Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50 mm f/ 1.8 - VINTAGE LENS

Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 is an excellent manual lens, M42 mounting thread, there is an adapter for Canon with EF mount.

Reliable construction: exclusively metal and glass

The Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 lens has a jumping aperture and a small, fairly tight metal A-M switch on the side. The aperture is 1.8-22 with half stops, the ring travel is moderately tight, without rattling, with obvious clear clicks - it was not possible to accidentally click the aperture when focusing or wearing it.

The Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 lens is a wonderful portrait lens with very good sharpness, beautiful background blur and unique color rendition.

There is more than enough sharpness at open aperture. At an open aperture, it is perfect for a female portrait, especially in soft daylight from a window or on the street: the lens allows you to get a very beautiful, expressive and sharp image of the eyes, and the skin of the face is smoothed out and acquires a pleasant, light, barely noticeable gentle glow. In this case, the fine texture of the skin is not lost, but imperfections are smoothed out. For a female portrait with soft light, this lens, in our opinion, is ideal.

When you close the aperture, the light glow effect disappears, but the picture still remains very pleasant and flexible, and becomes even sharper. At closed apertures it is good for sharp male portraits. The background blur is neutral and quite nice. As the aperture closes, it naturally begins to produce nuts in the blur zone, like any 6-blade fifty-kopeck lens. However, I don’t want to close the aperture at all; the lens is good for shooting wide open.

If you use the Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 lens against the light, and especially if you include a bright light source in the frame, the contrast immediately drops and hares appear. The lens hood will save the situation, but only partly. If in such rather difficult conditions you need to get the cleanest and most accurate image possible, you should use a more glare-resistant lens with multi-coating.

However, if you want to experiment with light and get an interesting artistic shot with a mood, you should purposefully wear this particular Pancolar and shoot something in strong backlight and with the sun at the edge of the frame or even in the frame. At an open aperture, the lens is capable of producing a rather interesting picture both in the sharpness zone and in the blurry zone, and the light source generates several large glare even rings of a pinkish tint with a bright edge, while the picture itself is filled with warm light, which in some places turns into rainbow stains and soft rays. Subjectively, it looks beautiful. This effect, without a doubt, in certain situations can create a unique mood for the photo.

The Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 lens is certainly very interesting and worth your attention for creative experiments!