You see the point. Death makes you a hero. Now, back to my buried treasure moment. You’ve been waiting patiently.

The moment in question came from an inheritance from my late grandfather, as unexpected as it was sizable. In one fell swoop, I became the owner of a Minolta SRT-101 camera body, carrying case, flash, and five lenses (including the MC W Rokkor HG 35mm f/2.8 with which this article is concerned). The gear came heavy with the weight of legacy.

The year was 2016. I had grown up with a deep respect for my grandparents, and it was very important to do right by them. At that time, it was my solemn duty to decorate my grandmother’s house for Christmas. That year, poring over a forgotten corner of her attic, I came to a soft-sided nylon case inscribed with “GWM” and tore open the zipper. The chrome contraption within was obviously an old camera, but the name Minolta meant nothing to me. I hunted on, until I reached a more recognizable machine. It turned out to be a Canon EX Auto. Putting it gently, brand recognition was probably that camera’s only virtue. My grandmother, excited simply to see them after more than a decade in storage, offered me the whole lot as a Christmas gift.

Some of you may now be shouting at the screen about life’s unfairness. Let it all out.

Though the Canon’s aperture blades were stuck and its light seals quickly disintegrating, it managed to whet my appetite. After a brief love affair, it perished during Winter Storm Stella, and I was forced to move on. As the proverb says, “a single reprimand does more for a discerning person than a hundred lashes for a fool.” Though I’ll make no claims about my own foolishness, this single reprimand was definitely enough to teach me a thing or two. First, that brand recognition will only get you so far. Second, that research will always pay off. And research I did.

Forum after forum and page after page began to impress upon me that a veritable treasure trove had been bequeathed to me. The way people used that name, Minolta, began to intrigue me. These had been my grandfather’s companions through graduations, family trips, and even on assignment for the United States Air Force. Combing through negatives and prints, I found pictures which range from the sentimental to the spectacular. Then came that nagging tug of legacy.

I have to use this stuff.

So I did, and in the years since, I’ve formed some opinions. Here they are.

History and Technical Specifications

The Minolta MC W. Rokkor HG 35mm f/2.8 is a moderate wide-angle lens. Just what is all that gobbledegook on the lens bezel? MC stands for “Meter Coupled,” W stands for “Wide,” Rokkor was Minolta’s name for their best lenses at the time, and HG refers to the optical formula. Hexa means six in Greek and G is the seventh letter of the English alphabet, so HG gives us seven elements in six groups. The reasons for this system are, I think, because Ancient Greece is cool, and America has a lot of money. A better explanation might be found elsewhere on the internet, but I’m an artist, not a historian.

This lens has a pretty old design. Not quite Ancient Greece old, but it predates Watergate, the Lunar Landing, and Yellow Submarine. Seems Minolta introduced it in 1958, gradually revising the ergonomics, coatings, and aesthetics through my version and beyond. Seven elements in six groups is actually a lot of glass to cram into a lens of this size, but Minolta hung onto this formula in one version or another until 1975. My copy cannot be older than 1966. It therefore comes pretty much in the middle of this lens’ production run, and “middle option” is perhaps an apt description.

As James and others on this site have opined, the general perception of “standard lens” may be shifting wider than 50mm. As far as standard lenses are concerned, I own two fifties, a 35-70 zoom, a 35-105 zoom, and even the mighty 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor. All fine lenses, yet seldom is any of them my go-to for film travel photos. More often, I pack the humble 35. Thus we can say that it’s my de facto standard. Some folks will tell you the standard has crept all the way out to 28mm. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. My standard apparently is a little wider than 50mm, so the point must be conceded. Very long justification simply to admit that I agree with something somebody else said.

Contrarian much?

What to Expect from the Minolta MC W Rokkor HG 35mm F/2.8

So, my Rokkor is a middle option between the old standard of fifty and the new standard, if you will, of twenty-eight. The maximum aperture of f/2.8 is also a middle option between the slow f/4 and hotshot f/1.8 thirty-fives which Minolta offered contemporaneously. Fast enough for walk-around photography, particularly if you’re loaded up with a 400 speed film. After the sun goes down, however, reach for your tripod, your flash, or a faster lens.

The minimum aperture also presents its own limitation, albeit not an obvious one. The Minolta MC W. Rokkor HG 35mm f/2.8 stops down only as far as f/16, and the shutters of the Minolta cameras with which it was designed to work generally top out at 1/1000s. That takes you all the way out to EV 18 at 100 ISO, but it simply cannot yield a proper exposure in such conditions if shooting, say, Portra 800 or the trusty Tri-X at 1600. It may behoove us here to recall that in the 1960s, 200 was considered high-speed for color film. Thirdly, it’s a middle option in terms of recommended shooting conditions, being poorly-suited to extremes of both dim and bright light.

Aside from usage limitations, which are simply the consequences of design and construction, the Rokkor’s age affords a fair share of weaknesses. How severe and how numerous are more than I can say. Lens sharpness is tricky to define. If by saying “sharp,” we mean to say “resolves fine detail,” then it is sharp at every f-stop. At f/2.8 and f/4, it exhibits spherical aberration, which reduces contrast, but makes for flattering people-photos and dreamy landscapes. Similarly to the spherical aberration issue, at wider apertures, the corners and edges of the frame darken from vignetting. I don’t know by how many stops they darken, but I’d estimate one-and-one-third stops at max aperture and a half-stop at f/4. Having never made a darkroom print from a negative, the inevitable dodging and burning headaches are not a cross I’ve had to bear. Consequently, these defects have never stopped me from shooting at the larger f-stops.

One bona fide weakness of this lens is its tendency to ghost. Upon the Sun’s least intrusion into frame, ghosts are conjured with alarming ease. Given the emotional significance I’ve imparted to all of my grandfather’s gear, perhaps the frequency of ghosts should come as no surprise. Hamlet comes to mind, as he steps onto the parapets of Elsinore. Like him, I dialog with these spectral visitors, rather than balk at them.

Color rendition is an entirely different case. The Rokkor’s consistency in this area, regardless of lighting conditions, was a welcome surprise. Its blue-tinted optical coatings produce images with a uniformly (but not excessively) cool cast. Contrast tests yielded another welcome surprise. Stopped-down, the lens showed an almost-Nikonian reluctance to surrender contrast, even when I deliberately sought out flares and ghosts.

The last word on this lens’ optical performance takes us back to the very basics of photography. If the light is favorable, expect good performance. In adverse conditions, the Rokkor begins to misbehave. Of what classic lens is that statement untrue, though? I even have a zoom made in 2017 that flares in high sun. This one is simply less adept at compensating for poor light than  those which have come since. This is actually a good thing for those who wish to learn photography, because they won’t be pampered when mistakes are made.

Minolta W Rokkor 35mm f/2.8 for sale | eBay

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Ergonomically, the Minolta MC W. Rokkor HG 35mm f/2.8 is a joy, as anybody who’s used an old Minolta lens could tell you.

The aluminum aperture ring turns smoothly and clicks in half-stops from f/4 to f/16. The all-metal focus ring is likewise very smooth, and the engraved depth-of-field scale is usable. Here, a nitpicker could point out that the Rokkor falls short of Nikon lenses from the same era. The latter possess focusing scales which extend all the way up the lens barrel, while this one does not. If that meaningfully impacts your shooting style, beware.

At 6.3×4.5cm, it’s roughly the same dimensions as an espresso cup in the trendy cafes we film shooters seem drawn to. Weight is a miniscule 210 grams, exactly half that of its big brother, the MC Rokkor 35mm f/1.8. For those of us committed to Minolta, weight savings are a worthy goal wherever they may be had. My own SRT-101 (hardly the grossest offender among Minolta’s stable) weighs in at a hefty 675g. On that camera, this little lens looks quite at home. Its tiny size comes with a drawback that Minolta shooters need to know ahead of time. The MC W. Rokkor HG 35mm f/2.8 sports a 52mm filter thread, not Minolta’s standard 55mm.

I primarily shot this lens on my Minolta SRT-101, where its meter coupling (the “MC” in MC Rokkor) gave me good exposures with the convenience of open-aperture viewing. I also mounted it to my Nikon Z5 via the Urth MD-Z adapter. With that setup, I was still able to use the camera’s “Non-CPU lens data” function for purposes of vibration reduction and exposure, which surprised me. I had expected that feature to be locked if the camera couldn’t detect Nikon’s FTZ adapter. For those who like to review their EXIF data, however, there is a drawback. The adapter I used has no CPU contacts whatsoever, so the camera does not record any information about which focal length or aperture were used. Since not even the proprietary FTZ adapter records set aperture, I can scarcely call this a major flaw. Again, if this meaningfully impacts you, beware.

Final Thoughts

It would be easy to write disparagingly about this lens, and imply that its limitations or weaknesses would lead to bad photos. While I could write such a thing, I could never believe it, because it smacks of a certain shortsighted materialism, and is therefore nonsense. Still, the Rokkor has got shortcomings, and quite clear ones at that. What’s to be made of them?

For starters, it means that this lens does not merit a universal recommendation. Shooters with exacting standards would probably be happier elsewhere. Beginners and travel shooters are the best fit. It is quite small and unassuming, focuses smoothly, and works well for both color and B/W. The images it produces are consistent enough and sharp enough. Beginners will like its low price-point, while travel shooters will enjoy its small footprint.

We Minolta aficionados tend to have quite the chip on our shoulders, and I’d like to speak to that. Put aside any notions of competing with the Wetzlar folks just this once, and you’ll have a wonderful time. Thankfully, the Rokkor 35 is still entirely worth using, but even if it weren’t, I’d be in for the long haul. Utility, it would seem, is outweighed by legacy.

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I had long scoffed at the idea of a point-and-shoot. After all, had I not gotten into analog photography for the labor of love? The endless minutia of operating outdated equipment? Focus, frame, meter, shoot, advance, repeat! How could any camera that did not at least allow for total manual override possibly be adequate. I laughed at those who spent their hard-earned money on Olympus MJUs and XAs, on Contax T2s and Nikon 28TIs. Such baubles were not for the likes of me.

And yet, somehow the black brick wormed its way into my thoughts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a camera that slipped into a coat pocket? A camera which would take minimal place in my hiking pack, in a carry-on? And how could I ignore the stunning pictures that invaded my Instagram feed on the daily, reputedly shot on the very cameras I laughed at. As my Nikon, capable and mighty as it was, sat idle, a simple truth formed in my mind: point-and-shoots take excellent pictures because they are always there with you, ready and asking nothing more than for you to press the shutter button.

Many of you are probably reading this impatiently. I realize this preamble is likely uninteresting for those of you who already knew this truth, but it is part of my apology to what has become my daily driver, my quiet companion, and frankly, my favorite camera I own.

On to the nitty-gritty.

Released originally in 1983, the Minolta AF-C is a compact plastic brick of electronic and mechanical wizardry. To my knowledge, two versions were released with the only significant difference being the newer version was offered in a silver finish with a maximum possible ISO rating of 1000, as opposed to the original ISO which topped out at 400. The small wheel on the front which sets the ISO is the only manual control on the camera, and allows for thirds of stops between ISO 25 and 400/1000. That’s it. The AF-C takes care of the rest.

Tucked under a sliding face plate which also operates as the camera’s “ON” switch are the sharp little 35mm f/2.8 lens, the CdS metering cell which handles exposure, and the infrared auto-focus assembly. Sliding this guard requires a gentle but continuous force, and the camera will only turn on and unlock the shutter button when fully open, a nice feature considering mine lives in my back pocket. I have never once been concerned about accidental exposures or scuffing any of the glass surfaces.

On the front face we also find a small switch with a paired LED which operates a self-timer. Activating this switch (which I’ve only done twice and by accident each time) causes the light to signal a 10-second timer, during which the camera purrs contentedly before triggering its shutter. The smooth plastic top plate is as sparsely and efficiently populated as the rest of the camera, adorned with the rewind knob (which produces an excellently metallic noise when pulled to open the back), the shutter button, and the small film counter which includes a “safe-load indicator”. Bellow, on the bottom plate is a small door for the battery compartment, a tripod socket, and the rewind button.

Specifications:

• Camera type: Compact point-and-shoot
• Image Area: 24x36mm (full frame)
• Lens: Minolta 35mm f/2.8, 6 elements in 6 groups
• Focusing: Infrared autofocus, 3ft to infinity. Focus hold.
• Exposure: CdS metering cell, front facing.
• Aperture-shutter: between lens electronic automatic.
• Viewfinder: 0.47X, -1D with frame lines, autofocus zone marks, and LED indicators for focus and low-light.
• Film winding/re-winding: Grooved thumb wheel advance. Release button and manual rewind.
• Frame counter: Frame counter window with safe-load indicator.
• Self-timer: 10-second timer with LED indicator.
• Metering range: 1/8th at f/2.8 (EV 6) to 1/430 sec at F/17 (EV17).
• Film Speed: ISO 25 to 400/1000 set manually.
• Flash: Dedicated EF-C accessory unit. X-sync at 1/40th, automatic. 3-6ft at ISO25, 3-16ft at ISO200 and over. Flash-fill in daylight 6-10ft recycle time, approximately 2-4 seconds.
• Battery: 4 LR44 1.5v or 2 CR1/3N equivalent 3v. Flash unit uses 2 AA.
• Dimensions: 42 x 67.5 x 105mm (1-5/8 x 2-11/16 x 4-⅛ in.)
• Weight: 215g (7-9/16 oz.) plus batteries

My AF-C was sold alongside its matching accessory flash. Equally as diminutive as the camera, the flash screws firmly into the left side with a small front facing thumb wheel. The unit requires two AA batteries, which probably weigh about as much as the whole camera when attached and loaded. As such, I have not used it often, but the times I have it has given me good exposures. I’m sure that if you follow the maximum recommended distances printed on the rear of the flash unit, it will serve you well.

Let’s wind our way back for a second and talk about that lens. Lenses are the whole reason we faithful buy Minoltas, right? Some of the best glass of their era, all for bargain prices! In this way the Minolta AF-C does not disappoint. Equipped with a humble little 35mm 6 element/6 group lens with a whisper quiet Seikosha shutter tucked in there, my AF-C consistently produces sharp, punchy results. While slightly prone to flares, I have found this lens to have excellent contrast and color, as well as great sharpness across the frame. Clearly Minolta took care to ensure that their reputation for lens quality would be upheld by this little automatic jewel.

While entirely plastic, the camera feels far from cheap. Every surface is sturdy, and the leatherette that wraps around the mid-body is pleasantly textured. Every moving part of this camera feel well engineered, producing just the right amount of tactile feedback and some sort of satisfying sound. Is it strange that I am obsessed with the little noises this camera makes? Sliding the face plate makes produces a definitive thunk-click. Advancing the film a pleasant tick-tick-tick. Firing the shutter blesses us with an adorable pssst-kachunk as the auto-focus motors move the lens into place at the last second. Truly a delight, and very discreet.

On that point, the Minolta AF-C’s discretion is one of its best characteristics. Small, quiet, and compact, this camera lends itself to being carried at all times, ready to snap the kinds of shots that only present themselves to the prepared. Shooting with the AF-C is remarkably fast and simple. A bright viewfinder and clear frame lines make composing easy and quick. In the center of the viewfinder is a second set of lines, this time a vertically-aligned rectangle, which delineates the camera’s autofocus zone. The AF-C has a focus lock feature when the shutter button is half pressed, so be sure to keep this in mind and for moving subjects to only shoot at the last moment. Two small LEDs in the finder will inform you of either: correct focus (green without red), correct focus, but inadequate speed for hand held shooting (green and red), or impossible to focus and inadequate light (red without green). As the camera measures focus from the center of the image, you will frequently find yourself using the focus hold feature to focus, compose and then shoot. Since the AF-C’s motors only move the lens into place at the moment the shutter fires there is no audible or visual indication of correct focus, you have to trust the camera, but I promise it will not let you down.

Even with its attendant electroflash unit, the Minolta AF-C will fit into an average coat pocket or can be tucked away in any small bag, making this a great choice for travel and street photography. Load some high speed film to ensure a narrow aperture, and you can trust that the camera will handle the rest deftly and quietly.

Now back to the reason I decided I needed to write all this up. The other day, while bicycling far from home, I swerved to dodge an oncoming family and my dear AF-C, hanging loyally from my belt, was savagely smacked by a bollard. Gripped with panic, I immediately pulled over to inspect the damage, fully expecting this to be the end of the camera. I would like to reassure the reader that my Minolta survived its mistreatment without issue, and continues to function with its usual excellence. What I realized in that instant, however, was that I really, truly love that little camera. I love to shoot with it and to carry it around. Having it with me and knowing that at anytime I can snap a shot I would be happy with means a great deal. I’ve learned to trust its circuits, and to allow them to do the mundane work of focusing and exposure.

And so I apologize. To not only my Minolta AF-C, but to all point-and-shoots. To all the daft little electronic cameras that will someday wear out and no longer function. To all the plastic bricks with their average lenses and sometimes mediocre construction. To all the battery sucking, borderline disposable light-tight boxes. To all the over-hyped and over valued compact film cameras of the world, I salute you. You have shown me the truth, that the best camera in the world is the one I have with me. That the greatest lens in the world is useless when tucked away safe in a backpack or at home on a shelf. That electronic wizardry can be good, and that letting go of control can help perfect one’s craft by removing the minute tasks that we already do well enough.

All of this to say, I love my Minolta AF-C, and so should you.

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My grandparents were not rich. My grandfather, a young Hungarian, fled his home country during the revolution of 1956 and entered Switzerland as a refugee. My grandmother was voluntarily serving in the army as part of the women’s aid service program at that time. When he arrived at the Swiss border on December 5, she was the one who took care of him at the military’s support camp. It must have been love at first sight. They got engaged after one month and married less than a year after their first encounter. My father was born nine months later. 

I cannot say whether my grandparents were spontaneous, even though their love story might imply so. Looking at the photos inside old family albums they were social and somewhat outgoing but never fluttery or jittery. I think they were affable and organized, at least those are the traits my grandmother retained even in her senility. They were also thrifty, like many who had experienced the Second World War.

My grandfather, who had been imprisoned in Recsk, Hungary from 1949 to 1953 under the accusation of endangering the socialist regime, knew how to live off of nothing. My grandmother, who had to share her family’s food stamps with four younger siblings, was good at rationing. They retained those traits after the war. So maybe my grandmother refused that Olympus out of practicality. Perhaps it was too decadent. 

It sure was not the first time that she had rejected a gift, but to my father it must have felt different this time. It is one thing to decline an object. Refusing to document your memories is something completely different – especially when you are getting older. But aging in our family brings along quite an annoying trait: stubbornness. And my father is just as affected by it as my grandmother was. Anything new is usually met with skepticism and critique. Change is evil, or at least dangerous, and spontaneity is fanatical. And so when my father decided to give his mother a brand new camera he must have unintentionally opened Pandora’s box. I don’t remember the discussion between the two stubborn people that was held back then, I was simply too young. But I can envision it thanks to similar, more recent, antics. It ended with him returning home, the new Olympus still boxed and in his hands.

I am not quite sure when I got the Olympus from my father, but it must have been on some special occasion. perhaps he gave it to me before we went on vacation in hopes of keeping me occupied. I do remember snapping my first photos in Budapest. We went there pretty often and still do so to visit Hungarian relatives. Most of my images from back then are blurry, and one even features my finger. But there is also a lovely portrait of my mother and a picture I shot of the reflection in a window showing my father. Those were simpler times. 

My grandmother died this year, in the midst of a pandemic. Though she wasn’t aware of the turmoil the pandemic caused around the world, those last months were still tough on her. She had stopped eating and drinking, and was becoming thinner and weaker by the day. But whenever she saw family there was a subtle glow in her eyes that comforted us all. She still recognized us, said goodbye to everyone and eventually fell asleep on August 8.

I was in her apartment last month. My aunt had already cleaned up most of the rooms and my father and I just came to see if there was anything left we wanted to keep for ourselves. Everything was pretty empty besides my grandmother’s office. I decided to bring home the large bookshelf and the old desk my grandfather had made himself. As I sorted out the most personal books to keep, I stumbled across some photo albums. There was one dedicated to my grandfather’s family with images going back to the very beginning of the twentieth century. My grandmother had put it together meticulously.

Then there was another one with images from Kenya, where my grandparents had gone multiple times, not just for vacation. They had met a doctor down there who was in need of money to run his clinic. My father told me his parents had supported this enterprise multiple times. They also paid for driving lessons and the cab license of another young man once, and on another occasion helped to build a well in a small village. There were stories hidden in these albums that I had never heard before.

As I removed some classical records from the bookshelf I was reminded of my grandmother’s passion for the opera. She always wanted to become a great opera singer and had pursued that career until an illness shattered her dream while still young. In the end, she had to compromise but continued singing in several church choirs. Perhaps she had simply decided to devote all her love to music. There was no time left for taking pictures. That could be the reason why she had refused the camera. After all, I too stopped playing my saxophone after deepening my knowledge of photography.

After successfully stowing the furniture into the truck I went back into the apartment one last time. It was even emptier now. Soft light coming from the clouded sky caressed the white floor tiles, and looking out the window I could see the foliage that was starting to fall off the trees. My father watered the plants on the balcony. I pulled out the Olympus from my jacket pocket. Through the entrance door I could see into my grandmother’s office. I pressed the shutter button. Off to the right was the bedroom, where there was no more bed. A rollator, a lamp, and not much more. I pressed the shutter button again.

As the flash went off I thought about all the pictures my grandmother could have taken with this camera. Most of the family albums I had just found were filled with images her children had shot. Maybe if she had accepted this little gift, I would be looking at different albums these days. Maybe if she had accepted this little gift, I would not be photographing as much as I am.

I wonder why my grandmother chose not to photograph. Being a photography aficionado myself, someone who can’t imagine not making pictures, that is a facet of her character I will probably never understand. But trying to do so might be beneficial. Nowadays I cannot think of her without remembering the story of how this Olympus Mju ended up in my hands. I wonder who my father wanted her to photograph for, and ultimately for whom I am doing so.

This little point and shoot is how it all started. It is almost paradoxical. It began with someone actively choosing not to photograph and now, there is only one way for me to show my gratitude for this gift. I have to keep shooting with it. 

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But before we dive in, here’s a quick story about a work of art that lead me to seek out and buy this lens.

On the morning of July 3, 1973, a 25-year-old Stephen Shore got in his car and set off on a journey across the United States with his 8×10 view camera. The work made all over the continental United States over the next seven years culminated in a book – Uncommon Places. Originally published by Aperture in 1982, Shore’s Uncommon Places is one of the landmark photography books of the 20th century, standing with Walker Evans’ American Photographs, Robert Frank’s The Americans, and Joel Sternfeld’s American Prospects as documents of American life and the American vernacular landscape.

Every single photograph in Shore’s Uncommon Places is pure ocular pleasure. Few other photographers have shared Shore’s uncanny ability to translate the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional surface so beautifully and with such exacting precision. The precise language of Shore’s work has a lot to do with the tool he chose: the 8×10 view camera with which Shore made all of the photographs in Uncommon Places gave him the precise control his work practically demanded.

View Cameras and the Tilt Shift Lens

View cameras connect the lens to the camera body using a flexible bellows. This mechanism gives view cameras perspective and focus control that ordinary cameras don’t offer. We talked more about these movements and how they influence the final photo in our beginner’s guide to large format photography, which you can read here. The short version – by tilting the lens it’s possible to create focal planes that are not parallel to the image. And by shifting the lens, the photographer can correct for perspective distortions that come with tilting the camera up or down (and it’s this shift function that the Nikon PC-Nikkor allows). 

The physical apparatuses required to allow these lens movements are naturally bulky and cumbersome, and making the most of them requires real skill. Thus, as camera makers pursued ever smaller and easier-to-use cameras these movements were largely abandoned. Cameras with these capabilities are now almost exclusively found in the world of large-format film photography, a niche within a niche.

However, camera makers did produce various lenses for 35mm cameras that gave them the tilt and shift controls of larger cameras. Introduced in 1961, the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/3.5 is actually the very first lens for 35mm cameras that offered lens movement independent of the camera body (“PC” stands for perspective control). While these older PC-Nikkors did not have any tilting mechanisms, they do allow us to shift 8 to 11 millimeters in all directions. This gives us the ability to correct the type of converging lines that we see when we shoot, for example, a tall building from the ground with a normal lens. Without perspective control, when we tilt the camera to capture the entire building, it looks in the final image as though the building is falling backwards into the background (the top of the building appears much smaller than the bottom). With a shift mechanism it’s possible to shift the lens, correcting these converging lines and making the building appear straight and tall in the final image. The Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 doesn’t shift to the extent that a large format camera lens will, so the effect is a bit muted. But it does the trick in less extreme situations. 

The Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm F/2.8 – Build Quality and Use

There are three versions of the 35mm PC-Nikkor lens. The first one introduced in 1961 had a maximum aperture of f/3.5, and the second and third versions released in 1968 and 1980 respectively both had a faster maximum aperture of f/2.8. The oldest version of this lens had the shifting mechanism built extremely close to the body. Consequently, it is incompatible with later Nikon bodies with prisms that protrude further out the front. Both versions of the f/2.8 lens, on the other hand, are compatible with every Nikon SLR ever made.

These PC-Nikkors are unlike any Nikon lens, their quirky appearance only matched by their uncommon purpose. But not all things are unfamiliar. Like other Nikkor family members, they are incredibly well made. In fact, the PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 lens might be the most impressively built Nikon lens I’ve ever used. It is no surprise that Nikon, one of the best lens makers in the world, is the first in history to take on the daunting task of fitting these complicated moving parts onto such a small lens. The additional complications of the rotating and shifting mechanism doesn’t hinder the build quality of the lens in the slightest. On the contrary, it showcases Nikon’s engineering prowess. If you enjoy well crafted things, you will certainly fall in love with this lens.

At the very front of the lens is an aperture preset ring immediately followed by the actual aperture ring that controls the diaphragm. Behind those two rings is the focus ring. The three rings are distinguished by different knurl patterns with the focus ring wrapped in a pleasant hard rubber. These are the little things that a lesser manufacturer might have missed; when composing with your face behind the camera, these unique tactile registers allow you to distinguish the different controls with perfect ease. Nikon has a good track record of getting these little things right, and on a lens as complex as this, the brand’s attention to detail is especially impressive and much appreciated.

The focus and the aperture rings aren’t too exciting. However, behind those common controls is where the fun begins. Following the focus ring is a protruding knob that, when turned counter-clockwise, shifts the entire front half of the lens away from the knob. The shifting motion reveals beautifully etched millimeter markings on the shaft of the knob. At the very base of the lens is a rotating mechanism that allows the lens to shift in any direction. The rotating mechanism locks in at 30° increments with confidence-inducing detents. The detents are only there for added precision: the lens can be used at any angle in between. 

Our examination of the barrel of the lens concludes with the lens mount. Here, the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 differs from other lenses once again: there aren’t any shafts and contacts that connect the lens to the camera body. This engineering marvel of a lens stands on its own as a sort of self-contained machine: no communication or camera control here. A bare metal mount links the lens firmly to any Nikon body, from the original Nikon SLR, the Nikon F, to the more modern N90, to the latest Nikon DSLRs like the D850. Simple. Perfect.

Making a PC-Nikkor, or any tilt-shift lens, for that matter, is an optical challenge. The lens needs to have a much bigger image circle to accommodate shifting in all directions. The 1980 version, sometimes referred to as the black knob version, comes with both optical and cosmetic updates which are very welcomed. The 35mm PC-Nikkor is optically quite impressive. While the lens is noticeably a bit soft wide open, the image sharpens up nicely at f/5.6. Around f/8 and f/16, the lens has plenty of resolution to boot.

Corner sharpness depends on how much the lens is shifted: at its zero position, the image is sharp corner to corner. I have not put this lens up against other 35mm lenses Nikon produces, but I suspect that this lens benefits from its much larger image circle when it comes to corner sharpness since the photo’s corners rarely near the edge of the image circle. That said, the lens is a solid performer even when shifting to extremes. Pushing into 8 to 11 millimeters of shift, you can see some softness and vignetting beginning on the edges of the frame, but the effect is barely noticeable and perfectly correctable after the photo. 

One caveat here is that while the lens can technically shift to 11mm in every direction, the lens actually has number markings on the rotating mechanism that tells you the recommended maximum shift in any given direction. There are certain positions in which Nikon does not recommend shifting more than 8 millimeters, for example. It is absolutely true that the lens performs better when it’s not shifted to the extremes, but I have actually never heeded Nikon’s recommendations. Shifting to 11 millimeters where the lens tells you not to doesn’t noticeably degrade the image perceptibly in real-world use.

The Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 has a last trick up its sleeve, and that is its minimum aperture of f/32, which in and of itself is an impressive accomplishment for such a small and compact lens. At the 35mm focal length, the lens already has quite a nice, deep depth of field at f/22, but at f/32, the lens will render in sharp focus everything from just over two feet away to infinity. This is perfect for narrative works that call for an evenly descriptive surface with every detail in focus.

Measure the use of this lens against any normal 35mm lens and the PC Nikkor is certainly more cumbersome. Due to the shifting mechanism, the lens does not have an automatic diaphragm that closes down to the chosen aperture at the moment of exposure. Instead, the user must slow down and work meticulously. 

First, we must level our camera on a tripod, meter the scene, and set the proper aperture. Next we use the shifting mechanism to precisely compose, apply the aperture setting on the lens, and take the picture. Slow and methodical, but not overly so.

It is precisely this considered approach to picture-making that gives works like Shore’s Uncommon Places its signature exactness, and once we become familiar with the process of setting up the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8, shooting it becomes quite zen-like. Take a deep breath, slow down, and think about how you really want the picture to look.

Final Thoughts on the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8

I understand why the 35mm PC-Nikkor is a lens shrouded in obscurity. It needs a tripod and it’s inconvenient to shoot compared to other 35s. It’s specialized for very specific applications, and its unique creative controls are not particularly well-understood. Moreover, 35mm film doesn’t have the resolution of large format, so its precision can feel a bit wasted by the time the light reaches the emulsion. 

However, digital cameras might breathe new life into these old, obscure PC-Nikkors. Full-frame digital sensors now have plenty of resolution for any architecture or landscape applications. Photographing in live view obviates some of the constraints of metering and dim viewfinders. The electronic levels and touch screens of modern digital cameras are finally doing PC-Nikkors justice when it comes to precision composition, focusing, and exposure. Modern tilt-shift lenses cost thousands of dollars when plenty of good old PC-Nikkors are just waiting to be purchased and used for a tiny fraction of the price. For all of these many reasons, the Nikon PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 is the type of lens that I love: pleasurable to use and capable of delivering incredible results. It’s historically interesting and technically proficient. 

I think that everyone should shoot a tilt-shift or perspective control lens at some point, the added controls are a breath of fresh air. Get a PC-Nikkor, bring a tripod, slow down. Things are quite pleasurable that way.

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Casual Photophile has always been a place where a few quiet voices issue unpopular takes that are evidence-based and hype-opposed. This leads to occasional opinions that might appear intentionally contrarian. You can see this in some of our tongue-in-cheek articles, such as when we listed our least favorite cameras and they ended up being traditional crowd favorites; Leica, the Mju II, and the AE-1, to name a few. Or the early-days article that heralded the Minolta CLE as the best M mount body, an at-the-time controversial opinion that has become more widely accepted, or at least begrudgingly tolerated. The point isn’t to stir up controversy. We just love unloved cameras, and finding value in something under-valued is one of life’s great pleasures. 

All of this points us to today’s writing, and the opinion I’m proffering within – that the Contax G1 is the best 35mm luxury camera one can buy on today’s market. This opinion isn’t completely wild, the G1 is known to be a great camera. But it does get a little more controversial when I specify that I’m particularly targeting its younger brother, the Contax G2. This runs in direct opposition to what nearly everyone claims, that the G2 is the better of the two without question.

In his review of the G2 last year, Casual Photophile founder James called this interchangeable-lens autofocus rangefinder “a camera in a class of its own.” Some might be wont to suggest the Konica Hexar AF as a companion machine, but such a camera lacks the triangulation-focusing characteristic of a rangefinder. To find an autofocus rangefinder camera, one can look only to the Contax G series. In this way, the G1 and G2 are in their own domain. 

Off the line, the G1 gains a step on the G2. It costs substantially less money to buy today. Where a G2 body will retail for around $600, the G1 can be found for about $200, or $250 for a green label version (more on this later). This means that it’s possible to buy the G1 and its most impressive lens for less money than most G2 bodies sell for (without a lens). That’s hard to ignore.

That lens I referenced isn’t a bargain-basement bit of glass, either. It is, without hyperbole, one of the best lenses ever made at a price point far lower than anything ending in –lux or –cron. This lens is, of course, the Carl Zeiss 45mm T* Planar, which James thoroughly reviewed here. 

It is uncontroversial to say that the G-mount Planar 45mm is one of the best lenses ever made for 35mm photography. It is on par with any lens made by Leica in terms of build and image quality. The lens uses what Contax called a “spigot” mount, similar to Canon’s breech-lock FD mount. Thanks to the short 29mm flange-to-film distance (about a millimeter different than Leica’s M mount), Zeiss designers were able to construct a Planar without typical mirror-box restraints. This short flange focal distance is what makes rangefinder lens typically superior to their SLR counterparts. 

I won’t spend time rehashing all of what James said in his review of the lens, but the fact of the matter is that in shooting with the 45mm, you’re shooting with one of the best lenses ever made, bar none. Even with that presupposition established, though, the G1 isn’t a sure bet. A lens means little if the camera or the shooting experience is terrible, and since we’re comparing the G1 with the G2, or a Leica, or even a Voigtlander rangefinder body, it had better be a pleasant shoot. Luckily for my argument, it is. 

In This Case, The Before Photo is Better than the After

The G1’s body is in many ways superior when compared to the G2. To start, the G1 boasts a smaller, sleeker overall package. When comparing the total dimensionality, the G1 comes in at about 19mm smaller than its successor; the major difference being the 10mm difference in depth that makes the G1 a significantly thinner camera. It’s tempting to scoff at differences of minuscule millimeters on paper, but 10mm is a substantial difference in the hands. The G1 is simply a much smaller camera. 

The G1 also weighs less by 3 ounces, again making it not just the tinier camera but also the nimbler camera. Why the extra size with the G2? Well, one point in favor of it is the added active focusing system that constituted an apparent “marked” improvement over the G1 (more on this later). Otherwise though, there are a handful of design decisions that went into the G2 that make it more compartmentalized and, frankly, less user friendly from my perspective. 

On the G1, only the top plate of the camera is in play when it comes to controls. On the G2 this is far from the case, and when truly considered, this is very odd since the G2 was supposed to improve upon the G1. A great example of why it’s not wise to mess with perfection. 

Let’s really dig into the differences in controls between the two cameras. I hope you like details.

First, on the left of the Original’s top plate you find two slim, oval buttons: one for ISO and one for drive mode selection. ISO is easily manually set or automatically set using DX coding. The drive button rotates through single-frame, continuous-frame, timer, and multiple exposures (offering as many exposures of a single frame as the photographer desires). 

On the G2, the drive mode button is transformed into a drive mode dial blocked away from the ISO selection button (which is now a round button with a sort of shroud guard around it). We see in this one design choice that the G2 creates interruption where the G1 possessed fluidity. 

On the right side of the Original’s top plate we find a hefty dial (the tallest on the plate and with the largest diameter) that controls shutter speed selection, auto shutter, and exposure compensation for when the shutter is set to auto (offering plus and minus two stops in one-thirds increments – same as the G2). Beneath this dial is a switch for ABC (Automatic Bracketing Control – when your camera shoots three exposures for a single frame – one “properly” exposed, one higher, and one lower). 

Across the way from this dial is another dial that controls the autofocus selection and the manual focusing distances (this dial has a nicely beveled top). Both dials include a lock button at their centers for switching from the auto settings to the manual settings.  Lastly, on this right side is the on/off switch that also includes one step further for AEL (auto exposure lock) and the shutter release button (which also acts as the focus lock when depressed halfway). 

The G2 diverges from this setup by moving things around and dealing with the fallout of added features (namely continuous autofocus during single-frame shooting, an impossibility with the G1). In this later model, the taller dial is now the smaller-by-diameter dial and only controls exposure compensation. The shorter, but larger-by-diameter dial controls the shutter speed (both auto and manual settings) and is no longer beveled but rather just slightly sloped. (For a full explanation of, and debate over beveled versus sloped dials, @ me in the comments). The shutter release and on/off switch remain the same between the two models. 

To where did the cherished manual-focus dial go? (Tongue-in-cheek, for what it’s worth, because I don’t know anyone that uses, let alone uses consistently, the manual focusing abilities of the Contax Gs). Well the focusing selector slipped down the backside of the camera and is now a dial that allows the photographer to select MF, AF, or CAF and includes a button that allows for focus lock when CAF is selected. The actual focusing dial has slipped down the frontside of the camera into a vertical pocket, but it has no markings on it to indicate focus distance. Instead, manual focusing must be done entirely in the viewfinder by aligning a marker with another marker- I repeat, there are no actual distance markings anywhere in the viewfinder or on the camera for manual focus. 

Manual focusing with the G1 is actually surprisingly easier. First, one can just use zone focusing and turn the demarcated focus dial to the desired distance. For instance, if you know you’re shooting something far away, just manually focus to infinity. On the other hand, if you know you’ll be shooting a subject at two meters distance, just turn the dial to two meters and fire away. If you want the precision of turning the manual focus dial while watching the markers align in the viewfinder (indicating a match between measured distance and manual focus selection), you can do that too. Both are surprisingly easy. 

In terms of why the G2 needs a focus lock button separate from the half-depress shutter release technique, the answer is nauseatingly complicated. With the G1, you can only “choose” AF or MF; you don’t get to choose continuous AF. However, if you select continuous-frame as your drive mode, the G1 AF becomes CAF. So when you’ve got AF selected and you’re shooting single-frame mode, the focus will lock once you depress the shutter release halfway. When you’re shooting continuous mode, conversely, the focus will not lock when you depress the shutter release halfway but will instead continuously autofocus as you alter the frame. In sum, the G1 has basically two AF options. 

Formula G1a: single-frame mode, single autofocus and focus lock (with half-depression of the shutter release button) 

Formula G1b: continuous-frame mode, continuous autofocus (with half-depression of the shutter release button), no focus lock

On the other hand, because the G2 introduces a selectable setting for CAF, there are more AF formulae. 

Formula G2a: single-frame mode, single autofocus and focus lock (with half-depression of the shutter release button)

Formula G2b: single-frame mode, continuous autofocus (with half-depression of the shutter release button), option of focus lock with focus lock button pressed 

Formula G2c: continuous-frame mode, single autofocus and focus lock (with half-depression of the shutter release button), successive exposures locked at original focus 

Formula G2d: continuous-frame mode, continuous autofocus (with half-depression of the shutter release button), option of focus lock with focus lock button pressed

In my mind, nothing is gained over the original G1 functionality. It makes little sense to use CAF with single-frame mode (Formula G2b) because you only need to focus once per frame. It also makes little sense to use single autofocus with continuous-frame mode (Formula G2c) because then you’ll just be ripping through frames without refocusing. It makes even less sense to lock CAF when shooting continuous-frame mode (Formula G2d) because then you’re back to essentially shooting with a single focus. 

All you really need is a locking SAF for single-frame mode (Formulae G1a/G2a) and a non-locking CAF for continuous-frame mode (Formulae G1b/G2d), which is exactly what the G1 delivers. That way when you take a single shot, the camera autofocuses for that single frame. And when you want to rapidly take many shots, the camera will refocus as you shoot. 

All of this unpacking constitutes a hell of a lot of words simply to say that the G2 unnecessarily complicates things in the name of user control, but that user control is unnecessary. There’s a point at which the addition of more and more user controls reaches a point where the diminishing returns are so small that they’re actually harmful. This may be strongly evidenced by just how confusing the last section of this review was. 

At this point, we’ve established that the G1 costs less than the G2, uses the same fabled Planar, and is smaller, lighter, and more streamlined in terms of controls. Where to next? In my mind, I still want to explicate the stand-alone beauty of this machine. And then there’s confirmation or debunking of the myth of its autofocus incapability (a commonly touted argument against the camera). Further still is the actual shooting experience, which conveniently ties in with the former two matters.

Sparkly Titanium – What more could you want? 

In the interest of total disclosure, much of the proceeding fawning that I’ve lavished upon the G1 is fawning that’s equally applicable to the G2. Many of the following accolades are shared between the two machines, but I’ll also show that the G1 stands apart even from its very similar descendant. 

The G1 is built on an aluminum chassis, making it light but durable at the outset, but the real beauty of the camera comes in its titanium finish body. When compact and SLR cameras were trending increasingly to thick, sturdy plastic, Kyocera took things a different direction producing all-metal bodies for their T and G series cameras. The titanium is a beautiful champagne gold that effortlessly and subtly captures the metal’s best quality – its pearlescence. In fact, titanium oxide is used in paints and other products to imbue them with the subtle sparkle unique to titanium. 

In bright light, the camera literally glistens. 

The Contax G1 features etchings or laser-etchings for all markings that are on the main body of the camera. Where “DRIVE” and “ISO” are just slightly engraved into the metal, the larger “CONTAX G1” (in its proprietary styling) is deeper. There are visible, minuscule screws (they must be about 1mm in diameter) on the camera’s top plate. The electronic shutter is of the metal-bladed focal-plane type. Every element of the camera oozes attention to detail and quality. 

The dials are truly pinnacles of pleasurable use. The clicks of the shutter speed/exposure compensation dial are firm without being rough. The sides of the dials feature a nice, coarse, straight knurl (those last two descriptors are official Knurl terms), but in this case the knurl is split in the middle horizontally across the dial. In this way, the dials actually feature two separate knurls stacked on top of one another and separated by a thin groove. The dials also rest on a very, very slight pedestal on the surface of the top plate. These tiny details would be described by some people as insignificant, but they’re not. Even if the differences they make in real-world use are statistically immeasurable, they exist. They help my finger find its way to the dial faster or easier, or make turning the dials that much more pleasant. At the very least, they’re nice to look at.

A common trope among the Casual Photophile writers is that we enjoy talking about things like knurls and metal finishes and engravings more than we like talking about camera specs. Well, it’s a trope for a reason. We’re real nerds for this stuff, and when it comes to the things that detail and design nerds find to be exciting, the Contax G1 gets everything right.

The lenses made for the G mount feature the same design choices made in the camera body. The lenses typically feature multiple rings on their exteriors, though only two serve a legitimate purpose and only one has movement. The aperture ring has full-height, straight, coarse knurling around the ring save for where the aperture markings are. The ring just prior to the aperture ring features the same knurling for about 38mm segments opposite one another. This allows for a firm grip when mounting the lens. 

One design element introduced by the G1 that the G2 promptly (and foolishly) squelched is the curves and angles featured on the back of the camera. In the G1, the film door features a straight edge on its top dimension, but a split edge on its bottom where the door becomes narrower (by way of a diagonal line) just after the right edge of the eyepiece. This symmetry is easily missed, but demonstrates the care put into the design. It also adds angularity to an otherwise sleek camera. The curve I mentioned comes in with the grip. The G1 and G2 feature a matte plastic grip that wraps from the back of the camera around to the front. I will talk more about how amazing this grip is when I get into the shooting experience, but the part that matters here is how the grip meets the metal. 

On the G2, the grip simply ends on an angle with a straight line. This is also where the film door narrows, losing the symmetry with the eyepiece and making the door itself less visually dynamic. These lackluster designs were conveniently left out of James’ beautiful photos of the G2. Luckily, the G1 does not bear the same errors of the G2; (it’s almost as if the G2 messed this up and the G1 came along to fix it…). On the G1, the grip comes to a swoop joint with the metal door, producing a curvy yin-yang look. Again, the G1 takes the cake for arresting, intentional design. 

I could go on about the camera’s features and feels. I love the oval film preview window. There’s a diopter on the eyepiece for those of that are vision impaired. The LCDs (while admittedly prone to some leakage) give exactly the information necessary and no more. The camera is a marvel of ‘90s engineering. When other manufacturers were producing eyesores (albeit, functionally excellent eyesores), Kyocera sought to produce modern cameras that retained a certain timelessness of design. They succeeded, because the G1 looks high-end, even twenty-five years later. 

Maybe They’re the Problem?

It’s common for film aficionados to comment that the G1’s autofocus system is “sloppy” (thank you, Ken Rockwell), “serious trouble” (thank you, James Tocchio), “slow” (thank you, B&H), and inaccurate (thank you, thousands of forum experts). I will grant these detractors the fact that the G2 added an active AF system in addition to the G1’s passive AF system, which matter-of-factly assists with autofocusing. But is the G1’s autofocus system actually problematic? The answer is both yes and no, but the individual scenarios that make these easy answers true are as informative as the answers themselves.

To get the heartbreak out of the way quickly, the autofocus of the G1 can indeed be slow in certain cases, or more aptly, with certain lenses. The photos I shot with the 90mm Sonnar lens on the G1 were often out of focus, especially when shooting portraits, which is supposed to be the purpose for a 90mm Sonnar design. It’s possible I just wasn’t paying close enough attention to where the camera focused when I locked focus before shooting, but I am meticulous about checking this and never have problems with the 45mm lens. My take is that the camera simply had trouble at the narrower focal length. This may come as a blow to some, but given the supremacy of the 45mm lens, it did not dampen my spirits. 

And this is why I can equally argue the G1 is actually not problematic when it comes to autofocusing. Out of many rolls of film shot on the G1 with the 45mm, I can count on one hand the times it missed the focus, and these were likely due to fast shooting on my part. The fact of the matter is that if you are conscientious about noting the focus as you compose and focus lock with the shutter release, you will not experience focus problems using the 45mm lens. 

Training oneself to watch the distance in the viewfinder is really no work at all. Maybe you prefer shooting from the hip and intend to get crystal clear shots every time from an AF system. I would suggest – no, not the G2 – but digital cameras. Film photography is a considered process, even when using an autofocus camera. The time it takes for me to see the distance it determines, perhaps reset the focus once or twice, and shoot the photograph is really no time at all. 

The ineffectiveness of the G1’s autofocus system is so grossly exaggerated that it has become something I often roll my eyes at when I see it espoused online. Don’t worry. The camera focuses well, provided you’re shooting with (maybe) the only lens you should be using. 

This would be a good moment to acknowledge the camera’s other deficiency, namely, that it cannot accept every lens made for the G mount. The range of G-mount lenses comprises a complete set – the 16mm Hologon, the 21mm Biogon, the 28mm Biogon, the 35mm Planar, the 45mm Planar, the 90mm Sonnar, and the 35-70 Vario-Sonnar. Of this batch of seven lenses, the original G1 could accept only four, the 16, 28, 45, and 90mm lenses. Later or modified versions of the G1, the so-called “green label” G1 indicated by a literal green sticker where the film canister is inserted, could also accept the mythical 16mm lens and the 35mm lens. Unfortunately, the G1 is incapable of using the Vario-Sonnar due to the fact that the lens requires seven electrical-contacts to the G1’s five. 

Other than this slight downside (and if you acquire a green-label G1, you’re batting over .800 anyway), the shooting experience of the camera is second to no other autofocus camera. To demonstrate, let’s walk through the experience of shooting the G1 from start to finish. 

The Shooting Experience

You wake up and remember that you’re meeting friends for a walk around your city’s fine arts museum. You decide you’re in a mood to shoot the restrained effervescence of Portra 160, so you pop open the G1’s film door with an easy twist of the switch on the left side of the camera. 

You effortlessly insert the canister and pull the leader out to just slightly over the spool (marked nicely by an orange line). You close the back. The camera winds the film for you and nails it. But if you messed up, by putting the leader to far in or not far enough in, the camera would flash double zeroes at you in the frame counter to indicate, “Hey, you made it so that I can’t do my job.” 

You think that it might be a bit darker than desired in the museum, so you change the rating from 160 to 320 with the hold and then single tap of the ISO button. 

You make your way to the museum on your city’s public transit. Your friend’s newborn baby is sleeping and holding the giant-in-comparison index finger of your friend. You decide to it’s the perfect moment to allow the 45mm to demonstrate its half-a-meter minimum focusing distance. As you carry the camera up to your eye, you first think that the viewfinder is too small, but you remember reading in that 1994 feature of the G1 in Popular Photography that it’s a Keplerian viewfinder meaning it is small, yet still surprisingly bright. 

As you half-depress the shutter release to focus on the intimate touch between your two friends, you’re surprised, as the viewfinder seems to zoom with the lens as the lens focuses. Just like that, the viewfinder, which was already showing the correct finder field for your 45mm Planar has now corrected for parallax error as well. It finds the focus easily since you deftly placed the center marker on the contrast of vertical lines at the juncture of the small hand wrapped around the single finger. You know to do this because you read the helpful G1 pamphlet entitled “Useful Hints on focusing the lens [sic].” 

Once the camera finds the focus, you keep it locked and reframe the shot. You complete the full press and the photo’s taken. With the zip of the film advance, you’re ready to take another photo. 

You realize that you accidentally smudged the focusing window of the camera, so you gently wipe off the smudge and make sure the window is clean and ready to focus unobstructed. You decide to take advantage of the multiple exposure feature, so with three clicks of the drive button, you’re set up to take your friend’s profile against a bright sky followed by your full frame of foliage. Compose, focus, shoot. Compose, focus, shoot. Instant karma. 

You’re walking now and trying to keep up with the group. Thanks to the grip, which is somehow soft but not rubber, your thumb finds easy support on the back of the camera and your middle finger finds a prefect resting place on the front, while your index is poised to shoot. With one hand—you’re still holding the museum map in the other—you raise the camera to your eye, quickly focus on the backs of your laughing friends 15 feet away, and you shoot with one hand. 

The camera never feels loose or at risk of being dropped. It’s steady in your hand as you shoot. There’s no slap of the mirror. And in the light draping in from the atrium glass, it found its focus distance in a matter of seconds. Not enough time to move out of focus. You know the shot will be sharp, contrasty, and tickled with the pungency of the T* coating color. 

When you take your final shot (maybe it’s indicated as frame thirty-seven in the frame counter) and the camera immediately begins to rewind your film, leaving the leader out thanks to a setting you chose, you have full confidence that within that canister are thirty-seven photos commemorating your day. Maybe you got lazy once and that one shot of your friend with their face filling the frame will be out of focus because you accidentally composed with the center mark to close to the background. 

But the rest will be exactly what you envisioned because you’re shooting with one of history’s best lenses on one of history’s coolest cameras and you’re a badass photographer that saved hundreds by preferring what those-in-the-know know is the better model anyway. 

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During World War II there was a maxim amongst fighter pilots; if a plane looks good, it must fly well. I think that maxim applies equally to lenses. The early silver version of the Flektogon is a thing of beauty. The shiny barrel, the lovely engravings, the machining of its knurled focus ring; everything about the Flektogon screams German precision engineering. It feels right in the hands, the focus is smooth and buttery, and it’s a joy to use. It was one of the finest lenses ever made by Carl Zeiss Jena, and if you have the opportunity to buy one I would highly recommend you do so. I have compiled this guide to help you choose one. 

The Flektogon produced by VEB Carl Zeiss Jena was so successful in its various forms that it was in continuous production from its initial debut in 1950 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990. It became the progenitor for a whole family of wide-angle lenses, however this article only deals with the first design of the lens, produced from 1950 to 1976. Today, this Flektogon is one of the most affordable Zeiss lenses that you can buy.

There’s debate amongst purists whether lenses produced by VEB Zeiss Jena in what was then East Germany are genuine Zeiss products compared to those produced in Zeiss Oberkochen in West Germany. But despite being separated by a big, dumb wall, both were genuinely Zeiss.  

The Flektogon (or “Flek” as it’s affectionately known) has a cult following because it offers outstanding image quality from its Zeiss glass, and in some models the ability to focus from 19cm to infinity, making it useful for an astoundingly diverse range of styles, from macro photography to portraits, landscapes to architectural shots. If you’re planning to travel and could only take one lens, then the Flektogon is an unbeatable choice.

The Genesis of the Modern Retrofocus Lens

The Flektogon and its brother the Angénieux retrofocus are the grandfathers of all modern wide-angle lenses, and prior to their invention in 1949, wide-angle lenses for 35mm SLR cameras simply didn’t exist. Their birth can be traced back to the days just after the end of World War II when the very first single-lens Reflex (SLR) pentaprism cameras, such as the Rectaflex and Contax S, hit the market. While SLR cameras would go on to revolutionize photography and become the dominant form of 35mm camera, in the early 1950s their invention created problems for lens designers. 

With his invention of the Biogon 35mm f/2.8 lens for the Contax camera in 1934 Ludwig Bertele had shown that lenses with an angle wider than 60 degrees were possible on a 35mm camera. However this type of lens was unsuitable for SLR cameras because they required a much longer flange focal distance (the distance between the lens mounting flange and the film plane). For example, the flange focal distance of a Leica rangefinder of the time was 27.8mm, whereas the flange distance on the Contax S camera was 44.4mm. Wide-angle lenses for SLR cameras required additional space for the internal reflex mirror, and the existing lens designs of the pre-SLR days could potentially hit the SLR’s mirrors, a problem that still exists to this day. 

The solution to both problems was solved by two companies at almost the same time, independently from each other, on separate sides of what was then the Iron Curtain. These were the team of Harry Zöllner and Rudolf Solisch at VEB Carl Zeiss Jena in what was then East Germany, and Pierre Angénieux at his own company in Paris. By 1950 they had both applied for patents for 35mm wide-angle lenses for 35mm SLR cameras. 

“For years lens makers had tried to produce a 35-mm wide-angle for the Exakta but had been stumped by one basic handicap. A lens of conventional design would require a long rear element that would have to penetrate deeply into the camera body, an impossibility with the Exakta because of the mirror. Etablissements Angenieux de Paris solved the problem with a startling idea-inverting the optical system of a telephoto lens so the lens does not penetrate deeply yet provides a short focal length. This idea produced the remarkable 35-mm Retrofocus with a 64° angle of view.” – Angénieux brochure 1952. 

While they both solved this dilemma, their methods were quite different. Except for the front meniscus element, Pierre Angénieux’s Retrofocus type R1 35mm f/2.5 was a five element Tessar in three groups, which was pretty standard for the time. Zöllner and Solisch’s solution was a more complicated Biometar type configuration, again increased by the added front element of considerable diameter with a large air distance from the rear elements.  

Neither Angénieux, Zöllner nor Solisch cannot be regarded as the inventors of the retro-focus lens, as they based their designs on the principle of the inverted telephoto lens which had been invented in 1931 for cine cameras by Horace W. Lee at Taylor, Taylor & Hobson (GB Patent 355,452 and US Patent 1,955,590).  However, they were both simultaneously the first to have created wide-angle lenses for 24×36mm format on 35mm SLR cameras. Because of the limitation of glass technology, coatings, angle of view and the oblique incident rays of light desired, creating wide-angle lenses has always been challenging. Credit must go to these men who achieved their solutions at a time before computer-aided design. 

Angénieux named his lens “Retrofocus” to indicate that the focus was shifted backward. This term was originally used by Taylor, Taylor & Hobson to refer to their inverted telephoto lens. Angénieux attempted to unsuccessfully trademark the term. It has now become a generic term for this family of lenses. 

Zöllner and Solisch at Carl Zeiss Jena dubbed their lens Flektogon, which originates from the Latin Flecto, a verb meaning ‘bend or curve’, and the Greek γωνία (Gonia) a noun meaning angle or corner. This naturally refers to the wide angle of view of this type of lens. The exact translation would be “Curved Angle” which very accurately describes what wide-angle lenses do with light.

Zeiss Oberkochen, in what was then West Germany chose to use the same retrofocus design. They dubbed their lenses Distagon, derived from “distance” and the previously mentioned Greek word for “angle,” (a wide-angle lens with a large distance to the image).

Angénieux retrofocus lenses are highly collectable, and very expensive, especially copies in rare mounts like the ALPA. But good working copies of the late model multi-coated Flektogon can be purchased for less than $100 USD. Some other famous retrofocus lenses are the Mir-1 B 37 mm F 2.8 (Soviet copy of the Flektogon), ISCO Westrogon 24mm f/4 lens, Voigtländer-Cosina Super Wide Heliar 15 mm f4.5, Konica Hexagon 17 mm f16 L39, and the Konica Hexanon AR 28 mm f3.5 AR.

Flektogon Models & Variations 

It can be confusing to read about the Flektogon on the internet due to the various models of the lens and the obscure (but important) differences between each. As I said in the introduction, this article only deals with the first iteration of the Flektogon which was produced from 1950 to 1976. It was succeeded by the 35mm f/2.4 Multi Coated Flektogon which has a very different optical formula. The image above only shows M42 mount variations, there were other variations in Exa – Exakta, Praktika, Praktina, and Werra mounts which look different, but are optically the same. The names of the variations, and version number vary widely, so I have tried to simplify the model variation names to make them easily identifiable, if any purists or historians are offended, I offer my apologies. 

Version 1.1 Silver/Alu (1952 – 1954) 

The very first Flektogon was produced by Carl Zeiss Jena in August 1949, and only 250 copies were produced, most likely to be used with the Contax S camera. The first production lenses were released in February 1952, which had twelve aperture blades, and were occasionally missing a front filter thread. Version 1.1 and 1.2 both have a full aluminum body, with a beautiful tulip shaped lens barrel. They also use a preset aperture ring indicated in catalogues at the time as N (Normal) or NB (NormalBlende). The system predates the automatic aperture system in the later version and is quite easy to use. You preset the desired aperture, then simply twist the ring to wide open at f/2.8, focus, and when you are ready, a quick flick of the ring closes the aperture to what you’d previously selected. 

Version 1.2: Silver/Alu (1954 – 1960)

The differences between this and the first version are almost imperceptible, the major one being the change from twelve aperture blades to nine. The weight is slightly heavier, and the minimum focus distance increases from 33cm to 36cm. If you are considering buying an early version, ask the seller how many aperture blades it has. In 1955 the Flektogon was recalculated, and a variant with the new calculation was sold, but only in Werra mount, which looks very different to the M42 versions. The twelve- and nine-blade early versions create a nicer Bokeh than the later six-bladed versions, but that has to be balanced with the fact they only have a single optical coating; the later f/2.5 version of the Flektogon offers multi-coating. 

Version 2: Gutta Percha (1961 – 1963)

A final recalculation took place in 1960, by Harry Zöllner and his team at Carl Zeiss Jena using OPREMA (OPtik Rechen MAchinery), the first workable computer built in the GDR (East Germany). This recalculation of the lens design was used in Version 2 released in 1961, and would remain the same until a completely new version of the Flektogon was released in 1978. The second version looks radically different from the first, having a metal and rubber, black and silver design. The distinctive focus ring with raised knobs was made of Gutta Percha, a rubber like product. This lens and the following versions were all automatic aperture, and have the small pin on the rear of the lens which connects to the camera body.  

Version 3: Zebra (1965 – 1975)

In 1965, a new version of the lens was released. This version is commonly referred to as the “Zebra” version. The same Zebra pattern can be found on some other cult lenses from Carl Zeiss Jena, such as the Flektogon 20mm f/4, Pancolar 50mm f/1.8, Sonnar 135mm f/3.5, and the ultra-rare 75mm Pancolar f/1.4, of which only 550 copies were made. This version and the final version are optically identical, only the design of the lens barrels is different.

Despite using the same optical formula, this version radically reduced the minimum focus distance from 36cm (14 inches) down to 18cm (7 inches). The minimum focus ability of this version of the lens is why the Flektogon has developed a cult following, and anyone that loves macro photography will be familiar with this version. Version 3 was produced in massive numbers, and quality control was good, meaning that good copies can be purchased relatively cheaply. If you want to experience the “Flek” at the best price, then this is the model I would recommend. I have a Version 1.2 Flektogon because I set out to collect a full set of Silver or Aluminum lenses, which appeal to me for aesthetic and historical (rather than practical) reasons. 

Version 4: Rubber Ring (1975 – 1976)

This is the rarest of all version of the first type of Flektogon, only being produced for one year, so prices reflect rarity and collector value rather than optical performance. Optically the design retains the recalculation done in 1960, but the lens barrel has been completely redesigned presaging the design of the next version of the Flektogon. Like the f/2.5 multi-coated version, the lens has an all-black body and rubber focusing ring, a design that became common on lenses from the 1970s up to the 1990s. 

Mir-1 37 mm f/2.8 1954 (Russian: Мир = World)

The optical formula of the Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon was recalculated by D. S. Volosov in 1954 to be able to produce it with the glass that was available in the USSR. Volosov was the Soviet lens master at the Vavilov State Optical Institute, and is known as the Father of Soviet Optics. He discusses the Mir-1 in his book Photographic Optics 1978, on page 369.

“Mir-1 is an outstanding lens. We have developed it in 1954 on the basis of the optical scheme of Flektogon of Dr. Zöllner (GDR). Contrary to Flektogon, in which lanthanum heavy crowns are used, we used simple optical glass. Though we succeeded in more complete correction of the spherical aberration of higher orders and all chromatic aberrations in the region of the spectrum from G’ (l=434,1nm) to C (l=656,3nm), in particular the chromatic aberrations of the rays of wide oblique pencils, which led to an improvement in the overall image…”

The Mir-1 is a very good quality lens and won the Brusseles Grand Prix at the Expo 58 in Brussels in 1958, and lenses subsequently made by ZOMZ, are engraved “GRAND PRIX” Brussels 1958. But note that the prize at the Brussels World’s Fair was awarded to a set of lenses, not just the Mir-1.

In 1959, the lens was awarded a Diploma of the II degree of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements. Interestingly, while the actual focal width of the Flektogon was only 37mm, only the Mir-1 was honest enough to state that. If you cannot afford an early silver version of the Flektogon, the Mir-1 is very cheap and widely available. It’s not a Soviet knock off as some disparagingly call it. It was produced under license from Carl Zeiss Jena, and is a very good quality lens. It’s also commonly available in black, which matches the look of modern digital cameras. 

How good is the Flektogon? 

The main reason the Flektogon has attained a cult following is for the close focus ability of the third and fourth versions, however all versions offer the same optical quality. I own the silver version, and while it may lack some of the ability of the later version of the Flektogon, it sure makes up for it in looks and feel. 

If you’re fan of street photography in 35mm, then follow the lead of Joel Meyerowitz and try shooting a Flektogon on black-and-white film. Perhaps like him it will solve for you the argument about whether 50mm or 35mm is better. Despite being known as a Leica shooter, it was a humble Pentax Spotmatic camera and a Flektogon lens that allowed Meyerowitz to discover his signature style of street photography. 

“I had gotten the Pentax with a 50mm lens on it. After about a month, I got so frustrated using it, though I knew nothing about lenses. I just kept feeling, “Oh, I’m too close!” So I went to a camera store and talked to a guy: “Everything’s too close, there’s no space in the picture.” He said, “You need a 35mm lens. So I bought a used 35mm Zeiss Flektogon lens with a screw mount, which could fit on a Pentax. It was incredible. It changed my life. A 35mm is virtually a 1:1 lens. If you stand someplace and look at something, it’s at the right distance, so you see what you get. It’s not closer or further away.” – Joel Meyerowitz 

However, the Flektogon is capable of a wide range of shooting styles macro, documentary, landcapes, travel, or even portraiture; so as I said earlier, it’s an ideal travel lens.

What’s Good 

As with all the early lenses from Carl Zeiss Jena these are beautifully crafted lenses, manufactured with excellent quality control. The ergonomics are good, and the lens is easy to use with a well-balanced, smooth focus. The version I own feel very solid, even a little heavy, giving it a feeling of quality and permanence. The only plastic is the lens cap.

Optically this first version of the Flektogon is surpassed by the later multi-coated f/2.5 variant, but what it lacks in ability it makes up for with character. There’s minimal distortion and center sharpness is excellent at all apertures.

On a digital camera the character of the lens gives images a film-like feel. Shooting on film I’d say it’s ideal for black-and-white; for color I would save the Flektogon for bright sunny days. There is some fall off and vignetting, but that adds some artistic imperfection, which is of course subjective. I love it. 

What’s Not 

The first version of the Flektogon may not appeal to all people, and it does lack some of the abilities of the next version, which was faster and had multi-coating. The vignetting is a result of the single coating, and much of the light being reflected off the front element, but a lot of that can be removed in post-production. I wouldn’t choose this lens for Bokeh, but then I don’t enjoy a 35mm focal length for portraits, so that’s not so much of a drawback for me. I mainly use it for scenery, street shooting, and landscapes in strong sunlight.

It definitely performs better stopped down, and f/5.6 to f/8 seems to be the sweet spot. I live in the tropics with very strong light, so the Flek performs well for me, but if you live somewhere where the light may not be as strong, you should consider the later model. The lens element is very close to being the frontmost extremity of the lens, and it only has a single coating, so I strongly advise using a lens hood. Pentacon 49mm lens hoods are commonly available, and cheap. However, If you’re looking for artistic flaring, then it’s perfect. Probably its weakest points are the lack of contrast wide open, and that it can struggle in low light. 

Acknowledgements 

I am indebted to the work of others in writing this article, and wish to offer my thanks to Marco Kröger, Dr. Hubert H. Nasse, Eberhard Dietzsch, Larry Gubas from the Zeiss Historica Society, Marco Cavina, Ilya Volkov at Moscow Optical Works, D.S. Volosov, Walter Owens of vintage-camera-lenses.com and Marek Fiser for providing lens images. 

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