NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena DDR 10mm f2 Tevidon

Well, this is kind of a rare lens, at least to see someone using it today. Lens was originally designed by Eastern German part of Carl Zeiss for 16mm movie cameras, or probably for CCTV 1″ cameras. It is an APO & Telecentric design which means it has very low distortion.Mine comes in a standard C-mount, so no problem to put it on NEX.

I suppose it is very similar design as cheap Chinese CCTV lenses that can be bought for some 20-30 USD on eBay.
However, when you search for Tevidon, you might get much higher prices. Why is so, I can’t tell, but I am fighting now to get a 35mm f1.9, which I should be able (If I get it) to directly compare with my Fujinon CCTV 35 f1.4. After the comparison, I should be able to tell if there is any difference.

Lens is metal with glass, and aperture ring doesn’t have a click stops. So it is pretty hard to precisely set the aperture which goes from f2 to f11, but at f11 and slightly above when it closes the aperture completely.

Here is the picture of the lens itself.

Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2

It is small lens and build quality is so, so. Nothing to rave about, but being a simple design also means there is not much that can go wrong.

I found the lens for 50 USD, and bought it more from curiosity, as I am always looking for some special lenses to play with. Also, there is no much options for super wide lenses for NEX, so I decided to give it a try.

It is clear, that being designed for smaller film field (sensor today) it doesn’t cover nearly the full field of APS-C senor. In fact, it acts as a circular fish eye without fish eye distortion.

Here is what you will get in frame:

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f8

Unfortunately it doesn’t cover the full circle, as above and bellow, image is slightly cropped.

If you decide to crop the image to end up with a normal 3:2 format, using NEX 7 will still leave you with a resolution of some 3700 x  2400 px, which is not bad for normal prints.
Deciding to use the lens this way – to crop the useful part of the image, good idea will be to create a small paper mask and hold it on LCD, so that you can compose correctly. (Which I didn’t in this case :-))

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f8 3:2 maximum crop

The interesting part is relatively small distortion for such a wide angle. This can serve well in some situations, creating image that has its own character.

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f2

Bokeh is however very harsh.

The best thing about this lens is a center sharpness. I don’t have software to measure it, but simply from looking at original files, there are no many lenses that will out-resolve it in the center.

This in combination with a pretty low minimum focus distance and NEX 7 high resolution files, allows you to make some outstanding detail crops for screen use. Here is the sample of my friend eye cropped out.

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f4, 400 ISO, 100% crop

This image was taken hand held at 400 ISO which makes it a bit noisy at such a crop but the sharpness is really outstanding.

Here are 3 shots at f2, f4 and f8 and related 100% crops. This time ISO was at 100 and tripod was used.

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f2

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f4

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f8

NEX 7 + Carl Zeiss Jena Tevidon 10mm f2 at f8, f4 and f2, 100% crops

As you can see, lens is already very sharp at f2 (in the center) and I would say it performs best at f4 – 5.6 at close distance. f8 -f11 should be used for longer focusing distances.
Corners are not bad at all, but not stellar either, which is typical for most wide angle lenses. They are still better than on the native E-mount SEL 16mm f2.8 in fact.

Small size, simple design, small thread and quite precise focus ring, impressive center resolution, small distortion, and lack of chromatic aberration are on the plus side.

Build quality, and of course small image projection in the frame are on the negative side.

Ridiculous price on eBay is something that puts this lens out of my recommendation, but if you find one for around 50-75 USD it can be another small and useful creative tool in your bag.

I will hopefully come back with more Tevidon tests on a different focal lengths.