Old film camera lens

Rollei RPX 100 with the Pentax P30.

Having just loaded up my Olympus OM2n with a roll of Rollei RPX 100 it has prompted me to write up my results from the last time I used this film

Back in 2019 I had a couple of days out with my Pentax P30 and SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7 lens and loaded with a 36 exposure roll of the Rollei RPX 100.

One day was spent through Bishops Stortford and the second day was Saffron Walden which is a lovely town in Essex, and a favourite of mine.

I developed the film in Ilford ID11 diluted 1:1 for 12 minutes at 20 deg C.

**The camera that I used for the test.**

My first location was on a walk through Bishops Stortford.

Bishops Stortford.

The Gourmet Turk restaurant which used to be The Boar’s Head pub.

The multi-storey car park. Bishops Stortford.

My second location was the lovely town of Saffron Walden.

On the corner of Freshwell Street looking up Bridge Street toward High Street

Looking down Bridge Street Saffron Walden.

Looking up Bridge Street, Saffron Walden.

I scanned the negatives using a Plustek 8100 scanner and was very pleased with the results. The negs have good tonal variation and contrast so it’s prompted me to stock up with some more of this film.

Carl Zeiss Jena 29mm f2.8 Lens.

I do like the quality and feel of the old legacy lenses created for the old film cameras. To my mind they are built to a higher standard than the modern lenses made for the consumer market.

I recently saw a Carl Zeiss Jena 29mm lens advertised on ebay and was tempted and was surprised that no one else bid on it. So, I got myself a nice lens of good condition for £31.

There is a lot written about the company of Zeiss Jena and the fact that it was situated in the Eastern part of Germany after the second world war. The company Zeiss originated in Jena but after the war the Americans moved most of the staff and manufacturing to Oberkochen in the West of Germany. Optics were continued to be manufactured in the original factory in Jena and in some cases using the original technicians who chose to stay. Some would say that the quality of the Jena lenses doesn’t match that of the ones produced in Oberkochen but I think there is an element of snobbery in that statement. It may be that the quality control was a bit more relaxed at the Jena works but if you get a good example they are certainly good lenses.

You are, of course, stuck with manual focus when using these lenses on a digital camera but that doesn’t bother me at all. I often use manual focus with my digital lenses. On a Micro Four Thirds camera the focal length for this lens is 58mm which is a good focal length for Street Photography. The lens also has a close focus distance of 0.25m which is better than my Leica 25mm digital lens. I also like the way these old lenses have all the distance scales etc etched on the lens. It’s very handy for when you’re doing zone focusing, again, not something easy to do on a lens with no distance markings.

The lens fitting is the 42mm screw fit so I had to purchase a new adaptor for my micro four thirds cameras (Olympus OM-D E-M1 and Lumix GX8).

I chose the K & F Concept adaptor as I had purchased others in the past and some had been problematic and fitted the Lumix camera but not the Olympus. The one I chose was the Pro version which is a couple of pounds more expensive but was of excellent build quality and finish. It fitted both cameras very accurately without any play.

The lens and the adaptor look very good mounted on my Olympus OM-D.

Olympus OM-D M1 fitted with K & F Concept adaptor and Carl Zeiss Jena 29mm f2.8 lens.

I mounted the lens to my Lumix GX8 and went out for an afternoon photographing in a small town called Saffron Walden in Essex. These are some of the results. All jpgs straight out of the camera with no post processing: