Steinheil Munchen Cassaron 40mm f3.5 Review
Found this lens at a thrift store but can’t seem to find many reviews online despite the famous German moniker. The Steinheil Munchen Cassaron 40mm f3.5 introduced in 1951 doesn’t seem to be a common lens but it does show up on occasion for sale. My copy came in the Exakta mount which makes it easy to adapt to mirrorless cameras (pictured attached to my Sony A6500).
The build quality of this lens is excellent with a lovely silver finish. Despite it’s light weight of only 104 grams it feel solid and well put together; it comes with a metal screw on lens cap and the filter diameter is 34mm. The focus ring, while small, is well dampened while the aperture ring is the stepless type near the front of the lens.
Being a classic Cooke Triplet design the Steinheil has a simple optical formula which minimizes the amount of air-glass interfaces that might lead to aberrations. It is also tack sharp at the center even wide open. The edges are a bit soft wide open but sharpens up nicely once you stop down. the images below are all shot wide open at f3.5.
Specifications:
Mount: Exaka
Date Introduced: 1951
Focal Length: 40mm
Aperture: F3.5 – F16 (10 blade iris)
Optical Design: Cooke triplet, 3 element in 3 groups
Filter thread: 34mm
Minimum focus Distance: 0.6m
Weight: 104 grams
Pros:
Extremely well made, almost jewel like in precision and fit.
10 aperture blades!
Very sharp at the center
Light weight and compact
Decent flare and veiling control
Cons:
Wide open it is slightly soft at edges for my taste, sharpens up nicely as you stop down
Can be hard to operate due to proximity of the tiny focus ring and aperture ring
Minimum focus distance could be better at 0.6m
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