Tessar 160mm f/4.8

In 1997 Hasselblad put a budget line into a catalogue that had never had one. The CB lenses — a Distagon 60, a recomputed six-element Planar 80, a Makro-Planar 120 and this 160mm Tessar — were priced below the CF range and simplified to get there. Of the four, the 160 is the one that shows the reasoning most plainly, because it is the only lens in the modern V system built to the Tessar formula: four elements in three groups, where every other telephoto in the catalogue is a five-element Sonnar or a Tele-Tessar.

Zeiss’s data sheet does not hide the trade. “The Tessar design makes a lighter and less expensive lens featuring this focal length possible than the Sonnar design,” it says, ”– a benefit which photographers enjoy, especially when working without a tripod.” The numbers bear it out: 650 g, against 785 g for the CF 150 Sonnar and 1075 g for the CF 180. The rest of the specification (cat. no. 100349) is an exact focal length of 161.1 mm, an aperture scale from f/4.8 to f/22, a 26.8° field, closest focus at 1.5 m, and a bayonet for series-60 filters. The maximum aperture is unique in the system, which makes the engraved 1:4.8 f=160 the fastest way to identify one; the odd focal length follows from the design rather than from any gap in the range, since the CF 150 and CF 180 already stood on either side of it.

The sheet’s second technical claim is about flare rather than weight: the amount of scattered light in the lens “has been markedly reduced.” What follows is a list of ergonomic changes shared across the CB line — better scale lettering, more grip on the shutter-speed ring, rounded controls that can be worked in gloves, a locking flash terminal, a smooth-action matte black front bayonet, and a broader, more rigid camera-connection bayonet in new materials for longer service life than the CF’s. Zeiss states that the lens “can be used with all Hasselblad cameras of the 200 and 500 type,” which is true through its own Prontor CB leaf shutter; what the CB barrel omits is the green F setting, so unlike a CF or CFE it cannot be used open-shutter with a focal-plane body’s own shutter.

Dating the lens is the weak point. LENS-DB gives 1997, which is the year the CB range as a whole appeared, and the end year here is the point at which that range left the catalogue rather than any documented discontinuation of the 160 itself — dealer references sometimes carry it into the mid-2000s. No source consulted gives a month at either end, a production figure, or a list price in dollars or kronor.

Its reputation has stayed thin in proportion. The lens is scarce in the used market compared with the 150, and the writing about it is mostly forum discussion rather than published review; a detailed technical review by Oleg Novikov is known to exist but could not be read for this entry, as the site’s certificate no longer matches its hostname. No blog review was cited here, and no ratings are given.

What remains open: who at Zeiss Oberkochen computed the 160, whom no source consulted names; the lens’s own start and end months and whether it outlived the rest of the CB line; whether the Tessar was a new computation for 1997 or adapted from an existing design; any original list price; and every production figure, which would have to come from Nordin’s compendia.