The Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm 1.8 lens is a classic East German prime lens that is highly regarded for its’ sharpness and bokeh. The Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm 1.8 is still highly appreciated by photographers and videographers alike. Along the older Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 2.8 50mm and the more affordable Pentacon 1.8 50mm it was one of the main 50mm prime lenses manufactured in East Germany for 35mm cameras.

Everybody should have a nice 50mm prime lens as it is probably one of the lenses you will use the most. In my opinion a good 50mm lens should be versatile: it should have a nice bokeh, it should be a good performer when it comes to available light photography (i.e. maximum aperture below f2), it should be sharp when stopped down and it should be compact and light. There are a lot of 50mm prime lenses on the market, both old and new, which you could choose from. When it comes to “bang for the buck” you cannot really go wrong with the Carl Zeiss Pancolar 50mm f1.8 lens.

The image quality of this lens is very good. While shot wide open the centre of the image is very sharp, while the rest of the image creates a very nice bokeh (almost as good as the bokeh of the Carl Zeiss Ultron). Once you stop it down you can achieve super sharp images comparable to modern 50mm prime lenses. The maximum aperture of 1.8 also gives it the upper hand on its’ main East German manufactured competitor: the 50mm Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. This allows you to produce stunning available light pictures.