Tele-Superachromat 300mm f/2.8 IF

The Tele-Superachromat T* 2.8/300 is the outer limit of what Zeiss built for the Hasselblad V system. Its data sheet calls it “the fastest telephoto lens in professional medium format with an outstanding optical performance on ‘Superachromat’ level,” and the specification bears the boast out awkwardly: 9 elements in 8 groups plus a drop-in filter, an exact focal length of 299.9 mm, f/2.8 to f/22, and 3800 g — nearly twice the weight of the shutterless Tele-Tessar 4/350 and more than four times the 500-series body it could not be used on. The entrance pupil alone is 105.3 mm across. Zeiss explained the bulk in materials: “several lens elements are made of fluor crown glass with anomalous partial dispersion to provide excellent correction of chromatic aberrations even at wide open aperture,” with veiling glare “meticulously controlled.” Superachromat means the correction holds across a very wide band — Japanese Wikipedia gives 400 to 1000 nm for the type — rather than at the three wavelengths an apochromat brings together.

Moving that much glass was itself a design problem. “Especially for this lens,” the sheet says, “Carl Zeiss invented a novel mechanism for internal focusing ensuring movement of large and relatively heavy optical elements with unparalleled accuracy.” The result focuses to 2.5 m, a 1:6.9 reproduction ratio over a close-limit field of 377 × 377 mm, and keeps doing so with the converter fitted. Practical touches follow from the size: a drop-in filter slot instead of a front thread, with a polarizer that turns in its own ball bearing; a rotating tripod collar notched every 90° carrying the Hasselblad quick mount and 1/4” and 3/8” threads under the combined centre of gravity; a focusing ring that travels past infinity so the lens can be used across a range of temperatures.

It was not sold on its own. The sheet is headed “Carl Zeiss Telephoto Power Pack” and covers two items, the lens and a converter designed for it “right from the beginning” — the Apo-Mutar 1.7x E T*, catalogue number 10 43 41, 7 elements in 4 groups, which turns the pair into a 503.5 mm f/4.8 with a minimum aperture engraved 32, a maximum scale of 1:4.1 and a combined weight of 4230 g. Hasselblad Historical’s lens index accordingly lists the lens as “Tele-Superachromat f/2.8 300 mm TPP FE (IF)”.

The chronology is the weak part of the record. Japanese Wikipedia, read in translation, places a TCC-badged 2.8/300 among the databus lenses of the early 1990s and describes a limited run of about 300; Hasselblad Historical lists only the FE; lens-db files the lens under 1999; the data sheet was printed on 25 May 2000. Those cannot all be describing the same moment, and no factory announcement was located, so the TCC-then-FE reading carried here is a reconstruction rather than a documented sequence. An auction description for a prototype records serial 8801907 with the production batch said to begin at 9300xxx — consistent with an early-1990s design, if the description is right. Production ended with the bodies: Hasselblad Historical’s model table gives 2004 for the end of the 2000/200-series.

What remains open: a dated announcement for the lens and for the Telephoto Power Pack package; whether a TCC-marked 2.8/300 was in fact sold, or whether Japanese Wikipedia is describing the FE under the earlier label; the production quantity from a factory figure rather than an encyclopaedia; the serial block, from examined lenses rather than an auction extract; and any list price at all — B&H’s product page survives without one.