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

Tessar 50mm f/2.8 (Jena, 1947 design)

Carl Zeiss Jena · M42 + Exakta · 1949 · Tessar

our own finding

Also known as: Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8 · Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8/50 · Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2,8/50 · Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Tessar 50mm f2.8 · Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f2.8 · Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8/50 · Jena Tessar 2.8/50 · Jena Tessar 2,8/50 · CZJ Tessar 2.8/50 · CZJ Tessar 50mm f2.8 · Tessar 2,8/50 · Tessar 2.8/50 · Tessar 2,8/50 T · Tessar T 50mm f2.8 · Tessar 50mm f2.8 M42 · Tessar 2.8/50 M42 · Tessar 50mm f2.8 Exakta · aus Jena T 50mm f2.8 · aus Jena T 2,8/50 · aus Jena Tessar 50mm f2.8 · Jena T 2,8/50 · Carl Zeiss 50mm f2.8 aus Jena T · aus Jena DDR T1:2.8 50mm · カールツァイス イエナ テッサー 50mm F2.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
M42, plain diaphragm (1949–51) M42 1949–1951 — The first lot of 1,500 went into final assembly in July 1949 (Kröger); no split by mount has been published
M42 preset, silver with red T (from August 1951) M42 1951 — —
M42 semi-automatic spring diaphragm (from October 1955) M42 1955 — —
M42 automatic, zebra then black (to spring 1988) M42 1961–1988 — —
Export engraving: 'Jena T' and 'aus Jena T' M42 1956 — —
Exakta bayonet Exakta — — —
Praktina bayonet Praktina (bayonet) 1953 — —
  1. Specifications differ by barrel, so this entry gives no family-wide filter, blade count, closest focus or weight. Preset (1950s): 12 blades (some 14), f/2.8–16, 0.5 m, 40.5 mm filter, 118 g, 50 × 44 mm (m42lens; Japanese dealer listings). Spring diaphragm: E49, f/2.8–16, 0.5 m, 43 × 66 mm (Wolfen museum), 8 blades (one dealer). Late automatic: 5 blades, f/2.8–22, 0.35 m, 49 mm, 150–170 g (Phillip Reeve's site; Kamerastore).
  2. The Wolfen museum records a second M42 lens, no. 8198280, as preset with E49, 0.35 m, f/2.8–22 (16 per the catalogue), 43 × 66 mm and 170 g, and as made for the Pentina, Werra and Altix. Its number falls in camera-wiki's 1967–70 block and its 0.35 m and f/22 match the late automatic lens, so it is not entered as a marker for the 1950s preset.
  3. The patent behind the M42 spring diaphragm is given two ways by the same author. Kröger's Tessar page credits the lever-less design to DDR patent 10752 of 3 May 1952 and has it made from October 1955; his Primoplan page says 10752 started it, but that the M42 production solution resembled the Praktina's and was patented as DDR 18,920 of 30 March 1956.
  4. Phillip Reeve's site says the postwar lens came in silver, zebra and black, with 12 and even 14 blades, and that the final versions were black with 5 blades. It dates the postwar lens from 1950 but gives no dates for the finishes. Japanese dealers date an early zebra with a stop-down lever to 1964–67 and put the black lens with an A/M switch from the early 1970s.
  5. The same 1947 optics went into versions not entered as variants here: fixed in the Beltica, Welti and Mimosa and in the Werra cameras, in interchangeable mounts for the Altix and Pentina, in a recessed bellows mount listed at 91 Mark from June 1960, and as the Prakticar 2,8/50 for the Praktica B bayonet. Kröger says the Prakticar was the only multicoated version, cost 320 Mark against 140 for the Tessar with pressure diaphragm for the Praktica MTL or Exa Ib, and was dropped after 2,600 had been made.
  6. Outfit prices in Kröger's compilation of DDR price lists: Pentacon ZI with Tessar 793.20 Mark (1955); Contax D with Tessar 586 Mark from July 1956, against 668 with the Biotar; Contax E with Tessar 656 Mark (1956), case 39.50; Contax F with Tessar 663 Mark (1957), 645 (1959), 460 (1960); Praktica FX with Tessar 334 Mark from July 1956. None of the sources here gives a US list price for the lens alone; Alex Waterhouse-Hayward recalls paying $100 for a Pentacon F with the Tessar in 1958.
  7. Years by version: 1949 is the first final assembly, August 1951 the first preset, February 1953 the first Praktina spring diaphragms, October 1955 the first lever-less M42 spring diaphragms (all Kröger); 1956 is the earliest dated Jena T engraving in these sources (Hummel's Hexacon); 1961 for the M42 automatic is Kamerastore's date; spring 1988 is the end of production (Kröger).
  8. Light fall-off is reported both ways. Jena's test report of 19 February 1948 found less fall-off towards the corners than in the 1933 Tessar 2,8 and the 1931 Tessar 3,5. A comparison of 1954 with the 1933 lens, also reproduced by Kröger, found the fall-off slightly worse than the older lens's.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Four elements in three groups on every version: the barrel, diaphragm and engraving changed, the optics did not (Kröger)
  • Two engraving styles on the 1950s silver lenses: 'Carl Zeiss Jena Nr. 3511218 Tessar 1:2,8 f=50mm T' on Hummel's small D no. 41627, and 'Tessar 2,8/50 T 3811807 Carl Zeiss Jena' on the m42lens preset. Export lenses read only 'T' with 'Jena' or 'aus Jena'
  • Not the prewar Contax rangefinder Tessar 2,8/5 cm (calculations of 1931 and 1933), which has a Contax bayonet, and not the old-design Tessar 2,8/5 cm that Jena assembled, mostly from parts in stock, for the Praktiflex and Exakta in July 1945

M42, plain diaphragm (1949–51):

  • One aperture ring and no preset ring: Kröger dates the first preset Tessars to August 1951
  • Numbers in Carl Zeiss Jena's 1949–52 block, 3,200,000–3,470,000 on camera-wiki's serial table

M42 preset, silver with red T (from August 1951):

  • Preset controls at the front: the foremost ring carries the aperture scale, 2.8 to 16, and a second knurled ring behind it a red dot (m42lens no. 3811807; the small D on Wikimedia Commons with lens no. 4728822)
  • Front ring engraved 'Tessar 2,8/50 T', the number and 'Carl Zeiss Jena', the T in red (m42lens no. 3811807)
  • 12 blades, f/2.8–16, distance scale to 0.5 m and a 40.5 mm filter on two Japanese listings of 2026. m42lens gives 12 blades, 0.49 m, a 40 mm filter, 118 g, 50 mm across and 44 mm long
  • A Japanese auction of 2026 offered a red-T M42 example with 14 blades

M42 semi-automatic spring diaphragm (from October 1955):

  • No cocking lever: the aperture ring is turned to its stop at full aperture to cock the iris, the body's release trips it to the preset value, and it must be cocked again after every exposure (Kröger; Mike Eckman's description of his lens)
  • E49 filter, f/2.8–16, 0.5 m, 43 × 66 mm (Wolfen museum, no. 5445687, recorded as Spannspringblende); one Japanese dealer counts 8 blades on a silver example with a 49 mm filter
  • Made for bodies with a release in the mirror box: the Praktica FX2 first, then the Contax F (Kröger)
  • Jens, writing on 35mmc, warns that the ribbed release ring stiffens with age until the lens unscrews before the ring turns

M42 automatic, zebra then black (to spring 1988):

  • Pin-operated automatic diaphragm: the body's plunger closes the iris at the moment of exposure (the price lists' Automatische Druckblende)
  • Zebra barrel with a stop-down lever, then black with an A/M switch. A Japanese dealer dates an early zebra, engraved 'TESSAR 2.8/50 CARL ZEISS JENA DDR', to 1964–67; another puts the black A/M lens from the early 1970s and dates its own example to 1976–80
  • Late black lenses: 5 rounded blades, f/2.8–22, 0.35 m, 49 mm filter. Phillip Reeve's site gives 170 g and 37 mm long; Kamerastore gives 150 g and 36 × 66 mm

Export engraving: 'Jena T' and 'aus Jena T':

  • Neither 'Carl Zeiss' nor 'Tessar' on the front ring: it reads 'T 2,8/50', the number and 'Jena' (Hummel's Hexacon no. 89907, lens 4318825), later 'aus JENA' with the T
  • The Pentacon F and FB manuals call it 'Jena Lens T 50 mm, f/2.8' in English and 'Objektiv Jena T 1:2,8 f = 50 mm' in German, in their depth-of-field tables
  • Built on the home-market barrels of its time: Kamerastore's aus Jena T is the late M42 automatic, black or zebra, 5 blades, 0.35 m, 150 g; a zebra Exakta example engraved aus JENA T sold on Yahoo! Auctions in 2026

Exakta bayonet:

  • Exakta bayonet. Kröger: because the Exakta's release is on the outside of the body, an automatic diaphragm on this mount was always the lens maker's business, never the camera's
  • A plain click-stop version for the Exa, listed at 71 Mark from 1960 (Kröger's price list); a Japanese dealer describes a silver, fully manual Exakta example with 8 blades and a 35.5 mm filter
  • Zebra examples engraved aus JENA T are sold in Japan

Praktina bayonet:

  • Praktina bayonet. From February 1953 with a spring diaphragm cocked by a lever and tripped from inside the camera: Kröger documents two such Tessars from Jena that month
  • Also sold with a preset diaphragm (price list: preset for Exakta, Praktina or M42)

Serial-range notes

3200000–6000000 (1949–1961)
THE RULE. Carl Zeiss Jena numbered every lens it made in one running sequence, so a Tessar is dated from the company's block table, not from a list for this model. Camera-wiki's postwar Jena table: 3,000,000–3,200,000 for 1945–49, 3,200,000–3,470,000 for 1949–52, 3,470,000–4,000,000 for 1952–55, 4,000,000–5,000,000 for 1955–58, 5,000,000–6,000,000 for 1958–61, then a million every three years to 9,000,000 in 1970 and 10,000,000 in 1975. Kröger thinks numbers were assigned when an order came in, so assembly could trail the number by months. He gives a lot of 1,000 Tessar 2,8/50 numbered 3,683,001–3,684,000 and assembled from 2 October 1952, beside a lot of 300 Tessar 2,8/80 for the Exakta 6×6 that was numbered higher (3,691,001–3,691,300) but assembled earlier, from 7 July 1952.
3511218, 3743207, 3826641, 4174819, 4174938, 4310643, 4318825, 4728822, 4770487
Numbers on Contax D-era bodies: 3511218 on Hummel's small D no. 41627, a body of 1951 (the lens number falls in camera-wiki's 1952–55 block, so about 1952); 3743207 on the Wolfen museum's Contax E, factory number 5018069; 3826641 with a Contax D sold on Yahoo! Auctions in May 2026 for ¥9,870, whose title reads "CONTAX D ZEISS IKON VEB / Tessar 50mm F2.8 T 148463/3826641"; 4728822, preset, on the small D on Wikimedia Commons, a number of about 1957; 4174819 on Hummel's Hexacon ZI no. 58195; 4310643 on his Pentacon no. 88901; 4318825, engraved Jena T, on his Hexacon no. 89907; 4770487 on his Contax D with Ernemann tower no. 69921. 4174938 sits on his Contax S no. 8041, a body of 1950–51, and is a lens of about 1955 that did not come with it. Lenses and bodies have been swapped for seventy years: a pairing is original only when the lens number fits the body's dates.
5158124, 5445687, 5449475, 5451752, 5451944, 5752559, 5,7xx,xxx
Numbers on F-series bodies and spring-diaphragm lenses: 5158124 on Hummel's Contax F no. 121143; 5449475 on his Pentacon F no. 150549; 5451752 and 5451944 on two Pentacon F outfits offered on Kleinanzeigen in October 2026; 5752559 on a Pentacon FBM offered there in November 2024; 5445687 is the Wolfen museum's spring-diaphragm lens; Mike Eckman's 5,7xx,xxx came out of a junk box for his Pentacon FM. The sellers do not state the diaphragm type.
0417, engraved Made in Germany
Kröger shows a Tessar 2,8/50 marked "Made in Germany" with the number 0417, outside every Jena scheme, in a photograph by Felix Heil. He takes it for a lens assembled from spare parts after reunification and probably sold off by Docter, the successor firm.

Specifications

Formula
Tessar
Designed by
Harry Zöllner — calculation V18, completed 29 October 1947
Construction
4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8
Filter
40.5 mm (M42 preset, silver with red T (from August 1951)) · 49 mm (M42 semi-automatic spring diaphragm (from October 1955), M42 automatic, zebra then black (to spring 1988))
Years manufactured
1949–1988
Country
East Germany (Carl Zeiss Jena)
Coating
Single-coated, with a red T on the 1950s lenses. Kröger says the same optics were multicoated only once, in the Prakticar 2,8/50 of about 1980
Material
Aluminium barrel: bright silver in the 1950s, then zebra, then black
Original price
193.20 Mark (DDR) for the lens alone with preset diaphragm, in Exakta, Praktina or M42 mount, as listed to June 1956; 139 Mark from July 1956 (Kröger's compilation of DDR price lists, which gives no earlier lens-alone figure)

What reviewers say

Optical formula — Tessar

History

The Tessar 2,8/50 of 1947 is the lens Carl Zeiss Jena rebuilt its photographic department around after the war. Willy Merté, who had run the lens-design office, was taken to the United States in 1945, and the Soviet dismantling of 1946–47 stripped the works of nearly all its machinery. Harry Zöllner, a Jena-trained designer who had spent the war at Voigtländer, took over the design office and tried lanthanum glasses first, which Jena could not yet make in quantity. His trial V18, finished on 29 October 1947, kept the four-element Tessar with SK18 and SSK5 crowns and put two new flints, F16 and the still-experimental LLF8, in the negative elements. Jena’s test report of February 1948 found it sharper and more even across the field than both the 1933 Tessar 2,8 and the 1931 Tessar 3,5, with less fall-off at the corners. It is a new design, not the prewar Contax Tessar 2,8/5 cm. Nor is it one of the several thousand old-design Tessars that Jena assembled, mostly from parts in stock, for the Praktiflex and Exakta in July 1945.

Getting it built took nearly two more years. In February 1948 the two new flints proved unsuitable for pressing into blanks, and in March the works ruled that the lens could not go into production that year or the next. It came sooner than that. The Soviet administration approved production on 15 October 1948, and the first 1,500 lenses were in final assembly by July 1949. By then the lens had been planned for the Dresden reflexes: the minutes of a November 1947 meeting call for helicoid mounts for the Exakta, the Praktiflex and the “Spiegel-Contax”. The lens was announced at Christmas 1949, went into simple cameras such as the Beltica, Welti and Mimosa as well as into the reflexes, and stayed optically unchanged until spring 1988. Kröger counts at least 2,895,600 from the Zeiss production records.

Camera-wiki gives the Contax S’s supplied lens as the black anodised Biotar 58mm f/2, and no source cited here pairs the S with this lens as delivered. The Science Museum’s S carries a Tessar 3,5/5cm. Hummel’s S no. 8041 wears a Tessar 2,8 of about 1955 that cannot have come with it. The Tessar was the cheaper standard lens of the later cameras. Hummel’s small D no. 41627, a body of 1951, has Tessar 3511218, a number of about 1952 on camera-wiki’s table, and the DDR price lists sell the Pentacon ZI with it in 1955, then the Contax D (586 Mark against 668 with the Biotar), the Contax E and the Contax F. A Pentacon F with the Tessar cost Alex Waterhouse-Hayward $100 by mail from Olden Cameras in New York in 1958, because he could not stretch to the Biotar. Hummel’s export Hexacon of 1956 already carries it engraved only “T” and “Jena”, the name the Pentacon F manuals use; later Western-market lenses read “aus Jena T”.

What separates the versions is the barrel. The optics never changed; the mount and diaphragm kept up with the cameras. The first lenses had a plain iris. A preset ring came in August 1951. The preset lens most often offered, bright silver with a red T, 12 blades and a 40.5 mm filter, suits the Contax D, the Pentacon and the Contax E, none of which can trip an automatic diaphragm. For the Praktina, Jena made a spring diaphragm cocked by a lever from February 1953. From October 1955 an M42 version without the lever is cocked by turning the aperture ring to full aperture and is tripped by the release in the mirror box of the Praktica FX2 and of the Contax F and its successors. It must be re-cocked after every frame. Pin-operated automatic lenses followed in zebra and then black barrels, with five blades and a 0.35 m close focus. The same optics were sold in Exakta mount for the Exakta and Exa, in Praktina mount, and late on as the multicoated Prakticar 2,8/50 for the Praktica B, of which only 2,600 were made.

Kröger reads the published curves as a lens that is not at its best wide open. A zone of spherical aberration from the outer rim of the aperture veils the image at f/2.8 and is negligible by f/5.6. Contrast rises steeply two stops down, and the centre and edge curves stay close together, so it renders the frame evenly once stopped down. Testing a late black lens on a Nikon Z6 for phillipreeve.net, Martin found the same character: a centre a little soft wide open and good from f/4, corners that need f/11, smooth close-range bokeh and heavy veiling flare against the light. Mike Eckman’s spring-diaphragm copy on a Pentacon FM showed no vignetting or softness he could see on film.

For a Contax or Pentacon outfit, match the diaphragm to the body. A preset lens works on every body in the line. A spring-diaphragm lens works as designed only on a body with the release in the mirror box, the Praktica FX2 or the Contax F and its successors. Check that the release ring turns freely: Jens, writing on 35mmc, warns that it stiffens with age until the lens unscrews before the ring turns. Kröger warns that some early M42 lenses, naming the Tessar 4,5/40, the Biotar 1,5/75 and the Flektogon 2,8/35 but not this one, have a conical rim behind the thread that blocks Praktica L bodies and some adapters. A Japanese seller warns that a preset Tessar of 1953 stops short of infinity on adapters with a pin-pressing plate. Date the lens by its number against Jena’s block table before treating it as original to a body. A Tessar 2,8 in Contax bayonet is a different lens, and so, probably, is an Exakta or Praktiflex Tessar 2,8/5 cm numbered below 3,200,000. Prices are low: phillipreeve.net puts the late lens at about $50, and silver red-T examples closed on Yahoo! Auctions in 2026 at about ¥12,000 and ¥20,000.

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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 taken with the Tessar 50mm f/2.8 (Jena, 1947 design)
A Contax with D under the Zeiss Ikon logo, the 'small D' (filed on Commons as a Contax S), with a preset Tessar 2,8/50 no. 4728822 — Patrizio Venturi, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sample photo taken with the Tessar 50mm f/2.8 (Jena, 1947 design)
Contax F with a silver Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2,8/50 — Patrizio Venturi, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Tessar 50mm f/2.8 (Jena, 1947 design)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $530 across 7 fixed-price listings on 2026-10-30 (middle half $380–$600). First day tracked.

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

Show 19 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-10-30. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Biotar 58mm f/2 · Tessar 5cm f/3.5 · Primotar 50mm f/3.5 (Primotar E)

Sources (34)

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.