CONTAX-N VARIO SONNAR 24-85

Review and photo examples of Contax N mount standard zoom lens Vario Sonnar 24-85mm

Table of contents

Gallery
HASSELBLAD X2D

LEICA M-P Typ240

SONY α7Sii

Review

A high-spec version of the standard zoom for CONTAX N mount, a highly versatile lens that covers a focal length of 24-85mm. There are inexpensive lenses with a focal length of 28-80mm and an aperture of F3.5-5.6.

The author owns a lens that has been modified to an EOS mount with a broken aperture control (probably the ribbon cable connecting it to the board has come loose), and was purchased at a camera store outside Shinjuku.
At that time, I was using it with a LEICA M-P typ240 attached to a LEICA-M/EOS mount adapter, so the fact that the aperture didn’t move wasn’t a problem (there was no signal contact, so I could only take pictures wide open anyway).
Later, when I got the EOS-1DsMKIII and started using it, I found it inconvenient that I couldn’t narrow down the aperture. I have already given away these two bodies, but I kept the lens because it was a rare item.

This lens has a luxurious construction as a standard lens, and I can understand why you would want to use it with other mounts, but like a typical zoom lens, you can see distortion at the wide-angle end, and even though it is T* coated, it is not very resistant to backlighting. Of course, the latest zoom lenses have better performance.
An unmodified CONTAX N mount can be obtained for around 30,000 yen, so if you are a Sony mirrorless α user and own a mount adapter for the CONTAX N mount, it may be worth considering. I don’t think it’s a wise choice to buy an expensive α-N mount adapter for this purpose.
Also, the lens has an aperture ring, but it probably won’t work if you use it via a mount adapter.

After selling a body that can use EOS lenses, I came across a used TECHART TCX-01 adapter for using CANON-EF mount lenses with HASSELBLAD X cameras at a map shop near Shinjuku Station.
I purchased this lens thinking that it would be great if it could be used with HASSELBLAD X2D.

If you attach an AF-enabled lens to the X2D, you can select autofocus (AF) in the focus mode, but when I attached this lens to the X2D via TECHART TCX-01 (firmware 6.0.0), this combination In this case, AF could not be selected on the X2D’s menu screen.
Since this lens is a physically focused lens, I found that it can be used in manual focus (MF) mode.
In order to check the operation of the TECHART TCX-01 and a Canon genuine lens on the X2D, I tried out a Canon genuine EF mount lens courtesy of a local camera shop.
Like the VARIO SONNAR 24-85, the AF mode cannot be selected for lenses equipped with old-style lens motors and USM (lenses that physically focus), but we found that they can operate in MF mode. I found that the latest electrically focused STM lenses cannot be used at all because the AF mode cannot be selected and the focus position does not move even if MF is selected and the focus ring is turned.

According to the Shoten Kobo announcement in June 2023, firmware V7.0.0 is compatible with “Hasselblad X2D 100C (Ver. 2.0.0) (release date: 2023-06-13)”, so AF may work. Unfortunately, I disposed of the mount adapter before updating the firmware.
Additionally, the X2D firmware was updated to 3.1.0 in December 2023.

Although it is a manual focus lens, when I tried this lens on the X2D, I found that there was vignetting at the four corners at the wide end of 24mm, and as I moved towards the telephoto end of 85mm, the vignetting got better, but it was not completely eliminated.
The vignetting at 24mm is as follows, and the purple parts are completely missing data.
When using a 44mmx33mm sensor, cropping to 1:1 will discard the sides, but you can use almost all of the vertical direction. When cropped to 3:2, the width of 11,227 pixels remained 9,648 pixels, which is a loss of about 14%, leaving 37mm of the 44mm wide sensor usable area, which indicates that this lens was made correctly for 35mm film and 35mm full-frame sensors.

CONTAX N-mount lenses were released together with film cameras as lenses for Kyocera Contax’s N system. This mount was later made fully electric so that it could be used with CONTAX N Digital, which was released with a full-size sensor at the dawn of digital cameras.
CONTAX N Digital was introduced to the market with a 35mm full-frame sensor at a time when all consumer digital cameras with interchangeable lenses, excluding those for professionals such as Kodak, were equipped with APS-C size sensors.
This sensor was realized by bonding multiple small sensors together and digitally processing the seams. As a result, it was said that while there is no problem with normal shooting, border lines appear when overexposed.
At that time, I remember being fed up with the trend of people making a fuss about finding flaws that were not obvious in normal shooting.
I can’t say much about the Contax N since I haven’t actually used it, but I think it’s a shame that Kyocera has left the camera business.

Specification

Items	Value	Note
Focal length(mm)	24〜85
Max aperture	3.5〜4.5
Min aperture	22
Lens Construction	14elements in 12groups
Min distance(m)	0.5
Lens length(mm)	71	Distance from mount surface
Max diameter(mm)	85
Filter Size(mm)	82
Weight(g)	583	EOS mount modified product