A number of rare and, in some cases, prototype Soviet lenses, are going under the hammer at the Wetzlar Camera Auctions in Germany this Saturday (11 October).
The lenses include a number of prototype versions of well-known rangefinder and SLR lenses plus some far more specialised examples – including one built to record nuclear tests carried out by the Soviet Union, and another used in the USSR’s Mars Programme satellites in the 1970s.
The list of lenses also includes a prototype zoom lens for the innovative Kiev-10 SLRs, one of the first cameras in the world to feature an automatic exposure system.
The P-2A lens is a 45-80mm zoom lens with a constant maximum aperture of f/3.5.
Wetzlar Camera Auctions said: “Very rare zoom lens for use with the Kiev-10 Automat, Kiev-11 Prototype, Kiev-15 TEE and TTL. This is the first lens in its series from 1969 with serial number 69001.”
The lens is offered with a Kiev-10 camera along with a pre-series version of the Mir-1 37mm lens (the 10th example to be constructed) and has a guide price of between €7,000 and €9,000.
The prototype Tair-14 lens is a 180mm f/8 lens for cinema use which was developed to record the USSR’s atomic bomb programme. This example is offered for sale with a KMZ AKS-1 35 mm camera for aerial cinematography which is still in working condition (seen in the pic at the top of the article.)
Wetzlar Camera Auctions said the lens, produced in 1950, is extremely rare because of its specialised use. “Most likely a few individual samples were made, there was no serial production,” it said. Ukrainian photo historian Ivan Zotikov also told Kosmo Foto that the lenses are very rare and hard to find today.
The lens has a guide price of between €5,000 and €7,000.
Another highlight in the sale is a prototype version of the GOI Zufar-2CA 350mm f/4 lens, built for the Soviet Mars programme of the 1970s.
According to the photography blog photography of the Invisible World: “This lens was made to be used on a very elaborate camera system which could take multi-spectral images on film, develop that and scan it and send the scanned data back to Earth in selectable resolutions (up to 2000×2000 pixels, which took over one hour to transmit).”
The US space agency Nasa also said of the lens: “The compact catadioptric quartz-fluorite anastigmat was developed as a result of research on the possible optical arrangements of lens and mirror-lens systems meeting the rigid criteria for spaceborne operation.”
A number of other rare lenses built by GOI, the USSR’s State Optical Institute in what is now St Petersburg, include prototype versions of what would become highly regarded Soviet lenses.
A prototype Tair-11 135mm lens from 1947 made by GOI is also included. The lens, which became one of the best-known Soviet telephoto rangefinder lenses, is in Contax mount for Kiev rangefinders and comes with its original wooden box. The lens, complete with a strong purple coating on its optics, is expected to sell for between €8,000 and €10,000.
Another rare example is a prototype of the Mir-10A wide-angle lens. Another GOI lens, this dates from 1969 and is in M39 mount for cameras such as the Zenit C and Zenit-3M. The Mir-10A is regarded as one of the best 35mm SLR lenses made in the USSR and this lens, complete with its front and rear caps, is also expected to sell for between €8,000 and €10,000.
A prototype version of one of the most sought after Soviet medium format lenses is also included. The Zodiak-8 was built for the Kiev-88 mount, a 30/3.5 fisheye lens with a large convex front and a filter mount at the rare. This lens dates from 1978, a full 10 years before the lens went into production. It is expected to sell for between €5,000 and €7,000.
More photos of the items – and other rare Soviet lenses – and further information can be seen on the listings at Wetzlar Camer Auctions.
You can also read about rare Soviet cameras also at the auction in this story on Kosmo Foto.
- Thanks to Ivan Zotikov for help with additional resources for this article.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
