Astro Berlin 400mm f5 Fernbildlinse for Leica thread mount

Description

The Astro-Berlin 400mm f5 Fernbildlinse is an old-school telephoto lens for Leica thread mount. Is it sharp at f5? No, not at all. But stopped down, its actually pretty decent, and its even got a kinda nice character. This lens includes permanently-mounted reflex housing for use with Barnack-body Leicas. The reflex system is functional, but a bit dim and soft; there is a small chip missing from an element in the reflex system that can be seen on the edge of the image- but this is only in the viewing system, not the lens itself, so there is no impact on images. Lens optics are clean, with minor dust, and focusing is smooth. If you do plan to use this with a camera that isnt a Barnack-style Leica, be aware that youll need to find a way to hold the mirror up in the reflex housing; we ended up mounting our test camera upside-down to provide enough clearance for the shutter coupling lever and make the system usable. So you will probably not want to use this lens if speed of operation and sheer optical quality are your #1 concern but its still kind of neat. Also, you focus it with a big ships wheel. A cool weird lens in decent shape. Tripod and camera pictured are not included.

(Fernbildlise just means long-distance lens, in case youre curious.)