Agfa f/4.5, 85mm Solinar comparable to Zeiss Tessar ?

[AgX]

I want to say that some of the optical design companies also began using the mainframe computers of the time to perform ray trace calculations and rudimentary design optimization, so you see a jump in imaging performance in the 1950s as well. However I'm not sure if Zeiss was doing this. The East German office certainly was not.

You are wrong, to the contrary...

Zeiss East started 1955 using a digital computer (built by themselve, working on relais)
In 1958 they built a successor on tubes, which likely succeeded the first one the same year.

Zeiss West only started in 1958 with a bought digital computer, on tubes to.

 

[Nodda Duma]

Ah very good, thanks. I stand corrected. Very interesting.

-Jason

 

[Ian Grant]

Ah very good, thanks. I stand corrected. Very interesting.

-Jason

The date is also interesting as it's not long after the communist government finally stopped contact between the two halve of Zeiss, although in different sectors there had been hoping the company would re-merge and there was some co-operation between the East and West.

Having used a 1954 (approx) CZJ 150mm f4.5 Tessar for nearly 10 years I can't fault it in terms of its sharpness (compared to later Tessar type designs) and the extremely effective T coating, however that's with B&W but it doesn't flare in conditions when my Canon DSLR zooms are useless and they are Multi coated. Unfortunately there's very few of these post WWII 150mm Tessars around.

A general comment about post WWII CZJ lenses is optically every one I've come across has been superb, the first was a 50mm Pancolar, then CZJ lenses for a Bronica S2a were just as good as the Komura and Nikon Bronica lenses. Some of the best 35mm negatives I've processed (not my own) and printed were made with an Exacta Varex 1000 and 35mm Flektagon, 50mm Pancolar and 135mm Sonnar all CZJ lenses. I'd put them on a par with Leitz lenses.

Ian