate this lens from the ordinary 250mm Sonnar sharing the same number stream, which is why the date code inside the mount, not the serial, is the primary evidence here.
  4. The lookup utility answers 'unknown' for a good deal of the range — 6,000,000, 6,050,000, 6,150,000 and 6,600,000 all return nothing, as do 2,600,000 and 2,700,000. The tables are a list of dated blocks, not a continuous mapping, and a Superachromat whose number falls in a gap cannot be dated this way at all.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Superachromat is engraved on the lens — without it, a 250mm f/5.6 Hasselblad lens is the ordinary four-element Sonnar, which shares the focal length, maximum aperture and f/45 minimum
  • Six elements in six groups — every element a singlet, unusual in a lens of this length, and the reason the corrected range reaches 1000 nm
  • Closest focus is 2.8 m on the C and 3 m from the CF onward; the ordinary Sonnar focuses to 2.5 m in every version
  • Filter mount is bayonet-50 on the C, bayonet-60 from the CF onward
  • The CFE carries T rather than T* coating by design; a Superachromat marked T* is a C or CF, whose sheets do print T* in the title

Sonnar Superachromat C 5.6/250 (1972 baseline):

  • Superachromat engraved after the Sonnar name — the single reliable way to tell it from the ordinary 250mm f/5.6, which shares focal length, maximum aperture, f/45 minimum and the 18° field
  • Bayonet-50 filter mount; 800 g, lighter than the four-element C Sonnar's 930 g despite carrying six elements
  • Closest focus 2.8 m against the ordinary Sonnar's 2.5 m; the distance ring has no infinity stop, so long-range work must be focused on the groundglass (Zeiss data sheet)
  • Zeiss data sheet: cat. no. 104515, 6 elements in 6 groups, exact focal length 249.6 mm, aperture scale 5.6-8-11-16-22-32-45

Sonnar Superachromat CF 5.6/250:

  • Prontor CF shutter, black barrel with rubber focusing grip, bayonet-60 filter mount
  • Closest focus moves out to 3 m (reproduction ratio 0 to 1:9.6) and the weight to 985 g
  • The focusing ring still has no infinity stop — the sheet prints the footnote 'no stop position for ∞'
  • Zeiss data sheet: cat. no. 10 45 32, 6 elements in 6 groups, exact focal length 249.6 mm

Sonnar Superachromat CFi 5.6/250:

  • CFi engraved after the focal length; bayonet-60 filter mount; no databus contacts (those come with the CFE)

Sonnar Superachromat CFE 5.6/250:

  • Four databus contacts on the bayonet plate for the 200-series meters; bayonet-60 filter mount; 1010 g, the heaviest of the family
  • T, not T*: Zeiss's sheet says the lens is deliberately not T*-coated because T* cuts off ultraviolet and infrared, and that a T coating is used instead for higher infrared transmission
  • No infrared focusing index — none is needed — and the focusing ring rotates past infinity to allow for varying temperatures
  • Zeiss data sheet: cat. no. 10 45 50, 6 elements in 6 groups, exact focal length 249.2 mm, 3 m closest focus, 1:9.6

Serial-range notes

red-ink code inside the rear mount, pre-1980
Zeiss stamped a date code inside the rear of the mount: before 1980 the last two digits are the month and the leading digit(s) plus 1957 the year, so 1508 reads as August 1972 — the year the Superachromat was announced.
red-ink code inside the rear mount, 1980 onward
From 1980 the code is two reversed year digits and a month letter, A = January. No published serial block is known for the Superachromat, which was made in far smaller numbers than the ordinary 250mm Sonnar.
where to look for the code, and what a second one means
Hasselblad Historical's account of the stamp adds three things a reader needs. It sits on the rear end of the mount, often on the wall of the rear baffle, and racking the lens to its close-focus limit pulls the rear element forward and out of the way of it. It is present in all but the very earliest C lenses. And where an early lens carries more than one stamp, the earliest date is the likely build date and the later ones are returns to the factory for major repair — so read the lowest, not the last.
the serial number itself, and the tables behind it
Zeiss serial numbers hold no coded date, so a serial dates a lens only through a table matching numbers to years, and those tables were built by collecting serials alongside the dates their owners bought them. Richard Nordin's Hasselblad System Compendium carries the standard set; Hasselblad Historical runs a lookup utility on the same data. Where the number falls between tabulated blocks the utility answers 'unknown' rather than interpolating, which is the honest behaviour and the reason a serial is the second resort after the date code.
5,600,000 · 5,650,000 · 5,750,000 · 6,300,000 · 6,500,000 · 6,650,000 · 6,900,000 · 7,100,000
Anchor points returned by that utility, useful for placing a Superachromat in its version: 5,600,000 = 1972, 5,650,000 = 1973 and 5,750,000 = 1974 (the C years); 6,300,000 = 1980, 6,500,000 = 1982 and 6,650,000 = 1983 (the C-to-CF change); 6,900,000 = 1985, 7,100,000 = 1988, 7,200,000 = 1991, 7,400,000 = 1993, 7,500,000 = 1995. These are readings taken from the tool, not block boundaries — the true edges lie somewhere inside the gaps.
6571429
A dated example, and the only one traced. A Sonnar Superachromat CF 5.6/250 of this number sold at Flints Auctions on 12 October 2022 for £875 including premium; Hasselblad Historical's utility places 6571429 in 1982, the year the CF barrel replaced the C across the range. Serial and version agree, which is a small confirmation that the tables are usable on this lens.

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar Superachromat
Construction
6 elements / 6 groups
Aperture range
f/5.6–f/45
Shutter
In the lens: Synchro-Compur size 0 on the C, Prontor CF from 1982, Prontor CFE from 2001, 1s–1/500 and B, flash sync at every speed
Min. focus
2.8 m
Weight
800 g
Years manufactured
1972–2013
Country
West Germany (Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen); Germany from 1990
Coating
T* on the C and CF versions (both sheets print T* in the title); the CFE is deliberately T-coated rather than T*, because T* cuts off ultraviolet and infrared and this lens is built to pass them

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
exceptionally low
Optical formula — Sonnar Superachromat
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from the Zeiss data sheet (C250SA) — 6 elements in 6 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from the Zeiss data sheet (C250SA) — 6 elements in 6 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site
ⓘ What these charts mean

MTF (modulation transfer function) shows how much contrast the lens keeps at a given fineness of detail, from the center of the frame to the corner — the coarse curves track punch, the fine ones resolving power, and a gap between solid and dashed lines means astigmatism. Relative illumination (falloff) shows how much darker the corners are than the center at each aperture. Manufacturers only began publishing these for modern lenses; no 1950s maker issued them, which is why older families here cite period magazine bench tests instead.

History

Announced in 1972, the Sonnar Superachromat 250mm f/5.6 was the first photographic lens sold with superachromatic correction — Zeiss’s own CFE data sheet puts it plainly as “the first photo lens on the market with superachromatic colour correction (beyond apochromatic)”. An ordinary achromat brings two wavelengths to a common focus, an apochromat three; the Superachromat corrects the secondary spectrum across the whole range from about 400 to 1000 nm, and the CFE sheet adds that the correction holds to within the Rayleigh limit. The practical consequence is stated on every sheet in the family: a lens focused visually, in visible light, is also in focus on infrared or false-colour film, so no infrared focusing index is needed and none is engraved.

The design is six elements in six groups — every element a singlet, and none cemented — against four elements in three groups for the ordinary 250mm Sonnar sold beside it. The C sheet gives an exact focal length of 249.6 mm and a weight of 800 g, which makes the Superachromat lighter than the four-element Sonnar’s 930 g, and the price of the correction shows in the closest focusing distance: 2.8 m on the C, 3 m from the CF onward, against 2.5 m for the ordinary lens. Zeiss’s own account of how it is built is unusually candid — the CFE sheet calls manufacture “extremely difficult”, depending on “a critical combination of very special optical glasses and crystals”.

Zeiss aimed the lens at work rather than at photographers. The C and CF sheets list technical and scientific infrared photography first, then aerial work, geology, hydrology, archaeological documentation from aerial photographs, botany, plant pathology, environmental control and multi-spectral photography, and note that the lens suits pictures meant to be greatly enlarged. Both sheets also carry a warning that reads oddly for a Hasselblad lens: the distance ring has no infinity stop, so focusing for long-range work has to be done on the camera’s groundglass. The CFE explains the reason — the ring is designed to rotate beyond infinity to allow for varying temperatures.

The barrel followed the rest of the V line. The 1972 lens is a C, with a Compur size 0 shutter, the EV interlock and a bayonet-50 filter mount; the CF of 1982 brought Prontor’s shutter, the rubber focusing grip and bayonet 60, at 985 g; the CFE of 2001, cat. no. 10 45 50, added the four databus contacts for the 200-series meters and reached 1010 g. One step in that sequence is not documented here: no Zeiss sheet was found for a Superachromat in the 1998 CFi barrel, and the sheets consulted jump straight from CF to CFE, so the CFi row of the variant table is provisional.

The coating tells the same story as the correction. The C and CF sheets print T* in their titles, but the CFE sheet states that this lens is deliberately not T*-coated, because T* cuts off ultraviolet and infrared; a plain T coating is used instead for higher infrared transmission. Whether that choice was made for the CFE or had been true of the earlier lenses under a T* title is not resolved by the sheets themselves. Silver in the Dark’s V-system guide, writing about the used market rather than the physics, calls the lens tack sharp and still expensive — about $1,300 and up, with anything under $1,000 a bargain.

What remains open: who at Zeiss Oberkochen computed the design, whom no source consulted names; whether the CFi Superachromat existed; what the lens cost new at any date; how many were made; and whether the C and CF lenses really carried T* multicoating or inherited the title from the standard catalogue layout.

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 Superachromat 250mm f/5.6? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,900 across 23 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,800–$2,600). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,900.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,900$1,800–$2,60023
2026-09-06$1,900$1,800–$2,60023

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

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

Related: Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 · Tele-Superachromat 300mm f/2.8 IF · Tele-Superachromat 350mm f/5.6 IF · Tele-Tessar 250mm f/4 · Tele-Tessar 350mm f/5.6 · UV-Sonnar 105mm f/4.3

Sources (8)

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.