Sonnar
Disambiguation Page
The Sonnar is a product name, derived from the German word for sun: Sonne .
- It was used by Contessa-Nettel, as lens name for a Tessar-type F/4.5 lens, and used the lens on a Contessa-Nettel folding plate camera named Sonnar, too.
- After Contessa-Nettel was merged into Zeiss-Ikon, the name was used for a better lens that was a ground-breaking lens design developed by Ludwig Bertele for Carl Zeiss Jena, derived from Bertele's Ernostar, but with one lens element more and one group of elements less. Soon it was available for the Contax rangefinder camera with breath-taking lens speed F/1.5 !
- It became a trademark owned by Carl Zeiss. Zeiss may license this name to other manufacturers regardless of which design the lens actually uses.
