Description: Up for sale is a lovely CLAed (Cleaned/Lubed/Adjusted) example of the classic CARL ZEISS JENA Biotar 58mm f/2 lens in Praktina semi-auto bayonet mount. This lens is considered a true legend among collectors, producing images with fantastic center sharpness and color rendering, along with gorgeous bokeh effects. This particular silver-liveried version was designed for the Praktica Praktina breech bayonet line of cameras and features a cocking semi-automatic aperture whereby the lens is cocked, opening the spring-loaded iris for full-aperture focusing, and when a photo is taken, the iris closes down quickly as the picture is taken. This design allows for more aperture blades (in this case 10) than later lever-actuated auto apertures, producing smoother bokeh effects with rounder highlights. Lens is in nice vintage condition with light-moderate handling wear and excellent mechanics. Front coatings have scattered age/cleaning marks. Otherwise free of glass scratches/haze/fungus. A couple of the iris blades have some minor dings along their edges (pic 3) that do not affect imaging or performance. Additionally, this lens has been fully disassembled and CLAed with full helical and aperture relube for gorgeously smooth handling and top imaging performance! This lens mounts natively on PRAKTINA breech mount SLR cameras and can also be adapted to most mirrorless digital formats as well as canon EF SLR/DSLR through the use of addtional inexpensive adapter rings, sold separately. CLA FAQs This lens has been completely disassembled and CLAed (Cleaned/Lubed/Adjusted), with cleaning of individual components aperture cleaning and total helical cleaning/relube for like-new performance! Q: Why buy a CLAed lens? Put quite simply, lenses get dirty over time. Many used vintage sold lenses here on eBay are described as “mint condition,” typically meaning they are free of obvious optical flaws like haze or fungus and have a clean-appearing exterior. However, opening them up tells a quite different story. While these lenses may appear tightly built, they nearly all use open designs, which allows substantial amounts of dust, dirt, and grit to enter the lens, where it settles into delicate precision components, adversely affecting the mechanical properties of the lens and leading to increased wear. Furthermore, even in unused samples, lubricants tend to degrade over time, leading to degraded focus action as grease dries out, or slow blades and soiled optics as oil migrates within the lens. Q: What services do you perform on the lens before sale? With the lens disassembled, I perform a full CLA (Clean Lube Adjust). This entails cleaning out any internal and external soiling, cleaning aperture blades of grease that can slowing, re-lubing the focus helical, and adjusting all components for tightness and accuracy. Where there is extensive dust or internal lens soiling, I will disassemble lens cells and clean off surfaces; however, it is my general philosophy to keep lens elements in their factory positions in assembled cells when at all possible to ensure optimum performance. Q: DUST? What do you mean DUST? A: All vintage lenses have dust in them. In fact, they had dust in them when they were brand new from the factory! This is because prior to the advent of very modern sealed designs, lenses were not put together in a clean room environment, and the natural static charge of the glass tends to attract dust particles. Coupled with the open designs used in these lenses, it is virtually impossible to find any vintage lens without some degree of dust particles visible when you look closely through the lens. All of my CLA lenses have at minimum the exterior and internal cell surfaces wiped with a dust-free, lab-grade optical tissue and then blown off with an air bulb prior to reassembly and thus have a significantly below average amount of dust for a vintage lens. 1017
Price: 185 USD
Location: Reading, Pennsylvania
End Time: 2024-08-08T21:55:19.000Z
Shipping Cost: N/A USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Compatible Brand: For Praktina
Maximum Aperture: f/2.0
Brand: Zeiss
Type: Standard
Focus Type: Manual
Camera Type: SLR
Model: Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 2/58 Exakta
Mount: Praktina
Focal Length: 58 mm
Focal Length Type: Fixed/Prime