I, too, did it again

the history of the 2.8/8cm Carl Zeiss
Jena Tessar as used on
the Rolleiflex 2.8A and on the Prewar Ikoflex III is
quite well known and
there are no remaining unresolved questions.

In 1936, Zeiss Ikon decided to trump Franke & Heidecke
by producing a 6cm
by 6cm TLR; this was in response to the "Baby Black"
Rolleiflex, with its
2.8/6cm CZJ Tessar using VP (127) film. Zeiss Ikon
contacted its sister
company, the Carl Zeiss lensworks, for an appropriate
lens, and Wandersleb
had his boys whump up the fine 2.8/8cm CZJ Tessar.
The camera was
introduced at the Leipzig-Meße in April, 1939, with
deliveries from June of
that year. Obviously, the production run was most
brief, due to the War.
However, a number of lenses had been produced by Carl
Zeiss Jena, and these
were stored during the War years.

In 1947, when Franke & Heidecke decided to design and
produce the
Rolleiflex 2.8A, they contacted Carl Zeiss -- not yet
differentiated into
its East German and West German branches! -- and were
advised that Carl
Zeiss Jena could supply the remaining Tessars produced
for the 853/16
Ikoflex III and could, in addition, coat them.
Unfortunately, either in
the course of storage or in the course of the coating
process, some of the
lenses became mixed between production batch and
production batch, with the
result that a portion of the lenses supplied to Franke
& Heidecke proved
unacceptably soft in use. Recent research indicates
that approximately 1/2
of the first batch of Rolleiflex 2.8A's had CZJ Tessar
T lenses and that
around 1/3 of these had defective lenses. The
remainder of the 2.8A
production run had 2.8/8cm Tessar T lenses produced
and supplied by the new
West German Carl Zeiss lensworks at Oberkochen, then
using the
"Zeiss-Opton" trademark, the "Opton" being a
contraction of "OPTische-werke
OberkocheN". (Clever, these Germans!).

Franke & Heidecke began to receive customer complaints
about lens
performance and quietly recalled those cameras
equipped with the CZJ
Tessars and replaced them with Zeiss-Opton Tessar T's.
It is important to
note that a number of the CZJ lenses were perfectly
adequate performers and
that the majority of the 2.8A cameras produced had the
solid Zeiss-Opton
Tessar. But the damage had been done, and Franke &
Heidecke quickly killed
production of the camera after the 1951 run -- the
factory produced 7,870
cameras in the first run between 12/49 and 2/51 and
2,000 more in the
second run between 4/51 and 8/51.

Obviously, Franke & Heidecke was not too upset with
Carl Zeiss Jena, as the
replacement camera -- the excruciatingly rare 2.8B, of
which only 1,250
were made between 2/52 and 3/53 -- had a CZJ 2.8/8cm
Biometar T. Recent
revelations indicate that this Biometar was not
identical to the Carl Zeiss
(Oberkochen) 2.8/80 Planar introduced with the 2.8C in
1954.

The Franke & Heidecke company, with a reputation for
quality, was
embarrassed by this imbroglio, and the recall was
conducted as quietly as
was the recall conducted by Hasselblad in the 1980's
of lenses with
defective Prontor shutters. Claus Prochnow, the
company historian, doesn't
even mention the presence of the CZJ lens on the 2.8A.
But such
embarrassment and reticence really doesn't make this
recall a mysterious
matter -- none of us broadcast our mistakes.

The collector's angle on this is that the choice items
are the 2.8B or a
2.8A with the original CZJ Tessar T. From the user's
angle, a 2.8C to the
current 2.8GX is the way to go.

But there never was anything wrong with the basic
2.8/8cm Tessar design nor
is there any great mystery about the factory recall to
replace the CZJ lens
with the Zeiss-Opton ones.

Marc..

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We demand a picture of it!!

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weasel said:

I am not sure that I buy the idea that a 2.8 tessar is by nature a poor lens. I have a zeiss super ikonta folder with a 2.8 tessar that is very sharp and contrasty.

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kavandje said:

I had thought about the kits from cameraleather.com, but as it happens there's an excellent tannery here in Windhoek, from which I obtained a number of good goatskin hides last month -- originally intended for 4x5 film holder bags and so on -- as well as a bunch of ostrich leg off-cuts; chances are, if I do re-skin the camera, I'll do it myself...

Quite aside from the camera's optical performance (I'll let the Tessar speak for itself once the shutter's operational and everything's been adjusted to something resembling spec), I'm fascinated by this camera's chequered past: its relative obscurity, the recall story, the pre-war body, the US-model camera in southern Africa, the unbelievable amount of wear and tear.

What this camera must have seen, what it must have photographed!

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kavandje said:

So on a road trip, I found a beat to hell Rolleiflex TLR mouldering away on a tripod as a display piece in a photography shop. I took a closer look; looked like the same sort of vintage as the other one I found recently, except with a 2.8 Tessar.

"Oooh," thinks I; "I reckon that after a CLA and some basic repairs, she'll come right." Made an offer of not-very-much, which was accepted, so now I own *two* Rolleiflexes, one of which looks like hell.

When I got home, I discovered that this is a Rolleiflex 2.8A Type 2 from ~1951, of which apparently only around 2000 were made, and which were allegedly all exported to the US (the distance scale is in feet), and which seems to be the only one equipped with a Bay 2...

Apparently some US-model cameras found their way to South Africa and Namibia. The one I found came with a set of Rolleinar 1 closeup lenses -- including the parallax correcting doodad -- and a lens shade. The lens looks clean, the mirror is scratched, the focussing screen is a little loose. The shutter fired a few times, but it is now unresponsive. Dried up, gummed-up lubricant, methinks.

This camera has had a hard life, but the patina is awesome, and I'm gonna try to save her. Wish me luck!

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kavandje said:

A 60mb file is, alas, too big for my puny network connection, unless you can host the file somewhere I can download it from overnight...

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monemmer said:

Hey kvandje, good to see you on apug, I know your stuff from flickr...

As to CLA on a compur shutter, it is actually not all that hard. Soaking the whole shutter in naphta is usually not what I do. Often there is some grease on the shutter blades that prevents them from moving. Simply removing the front plate of the camera (you will put new leather on it anyway so there is no problem taking the old leatherette off) and then unscrewing the front element of the lens will give you access to the shutter blades. Then use a q-tip dipped in naphta (cigarette lighter fluid) and carefully swipe the shutter blades. Then dry them with a dry q-tip and perhaps a few soft blows of compressed air. Then repeat this process a few dozen times and your shutter will probably come to life again.

What a great find! Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing some photos taken with it in your photo stream.

...Markus

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